Businesses need to consider the "whole life costs" of a particular vehicle before adding it to their fleet, it has been claimed.

Dan Rees, senior manager at Deloitte Car Consulting, believes firms are too quick to purchase new cars based on their list price without taking other factors into consideration.

He spoke during a briefing held by the Association of Car Fleet Operators, where he was joined by Andrew Cronin, key solutions manager at GE Capital UK, who agreed that companies should weigh up how much a vehicle will cost them in the long term. 

At the moment, just 20 per cent of fleet operators think about road tax, carbon output and fuel economy when buying or hiring cars.

"Whole life costs generally favour low [carbon] emissions cars so support corporate carbon reducing policies and reward drivers in terms of the benefit-in-kind charge," Mr Cronin remarked.

Fuel consumption is something that a lot of drivers have been taking increasingly seriously in recent years, as the demand for smaller-engined cars with better miles-per-gallon ratios has risen sharply.

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Posted by Brendan Saunders, Account Manager, The Fuelcard People.