The switch to cleaner company vehicles is gathering pace.

Figures obtained from the BVRLA show that average CO2 emissions from new company cars is now 149.9g/km.

“These figures show that drivers are choosing low emitting cars to optimise their personal tax while companies are encouraging them to take more fuel-efficient cars to save on running costs,” said BVRLA chief executive, John Lewis.

“The average car coming onto fleet now has a fuel consumption of around 50mpg, which can only be good news when you consider that these vehicles will be feeding into the used market in a few years.”

However, the BVRLA predicts that the momentum is unlikely to continue through 2009 due to lease contract extensions and a decline in the number of new cars being bought by lease companies.

ALD Automotive, which operates a fleet of 50,000 vehicles, has reported a similar trend.

It reports that average CO2 emissions of new company cars added to its fleet in 2008 dropped to an all-time low of 150.6g/km.

That compares with an average figure of 155.8g/km in 2007 and 166.8 g/km in 2003, the year ALD began recording CO2 emissions data.

Over the six-year period 2003-2008, company cars added to the ALD fleet are also clocking up less mileage.

In 2003, the average annual contracted mileage for company cars was 22,475 miles, but in 2008 the average had fallen to 19,049 miles - a reduction of almost 3,500 miles

ALD marketing director David Yates said: “We have witnessed a huge shift in the last six years in the make-up of our fleet in terms of both the type of company cars increasingly chosen by businesses and their drivers, and the amount of mileage clocked up and the economic climate, along with fiscal reforms, is adding renewed impetus to this.”