(22 May 2026 – Australia) High petrol costs are forcing companies to overhaul their mobility strategies as fuel price volatility driven by the ongoing Middle East conflict forces businesses to reassess their approach to fleet management and employee mobility.
With petrol prices at an all-time high, companies are employing new strategies to manage rising fleet costs, guarantee fuel access, and ease cost-of-living pressures on staff.
SG Fleet reports a significant uptick in novated leasing activity in the last few months. Novated leasing allows employees to buy a car and pay for its operating costs through a salary sacrifice program. The number of requests for electric vehicles (EVs) through the company’s novated leasing program has also risen sharply.
East & Partners newly released Asset Finance analysis, based on direct interviews with 1,293 enterprises with asset financing arrangements in place, reveals Novated Leasing represents one of the fastest growing methods of asset finance relative total asset financing in line with an overall lift in asset financing among small businesses in particular as a proportion of overall borrowing.
“Businesses have been quite concerned about the financial impacts on their employees cost of living, so we have seen more companies requesting the opportunity to offer novated leasing” commented SG Fleet Australia Chief Commercial Officer, Andy Mulcaster.
“Despite any fringe benefits tax that may apply to the lease, purchasing a car through novated leasing is still more cost-effective than taking out a loan and buying a vehicle the normal way, and paying for all your running expenses through your post-tax dollars. The FBT savings for an eligible electric vehicle are even greater under a novated lease.”
“The change in momentum for electric vehicles into novated programs has been pretty strong for the last two to three years. Now, you add to that the issue in the Middle East and the demand has just gone crazy. Traditionally, there haven’t been too many active buyers in the used electric vehicle market, but that’s changed quite dramatically,” he said.
“Having a good used market means it’s going to address some of the issues we’ve had with electric vehicles, being the whole-of-life costs.”