FLEET managers and car manufacturers have been blasted for their inaction and disinterest in preparing for carbon dioxide-based company car tax. While the industry should be gearing up for some of the biggest tax changes it has ever faced, some fleets have been in 'do nothing mode' for the past year, while manufacturers have 'behaved disgracefully' in failing to help the industry by providing CO2 information on all vehicles as standard, according to the Association of Car Fleet Operators.

Stewart Whyte, director of ACFO and managing director of consultancy Fleet Audits, gave one of his strongest dressing-downs for the industry at the Fleet News Budget Briefing. In his Kwik-Fit Fleet-sponsored address, he said: 'We stated the need for CO2 data a year ago at this same event. There is now a crying need for information, but most manufacturers have behaved disgracefully. The fleet industry needs to force manufacturers into doing this automatically, because CO2 emissions will be driving our lives over the next few years.'

Fleet managers also seemed to have decided they could do nothing to prepare for a tax they knew about months ago and are still sitting on their hands, he said. 'The average fleet has done little to cut fuel use or CO2. If this happens with a warning Budget, then goodness knows what will happen when the real tax comes along.'