How to set up your business for electric company cars

Company car drivers behind the wheel of an electric cars can quite rightly think that life’s pretty good. EVs emit zero CO2 emissions, which means Benefit-in-Kind rates are cheap, saving them hundreds of pounds each and every month.

They’ve got clear consciences, too, because they can enjoy the fact they’re driving vehicles that emit no harmful exhaust emissions.

All good, but are things so favourable for the businesses that employ them? And just how easy is it for them to ditch a petrol and diesel fleet in favour of a battery-powered one? Here are five aspects of electric motoring to consider before your company makes the switch.

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1. Make sure you understand staff journey patterns

It’s essential that the business and the staff member understand the sort of mileage the driver will do in their weekly life. Only once you know that can you work out whether or not an electric car (or van) will be suitable.

And one of the first things you need to find out is if the staffer can have a home charging point (aka a wallbox charger) installed. That’s because it is far cheaper and more convenient to be able to charge up an EV overnight at home.

Obviously, you can run an EV using the public charging network, but this is  much more costly than home-charging, which will push up the cost-per-mile of the vehicle. 

Another alternative is for the business to install some chargers at work – see below for more on that.

If you have drivers that spend a lot of time on the road, then understanding their journey patterns becomes even more important. Yes, many electric cars and electric vans now have battery ranges of more than 200 miles (more than 300 miles is gradually becoming more common), which is great, but if your staff member regularly does 400 or 500 miles in a day, then they’ll need to factor in recharging on the public network. And once more, that’s when you face hefty recharging costs. Sometimes, you just need to accept that an EV won’t work.

Read more: The fastest charging electric cars

2. Work out the whole-life cost of a car model

When a company is looking at changing up its fleet, it doesn’t look at the monthly leasing cost. Instead, the fleet manager studies a vehicle’s whole-life cost. 

The whole-life cost includes a number of factors, including insurance prices, and its cost-per-mile figure.

There’s no denying that EVs tend to have quite high leasing rates (certainly compared with those of petrol or diesel rivals) but the upside is that they have much lower running costs. Whole-life cost is the accurate way to work out whether or not an EV will end up being the financially astute option for both your employee and the business as a whole. Only by calculating this number can a business avoid a car that’s really expensive to insure or uses fuel/electricity inefficiently.

Our new car reviews – which cover running costs as well as many other aspects of a model – are a good place to start your research.

3. Help your employees adapt to electrified driving

Driving an electric car is a significantly different experience from driving a petrol or diesel model, which can be a surprise for drivers making the move. That’s why a training programme makes good sense, because it will allow company car drivers to make the most of an EV switch.

Training courses will allow fleet drivers to understand new systems such as regenerative braking, and also teach how to eke the maximum out of any battery charge.

Even the recharging process can seem intimidating at first, because of the sheer range of charge points and charge point providers, the various prices, and whether or not they’re even available (although this is becoming less of an issue as the number of charge points increases).

But of course, potential EV converts really needn’t feel intimidated – from our own experience, recharging an EV quickly becomes second nature, and anyway a training course will point new EV users towards one-size-fits-all apps such as Zap-Map, which can reduce anxiety.

Undoubtedly, such training course cost money, and if your business doesn’t want to pay for it, then a simple information sheet could be the next best thing. You can use it to layout out the different types and speeds of charger, and their costs. Such a leaflet could also encourage drivers to work out whether or not a subscription to a charging network would be cost effective.

If you have drivers who claim mileage expenses, you’ll need to know how much to reimburse them. From September 1, 2025, the Government set a rate of 8p per mile for driver who can charge at home, and 14p per mile for those who charge on the public network. 

For more information, see our guide on Advisory Fuel Rates.

Read more: How long does it take to charge and electric car?

4. Save money on installing electric car chargers at your workplace

The Government has put in place a scheme under which businesses can apply for a grant of £350 towards the cost of installing a charging point at a workplace address. On top of that, the business can apply for up to 40 grants across all of its premises. See the Government’s Workplace Charging Scheme guide for more information.

However, once the charger(s) has been installed, you then need to decide if you’re going to charge your staff for using them.

The upside is that more and more staff will join the EV revolution, but the downside is that you’ll end up paying for more electricity every month.

If you want to be completely fair about it, then we’d suggest charging staff roughly the same as they would pay to charge at home. At least then they won’t feel hard done by. 

It might entice more staff into the EV world at the same time.

You’ll also face the extra cost of monitoring charger use at your workplace, because the last thing you need is staff who need to head off on business trips being unable to top up their cars because all the chargers are in use.

5. Help your staff choose the best car (or van) for their needs

What Car?’s expert road testers have driven all the latest models, and have come up with a number of Top-10 vehicle guides to help you select the ideal make and model for you. Our Best Electric Cars and Best Electric SUVs pages are a good place to start.

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