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How much does it cost to charge an electric company car?
Electric company cars offer enormous BIK tax savings, so it’s no surprise that user-choosers are flocking to them. Here’s how to minimise your charging costs once you’ve taken delivery of your ne...
Electric company cars emit precisely zero tailpipe emissions, which means they’re liable for tiny BIK taxation bills, making them highly attractive to company car drivers.
However, charging up your EV is no longer as cheap as it once was, so you need to be a bit more savvy about how, when and where you do so if you’re to keep your “fuel” costs to a minimum.
The good news is that it is still possible to charge your electric car for very little (and perhaps even for free). The bad? It requires patience and planning.
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According to charging app Zap-map, there are more than 1800 free-to-use charging points across the UK, with the bulk of them in London and the South East. You’ll tend to find them in supermarkets and public car parks.
Most of the free chargers in the UK are classed as slow chargers, so offer charging rates of less than 8kW.
Saving on electric company car home charging
Clearly, plugging in your car (or electric van) at home is the easiest way to keep its batteries topped up. Better still, it’s also pretty cost effective.
According to energy watchdog Ofgem, the average cost per kWh of electricity is 29p, which means that a full charge of What Car?’s Car of the Year for 2025 – the Renault 5 – would cost a little more than £15. The 5 has an official battery range of 253 miles if you go for the larger 52kWh battery.
Meanwhile, fuel prices have fallen from their high of a few years ago, but they’re still much higher than electricity costs. Filling the average 55-litre family car with petrol now costs around £74, while diesel remains around 8p per litre more expensive. A similar fill would cost around £78.
Finding the cheapest charging network
Everybody is used to paying different prices for fuel at different providers and in different areas of the country. Well, the public charging network is just the same. And that’s before we get to the different cost according to the power of the charger and whether or not you’ve signed up to a subscription.
The average price of charging an electric car on the public charging network is 51p/kWh on a fast charger, and 76p/kWh on the rapid/ultra-rapid network.
Zap-map data reveals that the most expensive rapid/ultra-rapid network is Instavolt, at 87p/kWh, followed by BP Pulse (85p/kWh), Osprey (82p/kWh), MFG (79p/kWh), Gridserve (79p/kWh) and Ionity (74p/kWh). Tesla charges 53p/kWh. However, note that these are pay-as-you-go prices, not subscription prices.
Subscriptions can definitely reduce your monthly costs, as long as you know you’ll charge up often enough for the lower charging costs to cancel out the monthly cost of the subscription.
Read more: How to charge your electric car for free
To give you an example, BP Pulse charges £7.85 per month for a subscription, and for this fee your charging rate will be reduced by 20%, down to 63p/kWh for a rapid charger, and 69p/kWh for an ultra-rapid charger.
Ionity offers a similar scheme, so while it charges 74p per kWh for pay-as-you-go users, you have access to a charging cost of 43p/kWh if you pay a monthly sub of £10.50.
But don’t worry if you get to a charging point with no account and no battery range. Charge point providers must offer contactless payments by law, although you’ll end up paying the top rate.
In addition, the Zap-map network offers Zap-pay, which allows you to pay at most charge points simply by using the Zap-map app.
Read more: Is it easy to run an electric company car?
Electric car manufacturer charging schemes
A number of car manufacturers have entered into partnerships with energy providers such as OVO Energy to allow them to offer their own charging arrangements.
Some charge a monthly fee while others are free, but they all give access to multiple charging networks using the same app.
Claiming back the cost of charging
If you’re a long-served company car driver, you’ll be used to the idea of advisory fuel rates (these are the rates at which the Government reimburses you for fuel used on work business). Well, the same applies to electric cars, and the current level is 8p per mile.
Unfortunately, most EVs cost more than that to run: if you use a fast charger, an EV will cost an average of 17p per mile, and 24ppm if you use rapid/ultra-rapid charging.
However, it’s not all bad news. Some businesses have taken matters into their own hands by setting their own reimbursement rates to ensure their drivers aren’t out of pocket. And if your workplace has chargers that you can use for free, then it’s a win-win.
Read more: How to claim for charging your electric company car
Why efficiency trumps cost to charge
A decade ago, as the world was tip-toeing towards electric cars, ‘range anxiety’ was a phrase commonly bandied about. There were far fewer charge points around back then, so it was understandable.
However, modern EVs can travel a whole lot farther on a charge, and the number of chargers has increased exponentially, so range anxiety is gradually slipping from the lexicon. Indeed, the efficiency of an EV has become a more important talking point.
So what is efficiency? It’s how far a car can travel on each kWh of energy, and is, in essence, the same as how far a car can travel on a litre of petrol or diesel. So, if you have two cars with a 250-mile range, the one with the smaller battery is the more efficient of the two, and will cost you less to charge up each time. It’s the same as one car travelling the same distance as another, but with a smaller fuel tank. The miles-per-kWh figure is slowly assuming the same importance as miles per gallon (mpg) for petrol or diesel-powered cars.
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