What is a grey fleet?

A grey fleet is a group of privately owned vehicles that are used for business journeys. As an employer you are responsible for the health and safety of employees using these vehicles on business regardless of the ownership.

Fleet News have online resources for Fleet Managers looking for more information on managing a Grey Fleet.

Grey Fleet

Grey fleet drivers are employees that drive their own cars for business. Having grey fleet drivers can be more beneficial for businesses that do not travel high business mileage, however grey fleet drivers can sometimes be hard to manage in respect of mileage, accident management and general vehicle maintenance.

If a grey fleet driver is out on business, your company could be liable if they were to have an accident. There is also the AMAP rates to consider and overall duty of care.

Managing a grey fleet

Our on-line system can be used to effectively manage your grey fleet requirements, with the following services available:

• Licence checking
• MOT diary and scanning facility
• Insurance diary and scanning facility
• Vehicle details and V5 scanning facility
• Service records
• RFL diary and scanning facility
• Breakdown Assistance (RAC Roadside, Recovery & At Home)
• Accident Management
• Publish company driving policy
• Asset management (deleting, maintaining, adding vehicles)
• Risk Management Services

In addition, your grey fleet drivers can also benefit from accessing the following services:

• Service and MOT booking
• Tyres
• Accident management
• Vehicle acquisitions
• Service booking
• Tyre supply
• Fuel cards
• Glass supply
• Vehicle acquisitions

Grey Fleets In The UK

There is not a definitive number quoted of grey fleet drivers in the UK; however these fleets need to be managed as carefully as a standard fleet. Do you have a grey fleet that you manage? How do you look after them and ensure that your responsibilities regarding health and safety are covered?

Many thanks to Automotive Industry Digest for their permission to repost their entry

Funding released to stop road congestion

Second tranche of Local Pinch Point funding released to stop road congestion.

Congested roads across England are to be tackled with £165 million of funding, Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin announced on 31 May 2013.

Total investment rises to more than £300 million

The 31 May 2013 announcement is the second tranche of funding from the £190 million Local Pinch Point Fund, first announced in December 2012. A further 62 schemes have won department funding, bringing the total number of schemes financed by the fund to 72. Combined with local contributions, the total investment rises to more than £300 million.

The successful schemes being announced  include improvements and upgrades to vital roads and bridges, new access routes and enhancements to address congestion at local traffic hotspots. Many of the schemes will help enhance provision for buses, as well as improving facilities for cycling and walking.

Target key bottlenecks around the country

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin, said:

“This government is taking action on both jobs and growth.

“The schemes we have announced are designed to target key bottlenecks around the country, making life easier for the thousands of motorists and businesses who use the local road network every day.

Accelerating growth

“Investing in these schemes shows that the government is serious about accelerating growth where it is needed most.

“These schemes have the potential to help create more than 100,000 jobs and around 100,000 new homes.

“I look forward to seeing works underway as soon as possible.”

Funding contributions from the local council or the private sector

A full list of the successful bids can be found on the website. All the schemes for which funding has been confirmed are also receiving funding contributions from the local council or the private sector.

Will this scheme have a positive effect on the drivers in your business?

Company cars – mileage rates

The HMRC has released the company cars advisory fuel rates from 1 June 2013. How does this affect company cars and business mileage rates?

Will the rate per mile figures change if fuel prices go up or down?

Since March 2011 the rates have been reviewed four times a year. Any changes take effect at the beginning of each calendar quarter – on 1 March, 1 June, 1 September and 1 December and will be published on the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) website shortly before the date of change.

In view of the increased frequency of review, HMRC will no longer consider changing the rates if fuel prices fluctuate by 5 per cent from the published rates.

Employers should make themselves aware of any changes by referring to this page in late February, May, August and November each year. It is the primary source of information.

“AFR decreases for smaller diesel engines and larger petrol engines”

Fleet News has detailed how the changes will affect company car drivers. They also have a chart with the new pricing structure:

Drivers claiming AFR for business mileage reimbursement will claim less if they are driving a petrol or diesel car with an engine smaller than 2.0-litres from June 1.

Business Car Manager

Business Car Manager magazine has also given more information about the change.

Company car drivers in mid-range cars will not take kindly to this news: the company car business mileage rates are dropping by a penny a mile from 01 June 2013.

The change has been instigated by HMRC’s quarterly review of company car business mileage rates and will remain in place until the end of August.

The drop in the mileage rate affects drivers of petrol and diesel cars with engines between 1401cc to 2000cc; and disel cars of 1600cc capacity and less.

It will also affect drivers of petrol cars with engines of more than 2.0-litres.

Change in Fleet Strategy

Will these changes have any impact on your company car strategy?

Choosing a car for a company fleet

When choosing a car for a company fleet, what factors do you take into account? A round-up of reviews for the Skoda Superb seems to indicate that this is a car that will tick most boxes for Fleet Managers looking to add a car to their company car approved list.

