Vehicle waiting lists at some manufacturers are typically an average 10-14 weeks with some model order times stretching to five months and even longer. This means that delivery of a new car ordered today may not be until Christmas 2011 or even into 2012, leaving fleets either having to extend the existing contract or use short-term hire to fill the gap.

However, Mazda says that its use of a flexible dealer allocation process is speeding up delivery times. This process is based a “fleet vehicle sold order pot” programme, which key dealers use to meet corporate demand within 10-14 days of orders being placed. Mazda and its dealers forecast the model mix they expect to be most popular with fleets based on market knowledge and order specification history. The vehicles are then manufactured and held centrally on the dockside at Zeebrugge in Belgium. When fleet orders are taken, dealers “pull” cars from the “pot” and deliver to customers within two weeks.

Among the most popular Mazda models in the corporate sector are the Mazda3 1.6D 5dr TS2 with CO2 emissions of 117g/km and the Mazda6 2.2D 5dr TS 129ps with CO2 emissions of 138g/km.

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