Two dealerships, Vantage Toyota York and Pentagon Toyota, have supplied 60 Auris hybrid hatchbacks and 50 Aygos to York's largest car hire company, Autohorn Fleet Services.

It holds the National, Alamo and Europcar franchises and operates a mixed fleet of 600 vehicles.

“Ordering the hybrids was very much a conscious decision to enable us to offer our customers a genuinely environmentally friendly vehicle, either for short or longer-term hire,” said Autohorn’s head of sales Neil O'Connor.

“We decided on Toyota on the basis of price, service and the car itself, how it looks and its specification. High levels of equipment are important because we separate ourselves from our competitors by offering higher-end vehicles for no extra cost whatsoever. We knew we wanted a high spec petrol-electric hybrid - and there‘s nobody better in the market for that.

“We have larger corporate and government-funded customers who are committed to reducing their carbon footprint, and ask us to supply the greenest vehicles we have. Historically we used really low-CO2 diesels to fulfil that requirement. We’re able to go back to those customers and say that we now have super low emission cars that we can supply.”