I’m a software engineer in the UK. In my previous job I could have picked a car from a list or just have a car allowance added to my pay. In my current job engineers above a certain level get car and fuel allowance. I can also claim mileage when I actually travel for work which seems strange to me. It seems that at least in high tech getting a plain car allowance is more popular than picking a car from a list.
I think it used to be a big part of the company culture in the past, but not really now. Big execs make a lot, I mean a LOT more money than it costs to buy a really nice car. So it’s easier for them to take the money.
I recall reading (either Ford or GM) used to require managers at a certain level to only own cars made by that company.
What’s really weird about this is that the country with the best public transportation options hands out car allowances, and the country (or continent) with the worst public transportation systems doesn’t.
Well, it makes sense in that in North America by the time you reach the point in the corporate ladder where you would get a company car, you probably have a decent car already so it’s not much of a perk. In the UK or any other country with a functional public transit system, a car isn’t a necessesity and it might not be something you would normally splurge on.
It may be more of an American thing. We’re a car culture. What you drive and how you drive is part of your identity.
We even have an entire genre of movies about driving: Breaker! Breaker!, Cannonball Run, The Chase, Coast to Coast, Convoy, Coupe de Ville, Death Proof, Death Race 2000, Drive, Drive Angry, The Driver, Duel, Dumb and Dumber, Easy Rider, Fast and Furious, The Getaway, Gone in 60 Seconds, Grand Theft Auto, The Gumball Rally, Hit and Run, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Joyride, Little Miss Sunshine, Midnight Run, Overnight Delivery, No Man’s Land, Pink Cadillac, Race with the Devil, Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins, Rat Race, Roadgames, Sideways, Smokey and the Bandit, The Straight Story, The Sugarland Express, The Sure Thing, Thelma and Louise, They Drive by Night, Thunder Alley, Two-Lane Blacktop, The Vanishing Point, W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings, White Line Fever, Wild Hogs, The Wild One.
Actually, that’s mostly a genre of movies about car-related crime. 
Construction, too - when I was a project manager for an earthmoving company, I averaged ~1000 miles/week going between offices and job sites. I had either a Toyota Camry or a 4WD Toyota (Tacoma or 4Runner), depending on the accessibility of the job sites I was covering. Same deal as Oredigger - the car and the gas were paid for by the company.
That’s not how most company car deals work in the UK. The car is part is a financial allowance towards the cost if leading or buying a car. So my partner, fir instance, has a salary plus a package of benefits including private health insurance, gym membership, pension and £5000 towards the annual cost of leasing the car of her choice. The company has negotiated special deals with a number of different dealerships, covering most major car brands, but there’s nothing to stop her leading an Aston Martin if she feels like making up the difference. She can also take the allowance as salary. Which is what she does.
Cars which the company buys in keeps for employees to use when necessary are called ‘pool cars’ here, not company cars, which are deemed a personal perk
Sometimes a movie is about crime or a bet or a rescue or an escape or a job offer. But sometimes the crime, bet, rescue, escape, or job offer just gives the people in the movie an excuse to drive.
I was watching Vanishing Point last night (which prompted my post) and it was interesting how that movie didn’t bother to give Kowalski any real reason to drive. Driving was just what he did. It was a driving movie reduced to its essentials.
A lot of those movies are road trip movies, and cars in those movies get chosen to show character or to look cool. In real life people are keeping cars longer and longer. Back in the '60s lots of people with money would get new cars every two years. There are still plenty of people who buy cars they can’t really afford, but not as much as they used to.
Oops, shocking typing on my previous post. Please blame the iPhone!
Oops, shocking typing on my previous post. Please blame the iPhone!
On my monthly salary statement it’s broken out as base pay, car allowance, and fuel allowance. I think it’s just a way to give employees more pay while dodging certain taxes. And even though we have lots of public transport it’s not always the most efficient way from A to B. I can drive the 13 miles from home to work in about 25 minutes. To take the train would require a 15 minute walk to the first station, 15 minutes on the train to an intermediate station, a 10 minute wait for the next train, another 10 minutes by train, then a 20 minute walk to the office. The bus would be no better.
What low price? For fucking free!
(Spanish attitude).
We feel similarly about uniforms: they’re nobody’s notion of “what we want to be seen in outside of work”, but here it’s actually a legal requirement that if you must be dressed a certain way for work, the company must either give you two uniforms/year or pay for it. In sectors where some workers get uniforms, some don’t, but all have a dress code, those who don’t get uniforms get a “clothes bonus” added to their salary. If the company pays for it and it’s not an impossible fit, I’ll wear it! But they have to pay for it.
But see, it’s not “free”.
A company car usually means buying a brand new car, full payments.
that benefit, unless you put in a lot of mileage on company business means this:
Say $6000 for a new car ($500/month payments). That means $6000 taxable benefit in Canada or USA. You pay the government $2000 to $3000 in taxes out of the rest of your income, so the “free” car costs you at least that. Make it a BMW or Mercedes and at least double those numbers. Most cars would be leased, so they come off lease and you get a new one.
Now if I’m a frugal guy I can probably buy a car used for a much smaller payment. I bought a pre-owned (off lease) BMW for half the list price, and I plan to try and keep it for over 10 years like my last cars. I’m not hung up on a new vehicle every 3 years. Hey, just give me the money instead if you insist.
The culture is certainly alive and well in Thailand. And not just the cars but drivers to go along with them. My late father-in-law, an executive with a rice-exporting firm, had a company car and driver full-time, even during his off-duty hours, seven days a week.
Here it’s not taxable to the worker but to the company. That car is not given to the worker, it’s assigned to the worker: the company pays for everything except sometimes gas. So yeah, FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! And, since it’s a company car, the expenses on it are deductible for the company.
Heck, I’m being able to deduct my car payments thanks to being both a physical person and a company… if I was an employee and it was not a company car, it wouldn’t be deductible. That deduction comes up to a lot more than the “road usage tax”.
I think Thailand also has a cheap labor culture.
Still true. My sister in law and her husband are both very senior execs at Ford (global positions), and they would be fired if they didn’t drive Fords.
You don’t get to keep the car.