In focus E.ON


The energy giant has one of the most advanced electric vehicle fleets, according to its leasing company. Car fleet boss, Jarrod Smith, tells Jack Carfrae how it got there.


& events and fleet at E.ON, one of the Big Six energy companies, and he is describing the brief from the company’s German HQ to electrify its entire European fleet by 2030.


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That came towards the end of 2019, and the UK arm has close to cracked it with cars. It helped that the edict came not long before EV company car tax rates hit rock bottom in April 2020, so much so that, when the UK board settled on its course of action in quarter one of that year, it decided to leapfrog hybrids entirely and go full-electric from the off.


“We made a very early call on the company car fleet,” Smith continues, “we put a suggestion forward to the board that we thought we should start implementing an EV and PHEV-only fleet renewal process, which they agreed with – but they didn’t agree with the PHEV aspect. They made what I would call a very bold and brave decision at the time to just go for pure EVs. “Our idea of putting the PHEVs in there was to use them as a stepping stone for the individuals to move from ICE to PHEV to EV – it was kind of a natural progression to electric – but they [the board] were a bit braver than that, which, in hindsight, has got us to the position and the advanced stage we’re at now, so it was a good decision.”


As of the end of February, E.ON had 777 company cars, 702 (90%) of which were electric. That left 67 PHEVs or self-charging hybrids and eight petrol and diesel cars – all older models due to be electrified on renewal. According to Smith, that led its contract hire supplier, Lex Autolease, to dub it one of the most advanced company car customers in its entire fleet for electrification, while the form also shaved five years off its all-EV target for cars.


It was not plain sailing at the beginning, though. As Smith explains, the relative lack of choice and availability of battery-electric cars around the turn of the decade meant an EV-only policy was not the easiest thing to instigate at the time – with or without the pandemic.


“It was a difficult time for everyone, but adding to the complexity was the fact there weren’t many [electric] models from the manufacturers out there at the time. There were your Nissan Leafs, your Renault, Zoes and probably a few Teslas, but that was about it, so the choices were very, very limited.” That was initially a hard sell to drivers, who were not happy about being pigeonholed, and a number initially opted for cash allowance instead of a company car. However, the move coincided with the lowest benefit- in-kind percentages in living memory for the cars the company was pushing, which is not a bad carrot.


32 | March/April 2025 | www.businesscar.co.uk


hey gave us a decade, I suppose,” says Jarrod Smith, who has quite the job title. He is senior contract manager for business travel, meetings


Above: As of the end of February, E.ON had 777 company cars, 702 (90%) of which were electric.


“That was one of the biggest incentives we could give to our company car drivers at the time,” says Smith, “in that first year, if I’m being honest, there was a bit of a mutiny, because of the lack of choice, the lack of infrastructure around the country and all the normal kinds of EV myths that were out there. But, yeah, the BIK aspect was really the big incentive that we could give people at the time – and that incentive’s still there nowadays.”


Having spent the past five years electrifying conventional company cars, the firm is now looking to do the same with three “bolt-ons” to the main fleet: salary sacrifice, cash allowance and rental. The equally low-tax status of the former means it should be an easy sell to employees – or at least that is what salsac suppliers tell us – but Smith says it has yet to gain serious traction among E.ON staff, not because it is perceived as a poor benefit, but because of the difficulty of getting the word out.


“The sacrifice scheme’s actually managed by our HR rewards team as part of our rewards benefit package,” he explains, “I suppose every UK employee is eligible, and we’ve got, I think, around 10,000 UK employees now. It only started about two years ago and we are a bit disappointed, if I’m being honest, because we’re only up to about 200 vehicles at the moment. “We got some industry figures prior to the scheme going live, and they suggested between 2% and 5% was probably the norm for companies with our sort of number of employees who you could expect to take on a salary sacrifice car – and the benefits are fantastic. So, I’m a little bit surprised it hasn’t gone perhaps as well as we thought it might.


Above: Jarrod Smith on electrifying the E.ON fleet.


“Sometimes, with new schemes, it takes a bit of office gossip and people talking about the benefits of the cars before it starts spreading a bit wider. I think if everyone were based in the office five days a week, like we were prior to Covid, that kind of office gossip and that messaging would get around a lot quicker. I think now, because people work remotely and away from each other – perhaps they’re only going into the


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