Tusker – electrifying company car schemes

Tusker has been providing its employee benefits to a growing customer base for over 14 years. With a current fleet of more than 20,000 cars, of which 95% are on salary sacrifice, Tusker has now put more than 60,000 vehicles on the road for customers including NHS trusts, councils, and large and small corporations.

The strategy for Salary Sacrifice, which includes the reduced BIK rates currently available for Electric Vehicles, means those on lower salaries have been accessing EVs for the first time. It also allows Tusker to provide this benefit to those not offered a traditional company car where a higher salary or job role is a pre-requisite to a vehicle.

As a result of the unique way the scheme is set up, a huge 70% of Tusker’s fleet are 20% taxpayers ensuring that this audience who haven’t been catered for with company car benefits previously, now have access to affordable electric vehicles.

More and more, organisations are realising the need to reduce their environmental footprint and offering a salary sacrifice scheme enables the company to provide the opportunity for drivers to access lower or zero-emitting vehicles.

With increased competition in the workplace for employees, companies providing a salary sacrifice scheme can retain staff but also attract new talent because of the power of the salary sacrifice offering.

Among the many companies which have enjoyed great success with Tusker’s schemes are two leading energy providers, EDF and Engie. Both have reported impressive uptakes among staff, and transformed the emissions output of their grey fleets, while providing attractive employee benefits.

EDF

EDF, Britain’s biggest generator of zero carbon electricity, adopted Tusker’s salary sacrifice car benefits scheme for its employees nationwide.

EDF has been running Tusker’s salary sacrifice car benefit scheme since February 2020, with a focus on electric vehicles and ULEVs. The company has had a great uptake of the scheme to date, with over 50% of employees logging in to take a look at the scheme, and over 700 ordering a new car.

Employees of EDF are saving on average, over £270 per month, with 91% of drivers opting for pure electric vehicles. 20 of EDF’s sites are equipped with charge points, with 300 charge points installed throughout 2021.

There was a big lead up to the successful launch of the scheme in February 2020, to engage and educate groups of employee stakeholders individually. Since then, the scheme has gone on to be a huge success within the company, with the 500th vehicle delivered on the scheme in just 18 months following the launch, and a further 200 ordered since then.

“We’ve been really impressed with the Tusker salary sacrifice car benefits scheme. In the current climate it is great because it is giving benefits to employees whilst saving us money!” said a Vanessa Corsie, Pensions Operations and Benefits Manager for EDF.

“Tusker’s insurance is also brilliant for peace of mind, it mitigates most of the potential loss on redundancies, resignations, and maternity leave.”

ENGIE

Another major UK supplier of green energy, ENGIE, has not only seen an improvement in employee retention and overall safety since beginning a salary sacrifice scheme with Tusker, but also, felt the benefit of the scheme during the COVID 19 pandemic.

ENGIE has been running Tusker’s salary sacrifice car benefit scheme since 2018, with 200 cars ordered on scheme to date.

Tusker’s salary sacrifice car benefits scheme has allowed employees to drive electric vehicles or Ultra-Low Emission Vehicles (ULEVs) without the expense and uncertainty that can come with electric vehicle ownership. The scheme also benefits employers by offering considerable tax savings.

ENGIE staff have been impressed with the choice of vehicle makes and models available on the Tusker scheme, with the most popular models being Tesla model 3, Audi e-tron, Toyota C-H, Kia e-Niro and Peugeot e-2008.

So far, almost all of the take up has been for pure electric or low emission vehicles (98%), with just 2% of ENGIE employees opting for petrol vehicles.

Due to the nature of ENGIE’s business, it has been able to offer employees who have an EV or hybrid vehicle on the scheme, free home charging point installations.

Importantly, during the pandemic, when many staff felt unsafe to travel on public transport, the Tusker scheme allowed employees to stay mobile when many key workers were otherwise worried about being put at risk without access to private vehicles. From ENGIE’s perspective, the Tusker car benefit salary sacrifice program allowed the business to remain environmentally conscious, whilst still meeting its duty of care requirements around employee safety.

“Implementing and running the scheme with Tusker has been fantastic. The Tusker team are brilliant, they’ve held our hands with everything from helping us with employee education and engagement to providing roadshows and test drives. Tusker offers us a prestige service and  I can’t recommend them enough!” Says Fiona McIver, Reward Director, ENGIE.