Vauxhall’s suite of changes to its upper medium Insignia has been enough to muscle the car to the front of the class for emissions and fuel economy.
It has cracked the magic 100g/km barrier, with two CDTi versions now at 99g/km – one with 120hp, the other with 140hp – and both good for an official 76.3mpg. There are also plenty more variants not far behind these figures, rendering the car the lowest-emitting upper medium model of the moment.
The Insignia’s significance to the corporate market can’t be underestimated, either. Put simply, it’s a massive fleet seller – there were just under 40,000 sold in the UK last year, around 80% of which went to business customers.
There have also been a series of cosmetic updates inside and out, with a new nose and rear end and a series of revisions to the cabin including a new centre console.
More importantly, the whole car has been geared even more towards business buyers, as Paul Adler, Vauxhall’s fleet marketing and motability manager, explains to BusinessCar: “[The changes] address the rational elements that underpin decision-making. We’ve done a significant amount of research on what informs company car driver behaviour and we know all the emotional things that we’re all interested in, like what does it look like? How does it drive? Those sorts of elements. They’re all just as important for a company car driver as they are for a private buyer.
“But the rational elements are slightly different. Clearly, for a private buyer, the BIK tax is irrelevant. Fuel economy is enormously important from an operational perspective, and also that driver is thinking ‘I pay for my private fuel’ so it needs to be as efficient as possible.”
Part of the change is a simplification of the trim levels, with the creation of a new entry-level Design model, as product manager Ross Allison explains: “We’ve tried to simplify the range and the offers we have. We’ve dropped ES and Exclusiv [the lower two trim levels] and replaced them with Design.
“We’ve also dropped SE Nav and replaced that with Tech Line [the trim level geared towards fleets].”
All of the moves have been designed to improve the car’s whole-life costs. There are the obvious benefits to fuel economy, BIK, NIC, RVs and other operational expenses that a sub-100g/km car will bring, but revisions to elements such as the trim levels and alloy wheel size have had a more low-key impact. For example, the new entry-level Design model now has 16-inch alloy wheels as opposed to the 17-inch items that were in place before, and as Adler explains: “From an SMR perspective, the [smaller] tyres create a £300 saving over three years and 60,000 miles.”
There are too many minute details to list here, but suffice to say, Vauxhall believes the whole-life cost savings work out in the region of £5000 per year.
