BONUS: Company EV Fleets Are WAY More Important Than You Think
EV News Daily - Technology and Business of EVs
BONUS: Company EV Fleets Are WAY More Important Than You Think
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Term
gas guzzlers
Gas guzzlers are cars that use a lot of gas and are not very fuel efficient. Because they waste gas, some governments tax them more to help protect the environment.
Term
battery electric vehicle
A battery electric vehicle is a car that runs only on electricity stored in batteries, so it doesn't use gas or diesel.
Concept
zero emission vehicle
Zero emission vehicles are cars that don’t make any pollution when they drive, like electric cars.
Concept
Clean Corporate Vehicles Regulation
This is a rule in Europe that wants companies to use more electric cars to help the environment.
Concept
corporate fleets
These are big groups of cars that companies buy and use for their business.
Concept
electric vehicles (EVs)
These are cars that run on electricity instead of gas or diesel, which helps keep the air clean.
Concept
EV
An EV is a car that runs on electricity instead of gas. It helps keep the air cleaner because it doesn't make smoke like regular cars.
Concept
zero and low emission vehicles
These are cars that don't make much pollution when you drive them. Some use electricity, and some use a mix of gas and electricity to pollute less.
Term
ZEV
ZEV means a car that doesn't pollute the air when it drives, like electric or hydrogen cars.
Concept
clean company cars
Clean company cars are cars that companies use which don't pollute much, like electric cars. They help keep the air cleaner.
Concept
loophole
A loophole is like a trick or gap in the rules that lets car makers get away with selling cars that still pollute a lot, even if they add a small electric battery.
Term
combustion engine
A combustion engine is the part of a car that makes it go by burning fuel like petrol or diesel inside it. This burning creates power that moves the car.
Term
diesel
Diesel is another kind of fuel used in some cars and trucks. It helps the engine run and is different from petrol.
Term
petrol
Petrol is the fuel you put in many cars to make them run. It burns inside the engine to help the car move.
Term
onboard fuel consumption meters
These are gadgets inside cars that tell you how much gas you're using while you drive, so you can know if you're using a lot or a little.
Term
fuel card
A fuel card is like a special credit card that lets you buy gas, usually given by your company to pay for fuel without using cash.
Company
Fraunhofer Institute
The Fraunhofer Institute is a big research group in Germany that studies things like how much pollution cars really make when they are driven on the road.
Concept
plug-in hybrid
A plug-in hybrid is a car that can run on both gas and electricity. You can charge it by plugging it in, and it can drive some distance using just electricity before using gas.
Concept
EV market
The EV market is all about electric cars and how many people are buying and using them.
Term
registration tax
Registration tax is a fee you pay to the government to legally register your car. Different cars can have different fees depending on things like how much pollution they make.
Term
CO2 surcharge
A CO2 surcharge is an extra charge on cars that make pollution. It helps encourage people to choose cleaner cars like electric vehicles.
Concept
company car taxation
Company car taxation means rules about how much tax you pay if your work gives you a car to use. These rules can make companies pick certain cars over others.
Term
benefit in kind
Benefit in kind means when your job gives you something extra, like a car, and you have to pay tax on it because it's a benefit, not just money.
Concept
CO2 targets
CO2 targets are rules that say car companies can only make cars that pollute a certain amount. If they make cars that pollute too much, they have to pay money as a penalty.
Concept
used car market
The used car market is where people buy cars that have already been owned by someone else. These cars usually cost less than brand-new ones.
Concept
lease deals
Lease deals let you use a new car for some time by paying monthly, but you don't own the car at the end.
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Hello America, it's your new favourite podcast here.
Yes, it's James and Andy, two-fourth of the British podcast No Such Thing As A Fish.
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If you want to hear us go to wherever you get your podcast and search for No Such Thing As A Fish.
That's right, we'll see you there.
Hello America, it's your new favourite podcast here.
Yes, it's James and Andy, two-fourth of the British podcast No Such Thing As A Fish.
That's right, we do facts, we do weird facts, fun facts, facts you've never heard before.
James, give us a fact.
Did you know you may be able to cure chronically blocked noses with a snot transplant?
Lovely, lovely facts.
If you want to hear us go to wherever you get your podcast and search for No Such Thing As A Fish.
That's right, we'll see you there.
Let me tell you a story. In November 2021, the Belgian Parliament passed a tax reform that most Europeans never even heard about.
It phased out the depreciation write-offs for gas guzzlers.
