British Gas Profits impact new UK car and van market

Posted on | February 21, 2008 | Comments Off

Today, British Gas reported profits of £571 million.

But, most people don’t realise that they further subsidise British Gas by paying higher car and van prices, claims Ling Valentine of LINGsCARS.com.

British Gas Profits British Gas runs a fleet of many thousands of cars and vans, and Ling says the energy giant buys these vehicles at significantly less than market value. “Car and van manufacturers like Ford and Vauxhall use the massive fleet requirements of companies like British Gas and BT and the Post Office to secure a base-line of production from their factories. If any of these large customers cancelled their car or van orders, the factories would suffer an immediate crisis in over-production. Consequently, the deals negotiated to purchase these fleet of vehicles are substantially cheaper than anyone else can pay, and often at below production cost. The car makers cannot afford to lose these orders.”

Ling says she has spoken to people in the car trade who have tried to supply these large utilities with new vehicles, and it is “utterly impossible”, she says, to get a foothold in the supply deals. “They are negotiated at the top, in secret”, Ling says. “The low prices mean that the public is subsidising the utilities’ vehicles, and this is paid for in the high prices we pay for our own private cars and vans”.

British Gas has recently raised the amount it charges for gas and electricity by 15%. Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said the increase in British Gas profits was “obscene”.

Ling Valentine runs LINGsCARS.com, a fast-growing new-car contract hire company, supplying over £28m of new vehicles a year, to businesses and private individuals in the UK. An immigrant from China, Ling has gained a chunk of the UK new-car market by slashing overheads and delivering cheap monthly rentals.

She claims; “If I could have the supply terms given to British Gas and the other utilities, I could increase my turnover 10-fold, overnight”. Ling’s assertion that British Gas’s just-announced profits are subsidised by the UK car-buying public will not go down well with motor manufacturers, who keep these supply terms a closely guarded secret.

“We’ll never know what British Gas really pay for all those cars and vans it has on the road”, says Ling.

Category: CAR LEASING WHOLE BLOG

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