Economy for fleet users

Business Car Manager is impressed by the Superb’s economy for fleet users

• Addition of a sixth gear to the Greenline model makes for more relaxed M-way cruising and contributes to a combined mpg figure of 67.3

• CO2 falls to 109g, so the company car tax rate is 16 percent and you’ll pay £20 a year in VED – the first year is free

• Additional equipment worth £1150 is now added to S spec at no extra cost. It includes cruise, Bluetooth, and a four spoke, multi-function steering wheel

Car comparisons for fleet users

What Car? compares the Superb to the Octavia and the Ford Mondeo

However, given that Skoda believes fleet buyers will account for 60% of all sales, the Superb’s combination of big space and low running costs isn’t so convincing.

For example, although the Superb Greenline III S now emits just 109g/km, it costs just £70 less than the smoother Skoda Octavia 2.0 TDI SE. That car also gets more kit, more power, similar luggage space and it sits in the same 16% company tax bracket.

Ford’s newly trimmed Mondeo 2.0 TDCi Graphite comes with less kit and emits slightly more CO2 – putting in the 18% company car tax bracket – but still offers lots of space, more power, better handling and costs nearly £1900 less.

Company car specifications

Auto Express awarded the Superb four stars, saying that company users will welcome the improved economy and emissions

At launch there will be six engines to choose from, ranging from an efficient new GreenLine III 1.6 TDI, with CO2 emissions of only 109g/km (down from 119g/km), to the potent 3.6-litre V6 petrol with four-wheel drive and a 155mph top speed.

We got behind the wheel of the mid-range 2.0 TDI 4×4, which delivers 138bhp and 320Nm of torque, but now comes with stop-start and energy recovering brakes as standard. Economy now matches or betters rivals such as the Volkswagen Passat and Ford Mondeo.

Skoda Superb for Fleet Managers

Have you taken the Skoda Superb for a test drive, or evaluated it for your fleet drivers? What do you think?

 Creating a Fleet Strategy

(first in a series of fleet strategy articles)

How do fleet managers and those responsible for company cars go about creating a fleet strategy? There are many factors to be taken into consideration, and here, in the first of a series, Run Your Fleet lists the principles and items that Fleet Managers and those with responsibility for Company Fleets should take into consideration when drawing up their fleet strategy document.

Assess Fleet Requirements

The first very basic item – how many vehicles do you need and what sort of vehicles will they be? How will you decide which vehicles are available to your employees? Will they have a choice of vehicle? If so, what will the criteria be? Also take into consideration if your company will be running any “grey fleet” vehicles. Study the legislation and tax break information to ensure that the cars meet all emission standards.

Staff Development and Training

What Advanced Driving Courses will you offer to your drivers? State in the document what training company vehicle drivers will be offered, how often refresher courses will be offered, and how many courses that the drivers will need to take. Staff should be kept informed on all changes to legislation that affect company vehicle drivers, so you’ll need a mechanism by which you will do this. Will it involve face to face briefings, will you run webinars over your intranet or can you use videos which can be accessed when the employee is able to do so? How will you measure and monitor the effect of what you’re doing?

Fleet Administration

Who is in charge of all the company’s fleet administration - are you using software to manage your fleets?  State who has access to the records, and how these records can be used. State in detail all the paperwork that is required, with examples of how it is to be completed. Take into account

• Driving Licences
• Road Tax
• Parking permits
• Speeding and parking fines
• Traffic offences
• V5 and MOT management
• Police and court information

Fleet Strategy

It is important that your fleet strategy document is as comprehensive as possible.  We will be adding new updates in this series, covering all aspects of fleet and vehicle management. Whether you run your fleet in-house, or have it looked after by a specialist fleet management company, your strategy document needs to be kept up to date in a way that makes it easy and productive to do so – both for you and for the benefit of your employees who drive fleet cars.

If you have any tips or advice on how to create a working fleet strategy document pleased do let us know and we’ll make sure we are covering them in our next blog.

The best electric cars

Techfeed’s youtube review of 2013′s new electric cars.

What are the best buys – electric cars

The folks over at Which offer information on the electric cars available

“In our electric vs eco cars comparison, we’ve taken a First Look at three of the first electric cars to hit the mainstream market and put them up against the most efficient conventional rivals (mainly diesel-fuelled Best Buys).”

Their initial finding suggest that electric cars offer drivers a lower-carbon output and cheaper fuel costs. However, they seem expensive compared with their traditional counterpart & aren’t as versatile perhaps.

Is this something you are looking into for your own fleet? Could you save money and make a contribution to lowering carbon emissions by commissioning electric cars? Or is it unlikely in the foreseeable future of your business?

Car manufacturers evolving

When is a car company not a car company? When it is evolving into a software company. We were very interested to read this article from ZDNet - Cars become ‘datacenters on wheels’, car makers become software companies

Ford Motor Company, for one, no longer considers itself an automobile manufacturer. Ford is now a software company. Vijay Sanakaran, director of application development for Ford, spoke at the IBM event, pointing out that the latest Ford Fusion model has 16 million lines of code, and most cars produced today have 70 microprocessors connected to hundreds of sensors and actuators that have thousands of multiplexer signals. On-board processes supported include customer safety, adaptive cruise control, and parallel parking assist.

