Automotive Business Magazine – Q3 2026 – Digital edition - Flipbook - Page 34
INTE RV I E W
MAZDA UK
It is this cost consciousness that has
often been a driver to electrify for fleets.
For many, the promise of lower taxation,
as well as lower per-mile costs in many
cases, has proven attractive.
Despite Mazda’s limited presence in the
EV market so far, Tomlinson agrees that
the benefits are clear.
He says: “Financially, for a driver, it
has made significant sense, and running
costs for the fleet itself have made
commercial sense.
"Diesel was the powertrain to have
in fleet 10 years ago because it was
cheaper to run. EV is essentially the new
diesel from that perspective. It's the right
powertrain for a company car driver and
for a fleet.
“The adoption of EV hasn't happened
at the rate that the Government was
hoping, and therefore the ZEV Mandate is
perhaps a little bit more aggressive than
the natural run-rate has delivered.
"So, possibly there is a requirement to
review it.
“They already have done that once,
they’ve already relaxed the flexibilities, in
terms of the CO2 targets and the offsets,
and Mazda has benefitted from that.”
Like many others in the industry,
Tomlinson is conscious that there are
significant barriers to overcome before
widespread EV adoption is possible.
He says: “The biggest issue the industry
needs to tackle is creating used car
demand for EVs, commensurate with the
rate of registration of the new cars.
"That will be the biggest problem in the
future. If you've got three-year-old, fouryear-old EVs that retail customers don't
want, that's where the problem will occur.
“I don't know how Government could
intervene. I think the only thing they
could possibly do is look at charging
infrastructure, making sure public
charging was accelerated.
"I don't necessarily think we should
be spending taxpayers’ money on
incentivising people on the new car side.
“I'm not a big fan personally of
the EV Grant, because essentially the
Government is spending taxpayers’
money to incentivise people who are
thinking of spending £40,000, who
arguably don't need that money.”
Tomlinson believes that the issue of
range anxiety is amplified with a used
car, where consumers are less confident
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Q2 2026
in battery performance, making access
to charging even more important.
Why Mazda?
There are now more than 70 automotive
brands active in the UK according to
Autotrader, up from 45 in 2019, including
an increasing number of Chinese
brands, many of which are keen to
poach fleet contracts from established
manufacturers.
The Chinese brands, in particular, have
gone all-in for their market entry, with
the likes of OMODA&JAECOO building
impressive dealer networks and hiring
large fleet teams.
For Tomlinson, Mazda’s lower volumes
and smaller team in fact give it an edge
in the fleet market.
He says: “We've always had a relatively
small team at Mazda, and therefore it's
very personal.
"We have three regional corporate
sales managers. They have a personal
relationship with each of their end-user
fleets, the fleet manager there, and if
that fleet doesn't have a fleet manager
that's employed by that company, they'll
have a really strong relationship with the
account manager at the leasing company
that looks after that fleet.
“We’re very easy to do business with.
We were one of the first manufacturers
that went down the route of electronic
fleet terms.
“We're a small brand, but we do what
we can to be as easy to do business with
as possible. And hopefully, we build the
right cars that people want.”
It is this personal touch and focus
on relationships, not volumes, that has
shielded Mazda from lower sales figures
as more fleets turn to EVs, during a time
when it has not had the EV range to
support the transition.
Tomlinson expects the volumes to
return as its EV range grows.
He explains: “We haven’t had EVs, but
as a consequence of that we haven't lost
relationships, because we've maintained
them through our personal touch. What
we've lost is a little bit of volume over
that period.
“We are very confident that when our
products come back, those customers
that we’ve maintained relationships
with over the last three, four years, even
though we may not have been able to
