Our fleet: Ford Kuga 2.0 TDCi Zetec AWD - September 2013

The Kuga faces stiff competition in the fast-growing European SUV market. Kia has achieved success with the Sportage and Honda is hoping the CR-V in its 1.6-litre diesel guise will appeal to the user-chooser market.

The front-wheel drive 140bhp 2.0 TDCi Kuga will be targeted at the fleet market, with emissions of 139g/km, compared to our AWD version, which is a more polluting 154g/km.

But how do the three fleet-focused derivatives compare in terms of costs?

P11D values for the 2WD Kuga 2.0 TDCi Zetec and the 2WD Sportage 1.7 CRDi EcoDynamics models are virtually identical, with them priced at £22,215 and £22,200 respectively.

But the 2WD CR-V 1.6 i-DTEC SE is more expensive, with a P11D value of £24,605.

The CR-V does lead the way where emissions are concerned, with fleets having a sub-120g/km option at 119g/km, giving it a benefit-in-kind charge of 18%.

Meanwhile, emissions of 143g/km for the Sportage, giving it a 23% BIK tax bracket, and 139g/km for the Kuga, resulting in a BIK charge of 22%, soften the blow of the CR-V’s higher P11D value.

In fact, it means a 20% taxpayer would only face an annual charge of £886 if they opted for the CR-V, compared to £977 for the Kuga and £1,021 for the Sportage.

However, when depreciation, SMR and fuel are all taken into consideration to give overall running costs* it is the Ford Kuga which triumphs.

It will cost 34.23ppm to run, compared 35.92ppm for the CR-V and 36.55ppm for the Sportage.