THE Leasing Broker Federation Conference took place at the National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham on October 02, 2018.
More than 95 delegates were present from the Leasing Broker Federation membership along with funders.
Editorial Director of the Leasing Broker Federation, Ralph Morton, provided the overview of the Conference with its main theme, What does the future look like?
“Tesla,” he said, had “single-handedly, changed the way we look at electric cars.”
Ralph outlined the keynote speech around the acceleration of electrification, before introducing the other main theme of the conference, WLTP.
But first up was Scott Gairns from Sophus3.
The online journey and the Amazon Threat
The key message from Scott Gairns, Managing Director of  Sophus3 is that the industry needs to be done to convert online experience into sales. As well as this the automotive journey has changed – six brands are visited online but fewer than two dealer visits.
Meanwhile car branding is becoming less important for buyers, while the financing of cars is becoming more important.
However, OEM websites are making that  customer experience difficult – which will drive customers towards the click and deliver of Amazon.
WLTP: What’s the difference between correlated NEDC and WLPT figures?
Next up was WLTP with a handy update from Abel Leathem, Automotive Product Manager at JATO Dynamics.
All options will affect WLTP – from tow bars, to sun roofs, and so on, which is why many OEMs are packaging options.
But as CO2 values move up to NECD correlated and WLTP, we will see an increase in benefit-in-kind taxation for drivers, by as much as 6%.
However, Abel said that while WLTP was causing considerable work and specific industry issues, ultimately it should be a good thing for the consumer and the environment and provide more realistic figures for comparison in making vehicle decisions.
Market update from Ford
Owen Gregory, Ford Fleet Operations Director, was next up providing a market overview covering diesel emissions, WLTP, electrification and connectivity.
While Owen considered there was still much hype around electrification, considerably more needed to be done to develop the technology to meet customer expectations of Alternatively Fuelled Vehicles.
Owen said that diesel still had an important role to play especially for high mileage drivers as the industry moves to EVs and connected cars.
Owen added that Ford was developing a range of solutions over the next year from 48v mild hybrid, to a full battery launch in 2020.
Turning to connected vehicles he said there was already a good level of connectivity in the market. Â He said Ford, particularly particularly the newly launched Transit range, was offering telematics and data services while addressing concerns around GDPR and vehicle security especially around the remarketing of vehicles.
In terms of autonomous vehicles, Owen said he expected a meaningful level of autonomous vehicles but not until 2030/2040 when autonomy would form part of the sharing economy.
The electric future
Presented by James McKemey, Head of Insights at Pod Point this was the keynote presentation on transitioning to an electrified future.
James covered a massive range of electrification issues while keeping the conference on time, ranging from the broad trends in EVs to provide better range, the barriers to growth such as performance, choice, range, and particularly price.
However, McKemey expected price parity of EVs to combustion cars should be achieved by mid 2020s.
McKemey was also keen to point out that charging infrastructure issues was less aof a perceived problem: charging points needed to be at home and work, saying destination and en-route charging are of consumer concern but not that important in the real world.
Electrification panel discussion
A stimulating panel discussion, covering EVs, hydrogen cars, PHEVs, and impact on fleets and drivers. Taking part were James McKemey from Pod Point, Owen Gregory from Ford, Paul Hollick from TMC, Silvie Childs from Hyundai, Ian Featherstone from the Energy Saving Trust, and the BMW Group‘s Adam Harley.
What will happen to RVs post WLTP?
Certainly not the graveyard slot as Rupert Pontin from  Cazana discussed the impact of WLPT and RDE on residual values in 2019.
He said that new cars sales had been in disarray as a result of WLPT, impacting the ways and number of vehicles sold.
However, in the used car market, the buyer was not concerned by WLTP issues, witnessing up turn in the value of used cars especially petrol under 12 months  while 24 month cars were seeing stability in the market place; ex-fleet cars with 40k miles were pricing stronger for diesel, because diesels still represented a good car to buy for consumers.
Rupert rounded off by saying this has been the year of the used car and likely to be the case in the early part of 2019. Looking forward he said:
- 2019 – less pre-reg vehicles, flat new car market
- 2020 – Pre-reg increasing, flat new car market
- 2021 – Pre-reg stable, improving new car market
Helping fleets choose the greenest cars
Tom Cardy from Emissions Analytics offered guidance on helping fleet customers make intelligent decisions on vehicle choice and emissions.
The company independently sourced and measured car emissions and published them via the Equa Index, a real world index of car emission measurements.
The Equa Index had revealed that not all Euro 6 diesels were the same in performance, with the cleanest being 32 times better than the worst: “Effective policy cannot be based on Euro 6,” said Tom.
The Equa Index was published free on the web and could help companies choose the cleanest cars by emissions.
What are the tax implications of WLPT?
Nigel Morris from MHA MacIntyre Hudson provided the answers on this and potential future tax legislation changes.
He said the impact of doing nothing would mean BIK going up 3%, with additional impacts on leasing costs as CO2 rates go up.
He questioned whether HMRC would react – since even if the number of company car drivers was going down, the total tax take had gone up – which meant that there was no real driver for HMRC to change behaviour.
he foresaw the changing of fleet policies as companies rethought company car policies and saw the potential for schemes to take care of high mileage drivers under ECOP schemes in the future/d go for ECOPs schemes?
Developing value in your business
While the conference has been about issues facing brokers in the future, this presentation was about the future of the broker businesses themselves.
Nick Laird, the Managing Director of SsangYong Motor – but with a track record of  transforming business through Laird Growth – explained how leasing brokers could maximise values by defining their business and delivering it.
Laird said it was important to creating a story and then sell your story in nine slides and in five mins – the attention span of the average investor, explaining how the business is scalable and the cross sell opportunities.
He also said it was important that the company was completely clean and legally straight – and the company structure right and transparent.
Leasing Broker Survey results
The final presentation was from Rob Whalley of APD Global Research who, along with Ralph Morton, announced the findings from our exclusive Broker Survey.
The key points were the increasing trend towards diversification of services offered; the way manufacturers worked with brokers, highlighting the positive performance by Nissan; and that funders are seen as increasingly reliable partners.
Ralph Morton added that the survey would be available to all Federation members in the next few weeks.
