For a company car driver with a €30,000/€40,000/€60,000 limit
Company cars used to be the home turf of frugal diesels. Now, shopping for one is more akin to a tax seminar. Benefit In Kind (BIK) rates for cars with the lowest possible emissions make a car with a plug socket the smart pick. In reality, however, it’s the only pick, unless you are a long-haul driver.
Without getting tied up in the tax bands, it is safe to say that since October, under the new “A1″ tax band for vehicles with zero exhaust emissions, you’ll pay a maximum possible BIK rate of 15 per cent, and a minimum of just 6 per cent on a company-provided electric car. Even with the €10,000 discount - currently applied for BIK purposes to the value of a new company car - being phased out over the next three years, those are temptingly low rates.
Here’s our pick of the best cars for company user-choosers, based on some common company-applied upper price limits.
Up to €30,000: Renault 4 E-Tech
The Renault 4 isn’t quite as gorgeous as the 5, but it’s still got a whiff of 1960s cool about it, and it’s almost as much fun to drive.
The fashionable choice would be the Renault 5, but it’s simply too cramped for everyday family motoring. If you’re single, or rarely use the back seat, that’s fine, but for the rest, it will have to be the
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