Fleet vehicle

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This page refers to a collection of vehicles (typically automobiles) with a single owner. For other uses of the word fleet, see Fleet.

Fleet vehicles are groups of automobiles with a single owner, typically a company or corporation, rather than an individual or family. Typical examples are the vehicles owned by a car rental company, the vehicles owned by a utility company, public buses, and the vehicles owned by a security or police department.

Many corporations in Australia and the United Kingdom offer fleet vehicles to employees either as a work tool or as a perk; there was a rapid increase in the UK during the early 1970s to circumvent the then government's taxes and incomes policy. Since the corporation can avoid tax on the fleet car costs, fleet cars can attract Fringe Benefits Tax, which can make them more costly than a car loan if the vehicle does not accumulate mileage fast enough. However if they accumulate mileage fast enough a fleet vehicle can be cheaper than a car loan, and allows the employee to regularly upgrade to current models as well as cheaper fuel & maintenance. Often the employee has the option to buy the car at the end of the term instead of upgrading to a new fleet vehicle. These fleet vehicles are usually managed by a large fleet company, enabling any business to offer fleet vehicles to their employees.

Employee taxation of fleet vehicles in the UK is now linked on a car's CO2 emissions in grams per km. Some companies have now set up personal contract purchase arrangements with their employees to avoid this.

1 Condition of fleet vehicles
2 Automaker fleet
3 See also
4 External references

[edit] Condition of fleet vehicles

Fleet vehicles typically lead hard lives. Although the owner of the fleet may employ a maintenance department, giving the vehicles a dedicated mechanic or mechanics, the vehicles are often operated by several drivers, subjecting them to accelerated wear. Further complicating the matter is the fact that, since the drivers are generally not held responsible for the condition of the vehicle, they do not exercise the same care for fleet vehicles as they might for their own vehicles. Fleet vehicles may also be subjected to unusual conditions (eg: all-local driving, 24-hour use, or excessive cargo weight), and may be kept until they have accumulated hundreds of thousands of miles. Fleet vehicles may also be the target of sabotage by disgruntled employees. All of these factors combine to produce a lot of wear and tear on these vehicles.

Companies with fleet vehicles are under constant risk, thanks to their drivers and vehicles themselves. Wear-and-tear and collisions dominate this field. A whole category devoted to "fleet-risk management" is a home to several organizations dealing with reducing liability exposure associated with fleet. Their services range from training (online, video, classroom-based and behind-the-wheel) to retrieving, scrutinizing and managing driving records from the local authority (using which risk profiles are created), to regular vehicle maintenance to GPS-tracking. HSE/Pacts figures (see Reference below) show that 33% of UK fleet cars are involved in a collision each year, well above the average for all vehicles.