Britain's best-value company cars

Company city cars gallery:

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Citroen C1 - Just facelifted. Clever, stylish and endearing to drive. Peugeot 107 and Toyota Aygo same thing, re-badged.

Hyundai i10 - Lively engine, decent kit, five-doors, great package.

Fiat 500 1.2 Dualogic Stop and Start. One for the style conscious with deeper pockets.

Supermini

The pretty Mazda 2 supermini hasn’t the brand recognition of the stylish Ford Fiesta, but it’s the same car underneath.

Good to drive, nicely equipped with a lightweight body, you can get a 1.4D 68 TS2 that emits just 107g CO2/km for £12,050; that’s £2,911 less than a Fiesta Econetic with a better 98g/km CO2 figure.

There are more than 30 new and 550 used Mazda 2s for sale on Auto Trader.

Our pick of the latest superminis:

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Seat Ibiza Ecomotive – Underneath it’s the Car of the Year-winning VW Polo but with a swoopy body, decent performance and a 98g/km CO2 rating. Yours for £12,790.

Vauxhall Corsa Ecoflex – Its 117g/km CO2 figure trails its rivals, but it’s a hard worked, mature product backed by a huge dealer network, and at £11,565 a lot cheaper than its rivals.

Toyota Yaris 1.0 VVTi T2 - The Corsa can’t beat the Yaris on price. Its 118g/CO2 figure is the weakest here, but it’s solid value compared to the £12,795 Kia Venga EcoDynamics 1 that hits 117g/km.

Small family hatchbacks

The latest Ford Focus will be big news in this sector, but the biggest bargain is the Kia Ceed.

It offers decent kit levels, good build quality, pleasant driving characteristics and formidable value – including a class-leading seven-year warranty.

The 1.6CRD costs £13,175, and returns a better-than-supermini 113g/km, making it better value than the £14,500 110g/km CO2 Ceed.

Auto Trader currently lists more than 40 new and around 700 used Kia Ceeds for sale.

Best value small hatches:

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Hyundai i30 - Another great-value Korean package. Pleasant to drive, nicely made, well equipped with strong warranties. The cheapest Focus is £17,870, the costliest i30 £15,550.

Citroen C4 – The stylish hatch comes with a range of excellent diesels and usefully low prices, ranging from £13,895 to £18.295.

Nissan Note – Facelifted mini-MPV alternative. Good value (£10,600-£13,500), especially efficient diesels, space efficient and popular.

Large family saloon

If the Seat Exeo looks familiar that’s because it’s an old model Audi A4 with a re-styled front end, but don’t be put off, it’s a good car and good value.

All but two versions are tax-friendly diesels, and for as little as £18,775 you can enjoy an Audi-like cabin, decent performance and refinement and better ride quality than the old A4, as the suspension’s been tweaked.

Available in saloon and estate guise, the Exeo is a high-value alternative to the Ford Mondeo.

There are more than 90 used Seat Exeos for sale on Auto Trader.

Large saloons gallery:

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Skoda Octavia – It is actually a younger design than the Seat, but has recently been facelifted. Sold as a five-door hatch and estate. Good diesels and competitive prices.

Vauxhall Insignia – The handsome Vauxhall is generally more expensive than either Seat or Skoda, but there are good-value versions; think £20,461 for a 2.0 CDTi Exclusiv Nav diesel. The Insignia is a big step up from the Vectra.

Volkswagen Passat – VW’s middle-class hero is spacious, capable, well made and some versions are cheaper than you’d imagine, like the tax-friendly 1.6 103bhp Passat Bluemotion at £20,645. Not a fireball, but its 114g/km CO2 compensates.

Executive

A 1.6-litre Volvo might sound weird for an executive car, but the Volvo S80 1.6D Drive SE fits the bill, being one of those clever, low-emission models so beloved by car makers. Yours for £23,495, it mixes big car and brand kudos with a CO2 figure of 129g/km.

But if that’s not suprising enough, Volvo will sell you one of its iconic estates – the Volvo V70 – with the same engine and same impressive running costs.

