MORE drivers are leasing their own cars and vans, with a 36% PCH rise key in business lease fleet growth to 1.35m.
Against this background of increasing personal leases, the overall leasing parc continued to expand to 1.35 million, representing annual growth of 7.6%.
- There are now 979,000 cars and 371,000 LCVs on lease
- This represents year on year growth of 2.4% in cars and 14.9% in LCVs.
But with more free to choose what they want rather than being steered by fleet policy, the average CO2 emission of new lease cars has risen, going against the developing trend for lower emissions, says the BVRLA in its latest Quarterly Leasing Survey.
BVRLA chief executive Gerry Keaney says: “Personal contract hire continues to drive growth in the car leasing market and this is having a clear impact on the automotive industry’s long-term goal of reducing CO2 emissions.
Company cars are cleaner than the average privately procured car, and the government should be supporting this market with a progressive company car tax regime that doesn’t encourage people to do their own thing.
TheBVRLA figures for Q2 2017 show that the car portion of the business fleet leasing market rose 2.4% to 979,000 year-on-year, a rate outstripped by the LCV sector which grew by 14.9% to 371,000. Year-on-year growth for both segments has continued to slow in 2017, with the business fleet leasing segment actually shrinking by 1% compared to the first quarter of the year.
Total car leasing (all leasing types) grew by 8% year-on-year, down from 11% in Q1 2017. Much of this growth continues to be driven by the personal contract hire (PCH) segment, although growth rates here have also fallen in 2017.
The latest data from BVRLA members shows that the PCH sector grew 36% year-on-year and 7% quarter-on-quarter.
Average CO2 figures for newly registered lease cars grew to 111.8g/km in Q2 2017, up from 110.8g/km (+0.9%) from the previous quarter and up 0.7% compared to the same period in 2016. The main reason for this rise is likely to be the increasing share of PCH vehicles within the wider BVRLA leasing fleet.
The average PCH car on the BVRLA member fleet had emissions of 120g/km CO2, compared to the 111g/km of those on contract hire.
The growth in average new car emissions was mirrored by the wider market, where average emissions for all new car registrations rose to 121.3 g/km, up by 0.7% year-on-year and the previous quarter.
Overall, the newly registered lease car on a BVRLA member’s books still has average emissions 8% lower than the overall UK new car market.
The proportion of diesel cars in the BVRLA fleet remains static at 74.9% in Q2 2017, but has fallen 2.5% compared to the same period in 2016. Last quarter saw the proportion of new diesel registrations rise slightly to 68.1%, although this figure is 6.5% down year-on-year.