And by 2026, now, that deduction is completely gone.
Combustion-engined company cars became 0% tax deductible.
But a battery electric vehicle stays 100%.
And that signal was unmistakable, so the market responded with no hesitation back in 2021.
Corporate EV uptake surged, climbing between about 13 and 15% every single year.
And by last year, Belgium's fleet zero emission vehicle share was 54.2%.
In 2021, corporates at worth 8.8%.
It's gone from 8.8% to 54% just by changing one little itsy-bitsy tax rule to persuade corporate fleets to go EV.
Over the same period, Germany, Europe's industrial heavyweight, has kind of lumbered towards 19%.
Yay, go Belgium! It proved something simple. Change a tax rule, change the market.
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Alright, let's get back to it then.
The precedent matters in Belgium because in December 2025, the European Commission unveiled a regulation
that could remake how Europeans buy, drive and buy their cars second, third, fourth hand.
It was, and this is about as dry as I'll get.
I do have a little bit of per capita GDP to talk about later, but for now, this is as dry as we'll get.
The Clean Corporate Vehicles Regulation is part of the wider automotive package.
And what this is about is setting out to electrify corporate fleets.
Not the kind of cars you and I buy, but the kind of fleets that are buying hundreds of cars at a time.
It's the single largest slice of Europe's new car pie.
The strategy is actually quite elegant.
Turn company cars into a conveyor belt and it'll push EVs from corporate fleets into private buyers' hands in a few years time.
And if Europe wants to change the kind of cars that we buy, well, you can do a few things.
You can set mandates and tell people you will buy an EV.
Or you can do these kind of sophisticated things, which are actually kind of simple to put in place
and just mean that the market will have loads of really good, nearly new EVs coming off of fleets in a few years time
because of the way that works.
Now, the Commission agrees with that much.
It has a proposal called the Clean Corporate Vehicle Regulation.
This isn't law by the way, it's got to go through the legislatures, but still.
It's tucked quietly into the wider automotive package for the EU,
and it wants to push corporate fleets towards zero and low emission vehicles.
ZLEVs.
Hold up, you say?
I've never heard of that phrase before, and I'm right there with you.
What's a ZLEV?
What's a ZLEV?
Because I've heard of ZLEVs, because we have to call them that sometimes,
because I call them BEVs.
Pure battery electric vehicles, zero emission cars.
But if you're a regulator, right, if you write in the stuffy rules,
you can't write BEV because you're dictating a technology, battery electric vehicle.
So you've got to write ZEV, so ZEV, zero emission vehicles.
So that is, for instance, hydrogen, or any other technology neutral solution.
They just can't be seen as favoring BEV, but let's face it, it's the only technology in town.
So the simple idea is that corporate fleets matter because they're big.
Get this, corporate fleets are 60% of new car registrations in the European Union,
and for vans, it's 90%.
60% of the cars bought are with fleets.
They clock higher annual mileage than private vehicles.
They spew more emissions because they're driving further,
and because companies rotate their cars, well, maybe two, three, four years,
what do you reckon, coming off a finance lease agreement?
They are the primary source of still relatively young electric vehicles
flowing into the second-hand market, a market which, by the way,
a channel which is how eight out of ten people buy their car,
so the used car market's really important.
That means that the humble fleet manager should be wearing some sort of superhero cape
because if fleet managers go EV, the rest of us get pretty decent EVs in a few years' time,
and company car tax rules can shape the market just as much as an independent
government of a certain country setting some rules.
So that's what we're going to get into on the podcast today.
I'm going to try and decipher it not only for myself, but for you as well,
because I'm guessing you haven't read the policy document, and neither have I.
I've just read around it to try and understand it.
The commission's plan, it sounds almost too perfect.
You set a quota for clean company cars.
You let the big fleets do their work, so buy the cars, run the cars,
get them into the used market, we'll get to buy good EVs.
The same trick that Europe has used many times over the years.
You knock over the first domino and the whole line falls.
However, Transport and Environment, the NGO, the advocacy company group for many things,
including zero emission vehicle transport, they have a view that Europe has finally turned
to the demand side of the market, not just the supply,
but it also thinks that the rule makers, the European Commission,
has flinched just at the wrong moment.
So why? It all sounds kind of sensible.
So what does Brussels actually propose then?
And what could go through?
Because this is largely something that's going to be not debated
and not discussed in the EV media, but it's kind of crucial.
The regulation does not order any individual company to go EV.
