In November 2021, the Belgian parliament passed a tax reform that most Europeans never heard about. It phased out depreciation write-offs for petrol and diesel company cars. By 2026, the deduction disappeared entirely — combustion-engine company cars became zero per cent tax-deductible. Battery-electric vehicles stayed at 100 per cent.

The market responded without hesitation.

Corporate electric vehicle uptake surged — climbing 13 to 15 percentage points per year. By 2025, Belgium's fleet zero-emission vehicle share hit 54.2 per cent. In 2021, it was 8.8 per cent. Over the same period, Germany — Europe's industrial heavyweight — crept to 19.1 per cent.

Belgium proved something simple: change the tax, change the market. Fast.

Those precedent matters because in December 2025, the European Commission unveiled a regulation that could remake how Europeans buy, drive and eventually inherit their cars.

The Clean Corporate Vehicles Regulation (CCVR) — part of the wider Automotive Package — sets out to electrify corporate fleets, the single largest slice of Europe's new car market. The strategy is elegant: turn company cars into a conveyor belt that pushes affordable electric vehicles into the hands of ordinary drivers within a few years.

If Europe wants to change what people drive, it should start with the cars that businesses buy in bulk, run hard and swap out quickly so the rest of us can buy them second hand.

The Commission agrees with that much. Its proposal for a Clean Corporate Vehicles Regulation, tucked into the EU’s automotive package, aims to push corporate fleets towards zero and low emission vehicles from 2030.

Transport & Environment, the clean transport group that spends its days reading the small print, has now read it. It likes the premise. But it does not like the numbers.