They then go on to say about the Ford presentation,

Interestingly, Sankaran pointed out that Ford sees its mission to employ design to deliver “a mobile digital lifestyle”.

Mobile Digital Lifestyle

At first glance, this does elicit a “Nooooo!” from us. Digging deeper, however, we don’t want to lose the safety aspects that the software provides. It also provides the ability for tracking and telematics, a boon for Fleet Managers in looking after their company fleets.

Joy of Driving

Software will never replace the smile you get when you hear a well-tuned engine roar into life, the moments when a car takes a run of corners perfectly, the smell of a new interior when you open a car door for the first time. It won’t even perfect the feeling of “Ruler of The World” when you get the last parking place in a packed car-park. If it makes driving easier, and frees us all up to enjoy these things, then we’re all for the “mobile digital lifestyle”

And if it can help this poor driver who couldn’t parallel park, well, who could be against it?

Elite cars added to Company Fleet List

You know what it’s like when you are evaluating cars to add to your company fleet list. There are so many things to take into account; company car tax, CO2 emissions, MPG, devaluation. You weigh up the pros and cons of each vehicle under consideration, make sure that they meet the needs of your organisation and finally create a recommended vehicle list. Proud of your list, you present it to the company powers that be for approval…

And then you see this.

“Dubai police force adding Ferrari to go with Lamborghini patrol car” - yes you read it right. As reported by Gulf Business.com, Ferrari joins Lamborghini in the fleet.

Company Fleet List

As the vernacular has it, “Oh you are having a laugh.” But this is true. Oil-rich Dubai has added (ADDED!) a Ferrari to its fleet – to keep up with the Lamborghini Aventador that they had previously announced as joining their fleet. No news yet on which Ferrari model it is, but is this important? It’s a Ferrari in the fleet!

Now just imagine adding these cars to your fleet and signing them off. Nice feeling isn’t it?

One can but dream.

What’s your favourite fast car? 

We like to talk about fleets cars, electric cars and practical cars all the time at RunYourFleet. Well this time we’re taking a day off from being sensible, and drooling over some fast cars! So in no particular order (because it was too hard to decide) here are our top fast cars:

Jaguar XJ220

With a target output of 500 horsepower, and such a beautiful classic design the Jaguar XJ220 is more than deserving of a place in our top fast cars. In 1992, at the Nardò Ring, Martin Brundle drove an XJ220 to 212.3 mph (341.7 km/h).

Aston Martin One-77 

With a mouth-watering 7.3 liter V12 engine under the hood and a sleek design the Aston Martin One-77 is another car that just had to make the list. The One-77’s 3,300 pound curb weight should allow for a top speed around the 220 mph mark, with a 0-60 mph time of around 3.5 seconds or less.

SRT Viper 

One of the most beautiful sports cars around – the SRT Viper.  Under the hood, the new Viper features a new 8.4-liter all-aluminum, V-10 overhead-valve engine that will deliver a total of 640 HP and 600 lb-ft of torque. The new engine will be mated to an improved Tremec TR6060 six-speed manual transmission. It features a top speed of 206 mph and a 0-to-60 mph time in low-3-second range.

Ford Mustang Boss 302

Obviously it was hard to decide between this and the Camaro, but the boss has won us over.  With top marks going to the steering and suspension, this is the car for us! Have a look at the Boss 302 vs  the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution MR in this video

Did your favourite fast car make the RunYourFleet list?

Car Fleet Manager Jobs

A car fleet manager is responsible for running a company’s fleet of vehicles . They deal with the day-to-day operation of the fleet. This can range from a small number of cars to a large group of different vehicles including vans, trucks and even bikes. For those who have good organisational skills, this may be a great career choice.

To work in fleet management you would also need to have a flexible approach (true for many jobs we know) and the ability to make decisions quickly. As a fleet manager, you would need to be able to motivate and lead a team, especially in larger companies.

What experience do I need to be a Fleet Manager?

A good business background would be helpful and most employers will look for IT skills and some experience of business management. There are also college courses that offer relevant knowledge and skills.

What does a Fleet Manager do?

Of course this does depend on the organisation you work for, but as a company fleet manager there are some things that you’d definitely expect to be doing. According to the  National Careers Service,  it’s likely your job would include:

• managing contracts
• scheduling service, MOT and repair programmes
• finding cost-effective sources of new vehicles
• coordinating the replacement of existing fleets
• ensuring the security of the vehicles when not in use
• organising staff cover.

You would use computer software to collect and analyse information about the fleet, which could include:

• mileage and fuel costs
• service schedules and maintenance histories
• car availability and vehicle locations
• the fleet’s taxable value, capital value and depreciation rate.

You would also have to take into account vehicle manufacturers’ fleet guidelines, risk management and government legislation.

In larger companies, you would work with business development professionals, account sales executives and fleet administrators.

For more information, see the Careers section on The Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) website.