They wouldn't get that granular.
Instead, it tells the countries, the member states, to make sure that from 2030
a certain amount of new corporate registrations are ZLEVs.
National governments still get to make all their own rules, things like fiscal reform
and purchase subsidies and frankly, topics that my mind is not economist enough
to fully understand. But as long as the share of zero emission
and low emission vehicles hits those numbers, well, the countries,
the member states can go about their business.
And that gives their finance ministers loads of wiggle room to maneuver
and the lobbyists to ply their trade.
Only large businesses even fall within the scope of these rules
that I'm talking to you about today.
They've got to be two of the following three thresholds,
either 25 million euros in the bank, 50 million euros turnover,
or more than 250 employees.
And this is an amazing stat, by the way.
I had to read it a couple of times.
And so these big businesses are 0.16% of all companies in the EU.
And that's not surprising. That's not the stat that blew me away.
But these large companies are the rarity, 0.16% of all companies.
They register 37% of new cars.
Wow! Big companies really do buy a lot of fleet vehicles.
0.16% of companies buy 37% of new cars.
No wonder all the car makers have big fleet departments
and offer massive discounts for fleet buyers.
You would, wouldn't you?
Well, the commission builds the targets around ZLEVs.
And that's where it starts to get a little bit funky.
Because the targets are different
across five bands of GDP per capita.
All right, no more stuff like that.
Wealthier member states have high quotas, basically,
is what I'm trying to say.
So the countries that can have to do more heavy lifting.
And altogether, so the plan is this,
69% of the cars that big companies buy in 2030,
69% should be ZLEVs.
And then we underneath that 45% of those
should be zero emission vehicles.
Well, low emission, ZLEV, zero and low emission vehicles,
low emission is defined as less than 50 grams of CO2 per kilometer.
So that's plug-in hybrids and EREVs, right?
Because we all know the actual rules are not real world.
The actual official guidance on how efficient these vehicles are
is nothing like how they're used in the real world.
I'll get onto that in a minute.
So this ZLEV phrase that they've sneaked into the rules
really, really matters because it widens the tent.
And that's not a good thing.
We're not after a broad church here, says T&E.
ZLEVs mean battery electric vehicles or hydrogen or something else.
But ZLEVs are anything that's technically a low emission car
and that pulls hybrids and EREVs in.
So Brussels calls that flexibility.
T&E calls it a loophole that gives car makers exactly
the get out of jail free card that they've wanted for years
to keep flogging their gas guzzlers with some tiny batteries in a plug.
Why does T&E say this is really dangerous and weak?
Well, the Commission did something really awkward
in its own impact assessment.
So I'm sure you can imagine when they start to put a policy document together
they figure they should probably run some scenarios,
get a bit of data in and work it out.
So that's what the European Commission did.
They ran some modeling and some scenarios.
And what they did was set a very low ambition scenario.
And I like that.
Let's set the bar low.
You're talking my language now.
So they set the bar really low and they set that at 65%
zero emission vehicles for the fleet.
And that was their modeling for the low ambition one.
So like everyone can hit that and they went 65%.
But do you remember what I just said?
The actual regulations when they were written and published
were for 45% BEVs, not 65%,
which was their own modeling of a low ambition scenario,
not 65%, 45%.
Well, under the revised standards for cars,
the overall EU market.
So that is private and corporate combined, by the way.
But Europe itself expects to hit 47% by 2030.
What?
So the Europe itself, EU itself says,
well, we'll probably get about 47% in 2030 of BEVs.
And yet this new regulation,
they're like, oh, do you reckon we can do 45?
Yeah, you think?
We're definitely going to get there.
So transport and environment points out,
and may I add with some restrained language
that 45% is below even the least ambitious option.
If Brussels wants to appear serious,
Brussels wants to appear serious,
you can't publish a plan that's already beaten itself.
So country by country, for the seven member states
that have already gone EV pretty quickly
in their business fleets.
Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg,
Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden.
That 2030 target is pretty much already achieved.
T&E's demand is blunt, though.
Get rid of this fudge factor of ZLEVs.
Keep what you've said 69% of fleets by 2030,
but just make it ZLEVs.
So that makes sense.
I mean, 69%, it's almost three quarters.
We're all friends here, let's round up.
Three quarters of corporate fleets in 2030 have to be pure Bev.
I mean, that seems fine.
It's the part that tends to get lost in ZLEVs.
