Electric Reality – Centrica launches pure electric car scheme for employees

Michael Pullan, Senior Communications Manager

07557 619446

michael.pullan@britishgas.co.uk

Every Centrica employee is being offered the chance to slam the brakes on their emissions after the company launched a fully electric salary sacrifice car lease scheme.

Centrica continues to take a progressive approach to reducing its vehicle emissions, having committed to fully electrifying its 12,500-strong operational fleet by 2025. The company has more electric vans on the road than any other UK organisation, with nearly 700 Vauxhall Vivaro-e British Gas vans being driven by engineers and a total of 3,000 set to be delivered by the end of 2022.

It has now partnered with LeasePlan to provide a cost-effective route to battery-powered, zero emission motoring for employees and over 100 cars have been ordered since the scheme launched less than two weeks ago.

The employee benefits team, Tanya Llewellyn and Abbie Brooks, said, “The scheme offers great savings to employees and supports with making the transition to green transportation. Everyone who signs up for the scheme is offered a bundled deal including a new leased electric car, a charge point installed by British Gas engineers as well as servicing, insurance, and maintenance.”

The scheme operates through salary sacrifice, meaning that tax and National Insurance savings are made on the lease payments. In addition, the Government is keen to encourage green travel so fully electric cars with zero CO₂ emissions have very low Benefit in Kind (BiK) rates compared to petrol, diesel, or hybrid cars.

Steve Winter, Head of Fleet at Centrica, said, “Centrica is committed to offering colleagues and customers sustainable choices for their homes and transport. We have the people, infrastructure and skills to lead the transition to net zero transportation and offering colleagues in the UK an electric car lease with a BG charge point installation is a big step towards supporting customers and colleagues to live more sustainably.”

Centrica operates 9,000 commercial vehicles, 1,500 company cars and has a grey fleet of approximately 2,000 employee-owned vehicles that are used occasionally for business purposes.

“Availability and lead times on electric vehicles is becoming a significant obstacle to our ambitions. We support policies such as the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate that can help not only ensure the supply of EVs in the UK but should bring greater parity between the cost of electric and internal combustion vehicles,” added Winter.