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Blimey, I seem to be in the right place at the right time, at last. My solar panels will go live in 24 hours and so I'll be creating my own fuel!
Saves digging a hole!
Currently there is no benefit for electric cars as it is not "Fuel"
Is this the HMRC way of introducing a charge for private use of Electric Vehicles?
No it's a way for me to claim back the "cost" of providing the "fuel" for my company car when doing business miles....I'm going to be rich!
The issue that the charging at home is very cheap, hence this is a good rate for people who can always charge at home. But charging at motorway service stations etc costs a LOT more, hence this rate will not cover anyone doing long-distance travel in an electric car.
(It is also hard to put a meter on a home charge point, as the same home charger may be used for more than one car.)
Is that your experience or did you read it somewhere?
Given the wide range of vehicle efficiencies and the even wider range of charging rates and methodologies you can not make a blanket statement that 4p per mile will not cover the charges.
Over the past year I’ve regularly done 200 to 400 mile round trips and have paid anything from nothing to 30p per kWh using public charging points and over that period I have averaged about 2.5p per mile.
I use rapid chargers for these long journeys, which are the most expensive but for pottering around many public car parks, garden or shopping centres charge next to nothing or give free parking.
These days you are not stuck using the most expensive chargers on say a motorway. I quite often can exit a junction and use hotel or out of town shopping centre charges at just over a third of the cost.
With regard to metering your use at home, my charger has a meter but even with a 3 pin plug you can work out what electricity you’ve used by how long it took or the % charge you’ve added to the car’s battery, it’s easy.
But for the "fixed rate" expensive system to be useful to employers it must be agreeable to all staff who have or may get a EV. You can not expect staff to spend time finding cheap charging etc as you are already asking them to put up with having to travel as part of their job.
This rate being so low may put people of buying a EV if they will have to pay out of their own pocket for work travel due to changeing on moterways being so costly.
But it is a lot of admin to have staff reclaim the real cost of charging, including home charging, along with having enough proof for HMRC that the claim is valid.
(Clearly for company cars, using the rate for private travel can be made to work with the company covering all charging costs. Remember that a company can charge staff more then the rate for personal usage. But this depends on the home charger being only used for one car. )
I’m honestly struggling to understand your complaint here, how is this any different from the rules for fossil fueled cars (ICEVs)? The AFRs for them will be over or under the true cost of the fuel depending on the car, the fuel and how you drive, where’s the difference?
Ten years ago I drove Smart cars as both company and owned cars and made a killing on both fuel and mileage rates, but would have struggled to do the same with more expensive or fossil guzzling models.
The choice to buy EVs over ICEVs is a company decision and, for the average company car, where business miles may be considerable, the company will recognise the substantial difference in the cost of fuelling each. Plus, if there really is a disparity in the AFR and the actual cost of the fuel, the company is allowed to calculate and pay (or demand) its own rate which, in my case, if paying 30p pkWh on motorways, would amount to say 7 p per mile.
There is not a difference of a factor of nearly 5 for the per mile cost of “fuelling” a fossil fuelled cars (ICEVs) based on where someone is driving and what distance they are driving in a day. But with an EV it costs nearly 5 times as much to charge it at a motorway service station then overnight on E7.
(There is also not the option to use a “fuel card” so as to get all the cost information in one bill for the accounting department.)
Companies need to have one rule for all members of staff, regardless of where they are driving, and that is easy to collect the data for, otherwise, they are likely to see EVs as too much of a pain.
But for the "fixed rate" expensive system to be useful to employers it must be agreeable to all staff who have or may get a EV. You can not expect staff to spend time finding cheap charging etc as you are already asking them to put up with having to travel as part of their job.
This rate being so low may put people of buying a EV if they will have to pay out of their own pocket for work travel due to changeing on moterways being so costly.
But it is a lot of admin to have staff reclaim the real cost of charging, including home charging, along with having enough proof for HMRC that the claim is valid.
(Clearly for company cars, using the rate for private travel can be made to work with the company covering all charging costs. Remember that a company can charge staff more then the rate for personal usage. But this depends on the home charger being only used for one car. )