NEDC-correlated fuel and emissions figures are now filtering through ahead of the September deadline and they are not making pretty reading for fleets and their drivers.

Some cars have been hit with huge increases and it’s unbalancing company car choice lists. Bandings are in disarray and CO2 caps are eliminating large numbers of models. What do you do about it?

The best advice seems to be either pause all activity or temporarily increase bands and loosen caps until the Government makes a decision about taxation levels.

A number of companies we’ve spoken to have done the latter – increasing CO2 caps by 10-15g/km to ensure the same cars are available at the same bands.

Their logic is that these cars are not throwing out any more emissions or consuming any more fuel that they were a few months ago, so why penalise employees by removing them.

Such is the level of uncertainty over the full impact of the new WLTP testing regime on fuel/CO2 figures, a few people in fleet have suggested to me that the Chancellor might not reveal future BIK rates as expected in November’s Budget.

Indeed, he might hold off announcing them until next year to be able to implement a structure that makes sense to the new car figures.

There’s some logic to that, but it would be disastrous for fleets and drivers who need sight of BIK rates past 2020/21. Without them, there is no chance to plan for the future.

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