Are you increasingly becoming responsible for managing grey fleet, and how are you controlling costs?

Ronnie Wilson: The grey fleet is the biggest risk to the business and we treat them the same as company car drivers, with licence checks, assessments, insurance checks, training and restrictions on how long a car is kept. The difficult job is identifying the people who might use their own car on business once a year. Opt out drivers are easy. It’s only an issue because you don’t have as much control over the people using their own cars, although you can monitor it and try to manage it.

Damion Bennett: We had many people HQ-based that didn’t know they were entitled to a car. Email campaign to people to let them know they can have a company car and incorporated it with a ride and drive event. It’s a historic issue that London based staff didn’t realise.

John Heussi: We use pool cars. Rather than just eradicate grey fleet it also cut down hire costs.

Craig Warburton: We had 130 vehicles switch from grey fleet to company car because HR has changed how we classify our drivers. Essential users are defined as having driving as part of their job. Up to a certain grade they don’t get the choice to opt out. We are also looking at having a pool fleet. Part of the group will not order a company car until they’ve been with us six months. We hope to end up with a pool fleet and save a fortune.

What environmental initiatives are being undertaken?

Damion Bennett: Anyone who travels less than 50 miles on a business trip from the office will take an electric car. We’ve had one or two problems, where a driver got lost and ran out of range, but ended up around the corner from the office. We had another incident when the car hadn’t been charged properly and the driver didn’t check the range before setting off. Electric cars are great for short journeys. From an environmental standpoint it’s good to show were trying it, but from a risk perspective it can be a little uncomfortable.

Paul Tate: Announcing AMAPs for electric vehicles could potentially kill it then taxation could be the final nail in the coffin. If your fleet and drivers are particularly suited to electric vehicles and you’re savvy and you take that jump it won’t cost anything. Drivers will never pay to charge it, and in some areas there is free parking  for EVs.

Craig Warburton: I’ve been following hydrogen for years. Electric cars will be eventually be eradicated. On our car policy we’ve made sure we’ve got hybrids in there, but people don’t understand the technology.

John Heussi: The internal combustion engine is getting better as a result of competition from electric and hydrogen. We’re not far from the common 100mpg car.

Ian Leonard: We extended lifecycles from three years to four years but maintenance costs increased. We didn’t provide enough of an allowance. The fourth year made a big difference with Ford Transits. As our vehicles are shared, there’s no sense of driver ownership, so some had been guilty of missing mileage points for servicing. We use Masternaut predictive servicing. Drivers are told a service is due next month rather than being told should have been serviced last month. The savings we made by extending lease was lost through increased maintenance costs.

John Heussi: If you think your safety curtain is an extended warranty it doesn’t stop it being off the road. Every new vehicle has something the old vehicle didn’t have, particularly improved fuel economy. You get the technology quicker. If you’re thinking of extending service life en masse, it can make a huge impact on downtime. You arrive at the stage where you might need a £4,000 engine for a £1,500 van. We are sometimes able to use recycled parts from scrapped vehicles. For example, a recycled fuel tank might cost £100 each instead of £1,000 each.