Is your fleet costing your drivers £1,200 a year?

It’s quite a sobering thought: drivers could be saving as much as £1,200 each year – more in some rural areas – if they choose the right vehicle and support structure for their homes.

That’s the conclusion of an independent report from Government advisers, the Climate Change Committee, published on 24 June 2026. The report, rather dryly titled as you might expect – Progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to Parliament – concludes that electrification is not taking place fast enough.

And because the pace of electrification isn’t quick enough, households are paying the price in higher bills.

The lack of progress – and the cost – has been exacerbated by the US-Iran conflict, which has seen the price of petrol and diesel soar. It goes on to point out that lack of advancement in the installation of heat pumps has slowed dramatically, from 56% last year to just 7% this year.

It’s not all bad stats, though.

The Climate Change Committee reports that electric vehicle sales continue to grow, with nearly one in four car sales being electric.

But it also suggests that, to speed up EV adoption, adopting policies such as expanding affordable infrastructure would help.

How fleets can help accelerate electrification

The tools are all there to assist fleets to electrify their vehicles, and the biggest tool in the tool box is the appealing benefit in kind taxation levels for choosing an electric company car.

The Audi A3 diesel has been a company car favourite in the past, but diesel is now heavily taxed for the driver. A Sportback TDI S Line 150PS S Tronic would cost a driver £4,676 in FY 26/27 – or £390 a month for a 40% tax payer.

On the other hand the new Cupra Born, an electric rival from the same Volkswagen Group stable, would cost a 40% tax payer £591 a year – a saving of over £4,000 a year.

There’s also the attraction of driving a cleaner car with zero emissions, particularly in urban areas.

And with the heat spikes we’re enduring this summer, we need no reminding that reducing the effects of climate warming are becoming more urgent.

But companies can go further with extending the benefits of electrification to staff that do not qualify for a company car. Called salary sacrifice, it enables someone on the payroll to take advantage of tax breaks to drive an electric car, for considerably less than funding the same car through taxed income.

How can Fleet Alliance help your organisation electrify?

We have many years of helping fleets electrify with our eFleet tools, including Fleet 360.

This provides a holistic view of an existing fleet, identifies where savings can be made and where efficiencies can be introduced, including the move to electric vehicles.

Having identified those savings we implement fleet management change, using our extensive procurement abilities thanks to the sheer scale of Global Vehicle Group’s buying power, the parent of Fleet Alliance. Global Vehicle Group was named the Best Business to Business Leasing Broker by trade title Broker News earlier this year, citing its yearly sales of nearly 18,000 vehicles to give you an idea of the company’s scale. Meanwhile our salary sacrifice scheme is trusted by more than 1,000 companies, enabling more and more employees to enjoy the benefits of electric driving, while also enabling companies to meet their carbon reduction goals under Environmental, Social and Governance strategies.

We are able to share our own experiences, too. The Fleet Alliance company car fleet went fully electric in mid-2021 and we’ve added to that by becoming a carbon neutral company in late 2024.

So we fully understand the benefits and – let’s be honest – sometimes the difficulties of going electric. But it’s an important journey.

Electrification is about cleaner air, securing our own energy supply and protecting the economy from fossil fuel spikes.

It’s a journey worth making, especially if it reduces costs all round.