Is electric car leasing realistic yet? As a company car driver the thought of being penalised for daring to drive a car as part of your job is now commonplace, as such its natural to look for ways in which you can drive smarter to save money…
There are choices of course, such as driving a hybrid like the Hyundai Ionic, with a combined EC official consumption of over 80mpg and of course the Toyota hybrid range, well sorted and loved by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Add to this hybrid choices from VW, Audi, BMW and Mercedes and you get the picture that even the choosy are well catered for.
But hybrids are just the stepping stone to the nirvana, the all electric, drive without thinking, company car. Is it possible? Is it affordable?
100% electric cars now have ranges of up to 250 miles or more. The latest Nissan Leaf with new bigger batteries is achieving over 150 mile range, reducing to about 125 miles in Winter as batteries really don’t like the cold. Or the new Renault Zoe, a sister car to the Leaf, Renault have adopted a slightly different approach. You lease the batteries. With a realistic range of 180 miles and £3 to charge, add in an approximate charge of £3 per day for your battery lease and you can still achieve an equivalent of 180 mpg, simply in fuel use terms.
The savings in tax (bik) and congestion charges are not to be ignored.
With the new Model 3 Tesla, you get a range of 250 miles and hopefully the promised UK price of £28,000 being indicated by Tesla at launch. This car is complex for leasing companies and insurers alike, so lease figures are yet to be revealed. But quality of drive, fun and range promise to force the hand of the mainstream manufacturers to compete with the new Model 3.
Official EU consumption figures of the BMW i3 are 12.6kw per 100km or 62 miles. Broadly £1.40 per 62 miles or an equivalent of 260 miles per gallon. Not bad given the bik saving and zero emissions.
Clearly we are getting closer to a practical electric car to suite company car lease drivers, but are we really there yet?
Check out these amazing hybrid electric lease cars currently on offer here at CarLease UK and leave us your comments as to which one you’d like to drive home in.