Of course, if they've got the option of buying combustion cars,
the car makers really want to sell those combustion cars
because they've got engines to sell,
and they'll just put a small battery
and a plug socket on the side of it.
So plug-in hybrids are really at the heart
of how you define this whole rulemaking, I think.
So let's take a break and I'll come back
and we'll talk about that
and also why it's really, really important
for the cars that you and I buy.
Back in a mo.
Hello, America.
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Yes, it's James and Andy,
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Hello, America.
It's your new favourite podcast here.
Yes, it's James and Andy,
two-fourth of the British podcast,
No Such Thing as a Fish.
That's right.
We do facts.
We do weird facts, fun facts,
facts you've never heard before.
James, give us a fact.
Did you know you may be able to cure
chronically blocked noses
with a snot transplant?
Lovely.
Lovely facts.
If you want to hear us go to
wherever you get your podcast
and search for No Such Thing as a Fish.
That's right.
We'll see you there.
The risks of locking in polluting,
combustion, gas, guzzling cars,
petrol and diesel into the regulations
is a really big danger.
The onboard fuel consumption meters
that show real-world consumption
show three, four, five times,
often five times more emissions
than the official data.
And there's actually a good reason,
and it's not nefarious,
and it's not because anyone's, you know,
a baddie in this story,
because many company car drivers
have fuel cards.
And if you have a fuel card,
there is zero reason to spend your own money
charging your car overnight.
And some companies have tried to do this.
They've got elegant solutions in place,
and I applaud that.
And some companies do refund you
for the electricity that you charge with
overnight.
But if you've got a fuel card,
why are you charging it home?
It's just costing you money.
And Brussels, look,
even the lawmakers know
it's such a con
because they have committed to updating
what is called the utility factor.
Now, that's just another way of describing
how they measure real-world versus the lab.
The utility factor has been promised
for an update for ages.
They say it's going to be coming in
coming in 2027 or 2028
to bring the official values
of CO2 emissions
in line with the real world.
And it's all doable
because real-world sensors
can tell you right now in real time
what those emissions are for those vehicles.
In fact, I told you on the podcast recently
about a German institute,
the Fraunhofer Institute,
looking at real-world data,
which showed that it's five times more polluting
to drive a plug-in hybrid
than the official numbers.
And so, front-runners in this,
as I say, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Portugal,
all they need to do is carry on
the current plan that they're on.
There's countries like France, Spain, and Poland,
which have to nudge themselves up a little bit.
And there's countries that have got more of a steeper climb.
Germany, Italy, Austria, and Ireland
would have to maybe have their corporate fleets
outgrow the actual overall EV market
by seven to eight percentage points a year.
Sounds daunting
until you look at the real world.
And let me take you back to the story
which I started this whole podcast with
about four years ago.
No, no, no, it's not been that bad, is it?
I've been trying to get through it
and make it sound interesting
because it's a really, really important topic.
And that's Belgium.
Belgium offers the clearest demonstration
tax reform in November 2021,
which largely went under the radar.
Nobody held demonstrations
that, oh, we're all being forced
to drive electric vehicles now.
There's a mandate for electric vehicles.
Politically, I don't agree with it. None of that happened.
Simply, combustion cars
got more expensive for fleets, so they went EV.
And then lots of EVs became available
in the secondhand market.
And people like you and I went and bought them
at really good prices. Everybody wins!
And so it went from 8.8% to 54%
over that time
corporate EVs.
Denmark tells a similar story.
The Danish tax system
heavily favours corporate zero
emission vehicles.
Battery electric vehicles pay only 40%
of the registration tax.
Enjoy a substantial fixed deduction
about 22,000 euros.
And are exempt from the CO2
surcharge applied to
combustion models. These measures
have delivered annual growth in corporate
fleets of EVs of around 12 to 15
percentage points a year
over the last four years.
France, a late mover,
many would say, in its
reform of company car taxation,
raised benefit in kind
for combustion cars,
like we did here in the UK, by the way.
Tightened CO2-based levees
and lowered the weight tax threshold
and all of a sudden, the corporate fleet
went EV by 7 percentage points last year.
And that lesson's consistent. Fiscal reform
works. It works fast. It's
kind of boring if you don't
fully understand it, like me.
However, it does not require
any kind of exotic
policy instruments.
You can just get your head around this
and work out, hang on, corporate fleets
are really important.
TNE says
plug-in hybrids
are about just under 12%
of new registrations in
European fleets right now
and that if it follows the commission's proposal
it'll go to 24%.