There are more than 270 used Volvo S80s for sale on Auto Trader.

Our pick of the latest executive cars:

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Audi A6 – The A6 takes some beating for big car German class, and the 2.0 TDI’s 139g/km CO figure makes it the most efficient version. Yours for £25,820.

BMW 5 Series - At £28,035 the 2.0 520d SE is more expensive still, but its 136g/km CO2 beats the big Audi. With the new one arriving, there could be some haggling available on the price.

Mercedes E-Class - Spacious, discreet and said to be better made than its predecessors, the latest E Class can be had in E200 BlueEFF CD SE guise for £28,640. It emits 134g/CO2.

Luxury

These days uber-executive saloons are almost always diesels. The clever alloy-bodied Audi A8 3.0 diesel is a prime example. Its flagship model since the mid-1990s, the A8 has just morphed into its third generation and in this guise, some versions of the 3.0 diesel will emit a class-leading 159g/km.

Stuffed with technology and features like stop/start, this version of the car reached UK showrooms in the Spring costing £54,000 plus.

Auto Trader currently lists almost 300 used Audi A8s for sale.

Luxury company cars gallery:

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BMW 7 Series - In 730d guise, the latest Seven was just about the most efficient big saloon you could buy with a CO2 rating of 178g/CO2 per km. Less outlandishly styled than before, it will set you back from £55,260.

Mercedes S-Class – The big Merc has been a luxury diesel pioneer. See a new one and it’s unlikely to be petrol powered. The £57,103 S350 short wheelbase CDi BlueEFF produces 199 grams of carbon for every mile it travels.

Lexus 450h - If diesel isn’t your thing the Lexus 450h hybrid mixes a powerful petrol motor and Prius-like hybrid drive to achieve 179g/CO2 per km. All this can be yours for £42,900.

Sports utility vehicles

The Ford Kuga’s mix of good looks, strong on road driving characteristics and competitive pricing make it a strong entrant in the compact sports utility sector.

The most tax-efficient Kugas have front drive, an admission that most will rarely venture off road. The entry-level 2.0 TDCi will set you back £21,497 and return 159g/km. With all wheels driven this rises to 169g/km. The price goes up to £23,540.

Despite being a relative newcomer, there are several hundred used Ford Kugas for sale on Auto Trader.

SUV gallery:

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Volvo XC60 - The stylish XC60 in 2.4 DRIVe guise matches the Kuga’s CO2 figure, but it will cost you more to buy.

Land Rover Freelander – there’s now stop/start technology on manual Freelanders. Costing from £21,750, the 2.2 TD4 diesels now emit 179g/CO2 per km.

Hyundai Santa Fe - Hyundai’s bigger, good value Santa Fe offers near Discovery room for Freelander money. The seven seat 2.2CRD Style’s 176g/km rating also beats the Freelander. Yours for £22,245.

Sports/convertible

A diesel sportscar would once have been seen as a joke. Not now, as the 2-litre diesel-powered Audi TT coupes and convertibles prove.

The current ones drive better than the still-stylish first generation TTs, and although the diesels have Quattro all-wheel-drive, they still return 139g/CO2 per km, this compares with 191g/CO2 per km for the equivalent 2.0 petrol.

Classy and efficient, a diesel TT will cost from a not inconsiderable £27,375.

There are more than 1,800 used Audi TTs for sale on Auto Trader.

Best value sports and convertibles:

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BMW 1 Series Convertible - Not much room in the back, and not everyone loves the looks, but still well made, desirable, and with a CO2 output of 118g/km, the 118d is efficient too.

Saab 9-3 - With Saab no longer facing closure, its four seat 9-3 convertible can go back on our wanted list. You’ll pay just over £27k for a 1.9TiD Linier SE that emits 157g/Co2 per km.

Renault Megane CC - Renault has a new Megane coupe/convertible coming, but old ones are still in circulation. It lacks the Audi’s cachet and build, but the entry level 1.5 dCi manages a 1-Series-rivalling 118g/CO2 per km, and with prices starting from £17,557 it’s a lot cheaper too.