“Vans can’t be judged so much on CO2 but on what they can do to meet the needs of the job at the lowest possible overall wholelife cost,” says one.

BMW is once again seen as the greenest car manufacturer in terms of models, with Toyota second and Volkswagen third.

One fleet manager comments: “In my experience, BMW consistently lowers CO2, particularly for its most attractive models.” 

Another chooses the German manufacturer because of its “continuous development of low CO2 and electric vehicles over the past few years”.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) operates a car salary sacrifice scheme and has made the all-electric BMW i3 available for employees to choose.

Tony Leigh, head of car fleet services at PwC, anticipates some take-up although to date very few employees have chosen an electric vehicle. However, two Nissan Leafs were recently ordered.

“The price is now sustainable against other cars,” Leigh says. “Previously the Leaf cost too much.”

He is not listing Renault’s electric vehicles due to the manufacturer’s decision to lease the battery separately.

PwC is one of the few companies to run a successful cycle to work scheme (where employees pay a monthly amount towards a bicycle using pre-tax salary).

Half of respondents have such a scheme but the majority rate take-up as ‘poor’ to ‘average’.

Leigh puts the success of PwC’s scheme

Diesel hybrids have the most appeal

Petrol hybrids are currently the most popular alternative fuel, but more than a third of respondents (36%) intend to trial diesel hybrids.

There is some appetite for electric vehicles with 16% of respondents intending to trial them. However, nearly a third (30%) that have already trialled electric vehicles are not operating them.

Siemens has three Nissan Leafs and one Vauxhall Ampera at its offices in Lincoln, Manchester and Newcastle.

Despite having charging points at the offices, Paul Tate, commodity manager at Siemens, says drivers still suffer from range anxiety.

He has also experienced some technical problems with the Leaf which were covered under warranty.

However, the garage the Leaf needed to go to was outside its range so a low loader had to collect it, resulting in more off-road time.

Siemens uses the Leafs as pool vehicles and has no plans to put them on the main fleet due to the issue of mileage reimbursement.

The Environment Agency is operating three electric cars without any issues and would like to take on electric vans, following a review by Cenex and the Energy Saving Trust.

However, supply is an issue. “We would like to trial the Citroën Berlingo electric but we’re struggling to get hold
of one at the moment,” says Dale Eynon, head of fleet operations at the Environment Agency.