Oh, so it will
double plug-in hybrids on the road. So this policy
that is meant to electrify
fleets actually doubles
the share of cars that
rely on an engine.
Wonderful.
So TNE's second
demand is take out plug-in hybrids.
Now, here's the 42 billion euro
question. This is actually really, really interesting
and I didn't realise this till I read the report
and I thought, hold on a minute,
this is brilliant.
This kind of went under the radar
as well. It's actually
Article 4 of the draft regulation
which is to knock
subsidies for combustion on the head
completely. Well now
I'm fairly behind it.
Ending all fossil
fuel subsidies for
corporate fleets. An end of all
public financial support for petrol
and diesel. And to make any remaining
support contingent on those cars
being built only in Europe
is enormous. So what do each
country's
corporate subsidies go to
in terms of petrol and diesel in corporate fleets?
Italy, 16
billion euros a year. Germany
14 billion euros
a year. France, 6.5
Poland, 6 billion euros.
And there's things like benefitting kind
reductions, depreciation
rights off, these are VAT
deductions, they're fuel cards for
fossil company cars.
It drains
the public finances. And we just
keep throwing tens
of billions of euros
at subsidising
combustion cars when we really, really don't
need to. Petrol and diesel,
SUV company car drivers can get up
to 9,000 euros less
taxes per year than a
private buyer and that's just not fair. So
Article 4, hey
I'm fully behind it. I'm backing that one.
No more public money
flowing straight into the pockets
of fossil company cars.
Big thumbs up from me and
you know, tying it into making the cars in Europe
I guess is a
good thing as well. Under the commission's current
targets, the made in
EU demand
would amount
to about 1.2 million electric vehicles
between now and 2030
under transport and environments
suggestion of
take out plug-in hybrids
raise the percentages and that's
another 700,000
European built EVs
in the next four years. Sounds like a good
thing to me. Now, why should car makers
care? Well, this
was interesting to me as well. Because
all the car makers
have got to hit CO2 targets
and they have complained about it
forever and there's been a bit of wiggle room
which this is all part of by the way
but largely
they've got to hit CO2 targets or pay massive
fines. They should be behind
this because if fleets buy
more EVs
they hit their targets. For instance
Volkswagen will hit their
CO2 targets. If fleets go
69% EV
BMW will they hit their target
if fleets go
70% 71%
EV. So the car companies themselves
should be
backing pure bevs in fleets
it's a tough one
because they also want to sell plenty of engines as well
because they can make money from that.
Look, here's the real thing for you
and I
the social case
for ambitious corporate fleets
the used car market
8 in 10 people buy
used cars. We get really
interested in new cars, lease deals
and monthly offers.
8 in 10 people are buying a used car
corporate fleets, rotate vehicles
every 2, 3, 4 years
and it's the dominant source
of nearly new EVs
as the commissions
at the commissions current level
the regulation adds no
there would be no meaningful extra
EVs coming into the second hand
market but under the transport
and environments proposal
the 21 million EVs
from corporate fleets entering the market
would grow by an extra 3.6
million and even though
I'm no economist I like to say
many times even I can sell
an extra 3.6 million EVs
in the market with things like supply
and demand, more choice
lower prices
I think it sounds like a win for you and I
personally. Now the regulations
journey through the
European Parliament and the
quagmire of European politics
of which I have no interest in
studying too closely
it's got to go through the European Parliament
and Council, that's where it defines
the shape of Europe's car
market probably
for the next decade. So
I looked at this and thought I could do a bonus podcast
on that and I thought I can't, can I really do
20 minutes on
fiscal policy? That's not
really where I am
but I think it's that important
that it's worth you and I
at least raising our awareness
of things like
this, of how countries
governments, trade blocks
can use different rules
and just one little nudge
either way can have really
profound impacts
on the everyday life
of everyday people. So this is
important
and of course
those 42 billion
euros a year going straight
to the pockets of fossil fuel
corporate drivers
I'm fully behind that going
corporate fleets will do
what they've always done
get the best option for the bottom line
the second hand market needs
more supply of affordable electric vehicles
and European car makers need to sell more
EVs, this does sound like
we should be more ambitious, have more
zero emission targets, scrap the fossil
subsidies and use company
fleets, the largest single point of leverage
to anchor
the EV industry and bring
zero emission transport
to ordinary people like you and I
quicker, not
slower. And
if we do
we might just have the good people
of Belgium to thank
and they would say Ha! We told
you so! Five years ago
change one little rule
and produce rapid results
the question is, will the rest of Europe
want to follow their lead?
