We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on the Business Car website. However, if you would like to, you can change your cookies at any time
The start point for the best source of fleet information |
A hatchback posing as a 4x4 could give the eco-conscious an eco headache, says The Insider
Got speaking to a fleet manager the other day who's banned his drivers from choosing 4x4s. Smart move, I thought. Punchy extra sentence for the company's green literature, but not going to cause too much of a ruckus with the drivers, who can't afford to tax them.
Except he now has drivers asking about this new Nissan Qashqai, getting smart-arsed about the fact it comes in both two- and four-wheel-drive and comes close to the medium hatches on CO2 and mpg. Apparently, the 1.5-litre diesel managed over 50mpg in the official tests, and that means it's in a half-decent tax band that drivers can afford. They now want to know if he's banning it.
The answer should be simple: put it on the lists and let the drivers indulge their 4x4 fantasies while steering what's really just an Almera in platform shoes, cost-wise. Everyone wins.
Except they don't, as my friend gloomily explained. On one side drivers are persuading him of the whole non-4x4ness of the thing, but on the other he's anticipating jibes about the 4x4 he failed to ban. The Qashqai does look like one after all.
What happens to his strategy then? The eco-hungry PR staff will be quick to get their biodegradable knickers in a twist if they look out of the window and see small 4x4s climbing over the company kerbstones, having just printed up 10,000 (recyclable) environmental missions statements trumpeting a ban on them.
“The eco-hungry PR staff will be quick to get their biodegradable knickers in a twist if they look out of the window and see small 4x4s climbing over the company kerbstones” |
The Insider |
In this (ever warming) climate, you can't sit people down and explain that the diesel engine puts out less CO2 than their Peugeot 207, and that really it's not an 4x4. They just think you're related to George Bush and seethe instead of listening.
On the other hand, drivers who've discovered the one car that sets them apart is still banned because the company is worried about the green implications are going to get resentful. "I recycle as much as the next bloke, but this is environmental correctness gone mad." etc etc.
I don't envy him. I'm also not looking forward to it developing into a problem for me either. Transport is a hot topic in the environmental meetings round here and I'm always asked along. If these Nissans start popping up around the carpark where before there were none, I'm going to have to explain.
The Insider is a fleet manager with years of invaluable experience.
BusinessCar magazine ©2019
Business Car Magazine © 2020 | Business Car is part of NS Media Group.
