Ev company car

[Donotpanicoknowpanic]

Hello,

Does anyone know

I'm with octopus energy

I want to get an EV for my next company car as the tax savings are considerable

I would charge it at home (as well as out and about as I do lots of long distance driving)

When I charge it at home does the EV part come through as a separate part on my bill

I would need to submit the cost to my employer as it would be company millage

I was going to sign up to the octopus EV tariff and also use octopus to install the EV wall charger

If you get an Octopus EV car then they will install a home charger for you if you don't already have one.

I'm not with Octopus for my home energy so can't answer the bill side, sorry.

No, you just get an electricity bill. If you have an EV tariff it's very cheap to charge overnight.
Can't you jut claim a set amount per mile travelled?

Thanks,

The company would provide the car so I don't need to worry about that side of things

I think Octopus installs zappi EV chargers that comes with an app that can tell you how much power you have put into the car each month.

Most electric vehicles have apps that track the charge you put into them so you can calculate your electricity. Our Pod Point charger does the same through an app. So you can easily work out the cost of charging the car

I'm not sure you can claim electricity back from work - at my work you can't for electric vehicles as it's not possible to separate it out on the bill.

I have a plug in hybrid, so the numbers are not necessarily comparable to a full EV but the app for my charger (ohme) tells me my usage on the charger. I am on the octopus tariff, but octopus just give you a complete electricity bill.

Most employers pay the company car electric car mileage rate for business miles travelled

@Donotpanicoknowpanic suggest you double check the arrangement with your employer. It is common that you claim back your business mileage via expenses, the Advisory Electric Rate is currently 7p per mile. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/advisory-fuel-rates

My place doesn’t require a receipt on the basis fuel receipts are to claim back VAT, which is negligible on Electric.

Not sure how Octoous show billing, I’m sure an EV customer will be along shortly.

Yes, this would be my expectation too - that you would claim for the business miles you undertook, at the rate applicable to an electric car - rather than claim the cost of charging your car.

Or would the company car be exclusively for business use, OP?

This is how mine works. I have an EV as a company car. I claim mileage for business journeys just like I did for a petrol car, but the expenses system knows what car I’ve got and gives me the EV rate per mile.

I charge at home with a PodPoint. I’m not on an EV tariff but I do have a day/night rate, so set it to charge in the cheaper night-time hours.

If I charge on the public network I probably lose out versus the company car expenses rate, but that’s much the same as if you fill up with petrol on the motorway versus a cheaper supermarket!

At the moment I have a fuel card

At the end of each month I submit expenses

Basically it's a list of how many businesses miles I've done and how many private

From that they work out how much private fuel cost I owe

With an EV car I would charge over night at home

Then as I would routinely drive more miles in a day than the car battery would allow

I will then need to charge using a public charger

The company would give me a EV card to use for the public charger

That sounds like an annoying set up, @Donotpanicoknowpanic.

Firstly public chargers are not yet all one type, different suppliers have their own apps that you load money onto. We end up with 17 different apps as they aren’t all even card payment.

Secondly having to charge midway through your day will take about 30 mins a time.

Our company allows you to have a petrol/diesel company car if you routinely do more miles than is practical for the range.

(I am familiar with the fuel card and having your private miles deducted from payroll every month, that’s how it works at ours too, but the EV system is different.)

The company car tax on a petrol car is being about £180 per a month (depending on the car), I assume this will increase

The tax on EV cars are considerably less, so this is mainly a financial decision

Yes it takes up to 30 minutes but I would only need to put enough electric in to get home (i.e. 80 miles worth hopefully max)

And I normally have a toilet break on the drive up and drive down as well as eating lunch after a customers

The EV cards also cover various different companies charging stations

I am not concerned about charging out and about

It was more does anyone charge a car at home using octopus energy with an EV tariff and does it come through as a separate part on the bill which I can submit to my company at the end of each month as an expense

(They would then take the total of that and the EV card and work out how much is business and how much is private)

Yep you’ll be much better off on the tax. EV tax increases each year too but you’ve got a looooong way to go to catch up!

I have an EV as a company car and I am with octopus for my electricity. I charge overnight at a very cheap rate but I can't claim anything for my electricity, which doesn't show separately on the bill.
Its a bit more complicated as I actually own the company so it maybe different but I think you just claim mileage rather than for the actual electricity

Thanks

But if you have an EV tariff with octopus you only pay about 7p per a kWh rather than about 21p per a kWh

So on you bill it does not say at all?

no, it just states electricity use not what for.
If you think about it how could it? It would be like showing the electricity for the fridge only or the TV

That is exactly how the Zappi app works. We are on Octopus and have 2 EV's, a plug in hybrid and a Zappi charger. The Zappi app tells me exactly how many kilowatt hours I have used so I would just need to do the Maths (multiply the kilowatt hours by the unit price - 7p).

I see

So basically on the EV tariff all your electricity between a certain time is charged at the lower rate

And the EV charger is set to turn on during that time period?

We own our EV, not a company car, but DH just had to tell them it was electric and they now just ask for mileage, not costs or receipts like they did with our petrol car. He gets the full 45p or whatever a mile though instead of EV mileage rate as currently the EV rate is for company cars but privately owned ones get the same as ICE cars, which is quite nice! I imagine that will change at some point.

But as others have said, your bill doesn't/cant differentiate between EV usage and normal electricity usage. If you're not charging at home and using chargers out and about then you'll be able to have itemised bills for that however (although it's much more expensive).

And all your usage during the overnight hours is at the cheap rate, not just car, so most people also put their washing and stuff on during the cheap hours. That's what we do, so our overnight usage isn't entirely car.

Yes thats right. We control it via our car app rather than the octopus one or anything else.
We plug in when we are not going out agian that day and it switches on at 11pm and off at 5.30am (sooner if its fully charged) automatically. We prefer to keep it topped up in case we have any emergency but we do have a diesel as welll if there was ever a problem.
Saves us a fortune

Be aware that electricity out on the road can be very expensive (65 p kWh, ie nearly 10 x the cost at home seems standard) unless you have time to seek out cheaper options, which might mean the standard 7 ppm HMRC rate doesn't cover what it costs you.

I’m on my second EV, it charges overnight and I also run the dryer, washing machine and dishwasher overnight too.

The car has an internal timer I can set, the charger came with an app but went rogue pretty quickly so I use the timer on the car. The charger relied on a 2g SIM card for connectivity and I think that’s been turned off in our area.

My chargers old at 4yo newer chargers are better.