The answer will say more
about the continent strategy than
any communique following
a ministerial summit as Belgium's
corporate tax reform has demonstrated
change a single rule, shift an entire
market. This new regulation has
the same potential provided that Brussels
does not
flinch.
That's your podcast for today. Thanks for listening. See you
on the next one.
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Lovely, lovely facts.
If you want to hear us
go to wherever you get your podcast
and search for no such thing as a fish.
That's right, we'll see you there.
Hello America
it's your new favourite podcast here.
Yes it's James and Andy
two-fourths of the British podcast
No Such Thing as a Fish. That's right
we do facts, we do weird facts,
fun facts, facts you've never heard before.
James give us a fact. Did you know
you may be able to cure chronically blocked
noses with a snot transplant.
Lovely, lovely facts.
If you want to hear us go to
wherever you get your podcast and search for no such
thing as a fish. That's right
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About this episode
The discussion highlights the significant impact of corporate electric vehicle (EV) fleets on accelerating EV adoption in Europe. Using Belgium's tax reform as a case study, the podcast explains how changing company car tax rules can rapidly increase EV uptake. The European Commission's Clean Corporate Vehicles Regulation aims to push large corporate fleets—responsible for 60% of new car registrations—toward zero and low emission vehicles (ZLEVs) by 2030. However, critics argue the regulation's inclusion of low emission hybrids weakens its effectiveness. The episode unpacks the policy's nuances, the role of fleet managers, and the potential market transformation through fleet electrification.
Original notes
In November 2021, the Belgian parliament passed a tax reform that most Europeans never heard about. It phased out depreciation write-offs for petrol and diesel company cars. By 2026, the deduction disappeared entirely — combustion-engine company cars became zero per cent tax-deductible. Battery-electric vehicles stayed at 100 per cent.
The market responded without hesitation.
Corporate electric vehicle uptake surged — climbing 13 to 15 percentage points per year. By 2025, Belgium's fleet zero-emission vehicle share hit 54.2 per cent. In 2021, it was 8.8 per cent. Over the same period, Germany — Europe's industrial heavyweight — crept to 19.1 per cent.
Belgium proved something simple: change the tax, change the market. Fast.
Those precedent matters because in December 2025, the European Commission unveiled a regulation that could remake how Europeans buy, drive and eventually inherit their cars.
The Clean Corporate Vehicles Regulation (CCVR) — part of the wider Automotive Package — sets out to electrify corporate fleets, the single largest slice of Europe's new car market. The strategy is elegant: turn company cars into a conveyor belt that pushes affordable electric vehicles into the hands of ordinary drivers within a few years.
If Europe wants to change what people drive, it should start with the cars that businesses buy in bulk, run hard and swap out quickly so the rest of us can buy them second hand.
The Commission agrees with that much. Its proposal for a Clean Corporate Vehicles Regulation, tucked into the EU’s automotive package, aims to push corporate fleets towards zero and low emission vehicles from 2030.
Transport & Environment, the clean transport group that spends its days reading the small print, has now read it. It likes the premise. But it does not like the numbers.
The market responded without hesitation.
Corporate electric vehicle uptake surged — climbing 13 to 15 percentage points per year. By 2025, Belgium's fleet zero-emission vehicle share hit 54.2 per cent. In 2021, it was 8.8 per cent. Over the same period, Germany — Europe's industrial heavyweight — crept to 19.1 per cent.
Belgium proved something simple: change the tax, change the market. Fast.
Those precedent matters because in December 2025, the European Commission unveiled a regulation that could remake how Europeans buy, drive and eventually inherit their cars.
The Clean Corporate Vehicles Regulation (CCVR) — part of the wider Automotive Package — sets out to electrify corporate fleets, the single largest slice of Europe's new car market. The strategy is elegant: turn company cars into a conveyor belt that pushes affordable electric vehicles into the hands of ordinary drivers within a few years.
If Europe wants to change what people drive, it should start with the cars that businesses buy in bulk, run hard and swap out quickly so the rest of us can buy them second hand.
The Commission agrees with that much. Its proposal for a Clean Corporate Vehicles Regulation, tucked into the EU’s automotive package, aims to push corporate fleets towards zero and low emission vehicles from 2030.
Transport & Environment, the clean transport group that spends its days reading the small print, has now read it. It likes the premise. But it does not like the numbers.
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