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I was thinking recently about how long the model of the conventional company car fleet had survived.
Its explosion in popularity can be traced back to the 1970s but vehicles identifiable as company cars have been allocated to drivers for almost as long as cars have been available.
The thought crossed my mind because I was reading about driverless cars. These have been in the news a lot lately.
The government has announced that it wants the UK to become a leading centre for the technology and has offered £10 million in grants and promised legislative support while Google believes that it will be able to offer viable autonomous cars by 2017. A lot of very smart people are backing the technology.
The idea of cars being driverless is so far removed from traditional company car culture that it is difficult to comprehend.
Both some of the worst aspects of company car use - bumper-hogging white car motorway outside lane road warriors - and the best - risk management that successfully modifies driver behaviour - is based entirely on the concept of driving being an active task.
But what if your drivers had the option to just sit there and watch the scenery roll by?
If you are like me, the fleet manager in you is probably running through the practical ramifications.
How would your duty of care work for such a vehicle? What would be the attitude of insurers? Would you let someone drunk use a driverless car?
To a large extent, though, such questions would not be a matter for fleet managers but for lawyers.
The points we are likely to have to consider would be much more prosaic.
Would employees opt for a driverless car? Should you give them a choice? What would happen if autonomous cars proved better or worse in practice than conventional models? Will the maintenance profile be any different? And what about the RV picture?
All of these issues perhaps boil down to one question: would a driverless car be cheaper and safer to operate?
Certainly, the people at Google seem to think that this will be the case.
So, it might be useful exercise to start thinking about the subject now. If the technology can be made to work and delivered at a reasonable price, there is a possibility that some of the company cars available a decade from now will only carry passengers.
It could be the biggest change in company car culture ever.
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