COMPANY CARS: CHARACTERISTICS AND ENERGY CONSERVATION POTENTIAL

This paper reports on a study of the characteristics of company cars in Australia, and the possible impacts of selective energy conservation policies on company car fleets. The fundamental proposition is that the company car sector offers a considerable potential for energy conservation through changes to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. Company cars constitute a very important share of the new car market, and they tend to be larger, less fuel-efficient types of cars, travel longer distances, and be recent vintage than private cars. Responses of companies to a range of policy scenarios indicate that the policies considered would have negligible impacts on the overall demand for company cars, but that the shift to smaller cars would be substantial. The characteristics of companies and fleets were found to have very significant effects on the policy responses. (Author/TRRL)