AS one colleague wittily observed on Twitter, a Pre-Budget Report or pre-election speech? A comment, I notice, also used by the Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne.

Well, with the politicking of bankers bonuses dealt with, there was a lot of hot air about electric cars and zero company car tax, too – nothing like a bit of green grandstanding.

Not of course that I object to it in principle. The encouragement is there. But it’s rather like the government’s announcement of low carbon support for purchasing zero emission cars from 2011: sounds terrific now, but the cars won’t be available properly until 2012. The gap between words and execution is indeed a large one; grey rather than green.

This is what the boss of LeasePlan, David Brennan, had to say on the electrification of business cars when I spoke to him tonight:

“Exempting electric cars from company car tax is the biggest sign yet that electric technology is foremost in the government’s mind when it comes to reducing business car emissions. The tax treatment of company cars is already based on the CO2 profile of individual models,” David told me, adding that he thought the changes to capital allowances on electric vans an interesting move – if, like me, it sounded good rather than heralding any real change.

“The principle behind it is laudable, but in practice it’s likely to make very little difference,” David continued. “Because of their low emissions, electric vans wouldn’t pay any capital allowances in their first year anyway. This seems to be more a statement of commitment to electric vehicles than a genuinely practical step to encourage lower emitting company vehicles.

“The same arguments remain around electric vehicles though. The government needs to work to get a great deal more infrastructure in place before these vehicles are viable on a large scale.” In other words, approach with caution.

More critically, all the costs associated with running business cars are going up. There’s the rise in VAT – this will make cars more expensive; contract hire leases marginally more expensive; and personal contract hire agreements more expensive.

Then there’s the rise in fuel duty, too. Your business car costs are going to rise. Robert Kingdom from Masterlease explained: “The annual rise in fuel duty, whilst not unexpected, will not help businesses manage the whole life costs of their business cars.”

But if the rise in business car costs looks inevitable, what should you be doing to ameliorate these rises? The only answer is to opt for cars with lower CO2 emissions. Once this might have been a problem. Now, the choice is widening considerably. My Audi A6 has emissions of just 139g/km, and fuel economy of of over 50mpg – on a large executive car. The new BMW 520d promises more of the same. And that Volvo C30 DRIVe I was testing last week – that had emissions of 99g/km, a company car tax rating of 13% and fuel economy of over 70mpg.

So the cars are out there. You must just be more canny about what you choose. Or you could be hurting your bottom line.

Go for low CO2