A brand-new salary sacrifice scheme has launched from Fleet Alliance to help businesses including SMEs offer fully electric cars to employees at highly attractive rates.

The Fleet Alliance sal-sac scheme can deliver monthly savings running into hundreds of pounds for employees who select electric cars

Available to fleets of all sizes, the new scheme is believed to offer particular value to SMEs by opening up access to new funding mechanisms.

It enables businesses to provide access to zero-emission electric vehicles to employees who wouldn’t normally qualify for a company car – or those who have opted out in favour of a cash allowance – by effectively leasing the car for two, three or four years with no deposit, and all costs included.

And it’s designed to deliver cost savings, not only through the tax and National Insurance savings delivered by salary sacrifice but also by making use of Fleet Alliance’s multi-bid funding solution. This employs competitive tendering amongst a panel of funders to find the lowest cost – a facility not normally available to smaller businesses.

As a result, the scheme can deliver monthly savings running into hundreds of pounds for employees who select electric cars.

By way of an example, the new Volkswagen ID.3 would cost a 20% taxpayer £365 per month under the new salary sacrifice scheme, compared to £566 for the same vehicle under a PCH scheme. Meanwhile, for a Tesla Model 3, a 40% taxpayer would pay £550 per month under the Fleet Alliance salary sacrifice scheme, compared to a PCH cost of £973 – a saving of £423 per month.

There’s a number of benefits for the employer too, including provision of an attractive employee benefit without any cost to the business; in fact, the company can gain from monthly savings in National Insurance Contributions. The scheme also encourages employees into cleaner, better maintained cars, helping reduce the firm’s carbon footprint and taking care of their grey fleet risk.

The new scheme also offers employers complete freedom to tailor the lifestyle protection typically associated with salary sacrifice to their own circumstances.

And Fleet Alliance is also providing access to e-Fleet, its fleet management system, free of charge to salary sacrifice customers to help them manage their fleet administration.

Martin Brown, managing director of Fleet Alliance, commented: “We believe now is the perfect time to launch such a scheme for all our customers and prospects as it takes maximum advantage of the prevailing tax regimes and the growing movement to electrification.

“And it provides an excellent opportunity to reduce your company’s carbon footprint and provide employees with a brand-new electric vehicle at minimal Benefit-in-Kind impact.

“As a business we are fully committed to being zero emission by 2030 and we know that many of our customers have made, or are moving towards, the same commitment. This new scheme will play a valuable role in helping them achieve that objective.”