FOUND myself parking next to one of Alphabet’s AlphaCity cars last week during a visit to the company’s HQ in Hook, Hampshire, last week.

Alphabet is a business car leasing and management company. Its actually owned by BMW, but offers every marque you wish.

However, Alphabet has been moving quickly away from such a narrow definition of its services.

Alphabet now prefers to call itself a mobility solutions provider. It’s a smart move – looking ahead to service our future business mobility requirements.

Part of Alphabet’s portfolio is AlphaCity, a corporate car sharing programme designed to help larger companies dispense with pool car arrangements through more efficient use of mobility solutions.

Later this month I’ll be attending AlphaElectric, Alphabet’s latest business mobility solution for plug-in electric cars – such as the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3. The plan is to raise business take up of electric cars (EVs) over the next three years.

But back to AlphaCity.

My Audi A3 Sportback may not be labelled up like the AlphaCity BMW in the picture, but we had done our own bit of SME business car sharing.

Unlike larger corporates, small businesses and SME firms can be swifter on their feet and more flexible, incorporating multiple mobility solutions.

Co-director Nick Ratcliffe, rather than taking his own car all the way from south east London, had travelled by tube and train to west London where I picked him up; then we travelled down to Alphabet HQ. And reversed the process on the way back.

It was cost effective, lowered Business Car Manager’s carbon footprint, and was more efficient all round especially adding in the current 49.6mpg I’m averaging for my Audi at the moment

There’s an extra bonus to car sharing as well. If you claim business mileage by using the tax free Approved Mileage Allowance Payments (AMAPs) of 45p per mile, then you can claim an additional 5p per mile for each passenger.

But just make sure you keep a record of the journey for HMRC purposes.