EV general discussion

[lordrobs]

There is a mechanism where a company can pay you extra to cover your costs without having a burden of proof. For eg we got additional payments when the fuel was sky high in 21/22, the HMRC rate was a joke at the time. The company did make us suffer for 6 months before they did something though, fortunately it was back dated.

The 200 miles is based upon the fact that many cars can do this is one charge, and it should be covered by the cheaper overnight electricity. You use the HMRC rate for the whole trip, and anything over 200 miles where you have used public charging, you can claim that back as well, you don't even need a receipt, just a screenshot of the charger screen is enough.

Very interesting! Yes, the sudden fuel price jump is when I swapped from the company paying me back business miles to me paying them back my private mileage. Makes sense anyway for me with a car on the upper levels of the lowest engine size bracket.

We've got a new finance guy who started last week who takes over the accounts fully in the summer. Cars are due for replacement in the next year or thereabouts so it will be interesting to see how he goes with them. At the moment they are bought outright and run to the point where they aren't worth much which isn't really what most companies do.

 

[lordrobs]

I tend to think the need for PHEV range is midguided. What you want is enough electric power to do your daily pootle to the supermarket, school, and work; and enough for the car to switch to electric power through the city after a long motorway run where it can recharge a bit. Go beyond about 30 miles of pure electric range and you're getting diminishing returns. It doesn't help much for the areas where PHEV's help but it's also not doing much on the really long runs. Instead it's just increasing cost and weight.

The exact mileage will be very use case specific though. 30 miles would be an awful range for me because my commute is 34 miles, so I'd not only end up running the engine daily but it wouldn't be enough to even let it warm up. I agree with you in principal though, you want that range to be adequate for the day to day stuff but not much more.

I'd love a PHEV in all honesty. I would plug it in because I get to choose whether the company pays me business miles or if I pay them private so I'd swap to the former. 36 mile range all year round would see me never burning a drop of fuel when I'm in the office (with the extra couple of miles to cover the nursery detour twice a week) and would cover a chunk of personal trips as well. Then when I'm on a work trip just fill her up as usual.

 

[Mr Jack]

The exact mileage will be very use case specific though. 30 miles would be an awful range for me because my commute is 34 miles, so I'd not only end up running the engine daily but it wouldn't be enough to even let it warm up. I agree with you in principal though, you want that range to be adequate for the day to day stuff but not much more.

I don't know what your exact commute is, but in a lot of PHEV's electric only mode is quite underpowered; so for most longer commutes you'd end up working the engine some anyway with the electric provided more efficiency than you'd get without it rather than pure electric power all the way. They're hybrids rather than EVs that have an engine that you can switch on when the battery runs out.

 

[Tinders]

You'll love the new VAG PHEVS. 1.5 engine, so the higher rate from HMRC, and its got a decent size tank. Best of all is the 20kwh battery, 50 miles will be easily achievable. They will do 70mph on battery alone.

Very interesting! Yes, the sudden fuel price jump is when I swapped from the company paying me back business miles to me paying them back my private mileage. Makes sense anyway for me with a car on the upper levels of the lowest engine size bracket.

We've got a new finance guy who started last week who takes over the accounts fully in the summer. Cars are due for replacement in the next year or thereabouts so it will be interesting to see how he goes with them. At the moment they are bought outright and run to the point where they aren't worth much which isn't really what most companies do.

We were always going to be forced down the EV route, certainly by 2028, but 2025 has come as a shock. We are a very large multinational, with some serious fingers in the energy green pie, and we have a lot of cars on the fleet, so its an easy win for them to hit net zero by targeting the drivers. And tbh, i've decided to ride BIK gravy train, I'll never get such cheap but quality motoring again.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Bigger batteries into PHEV and range also improve the power available and EV speed to allow less enginer intro, regen and charge speeds. So it adds a fair bit of benefit. Particularly in UK and i think Germany to drop into better tax bands and the geofencing that will no doubt start appearing for ZEV zones in cities.

I always find PHEV frustrating a where you cant deploy full power without starting the engine and then you just feel like you are thrashing a cold engine... cos you are

 

[sandys]

The exact mileage will be very use case specific though. 30 miles would be an awful range for me because my commute is 34 miles, so I'd not only end up running the engine daily but it wouldn't be enough to even let it warm up. I agree with you in principal though, you want that range to be adequate for the day to day stuff but not much more.

I always find PHEV frustrating a where you cant deploy full power without starting the engine and then you just feel like you are thrashing a cold engine... cos you are

It's not completely cold, the High Voltage Coolant Heater warms the coolant for the cabin heating and the engine, does run on a little I guess for the CAT but not too long.

You'll find that whatever the cars range is doing, you always want just a few miles more the number of times we'll do 50-70 miles in a day for out of town shops and all the day to day stuff, the car still acts as a hybrid when out of battery so you can still regen, it will still switch the engine off on low load motorway at 70+ etc. so you'll regularly see > 150mpg on a trip depending on of course what it needs to do, we just program it and leave it to Google to sort out with its topological data. Of course battery can go completely dead with very little regen and some city driving will be low twenties but that is very rare for us, happened once on a weeks holiday when we couldn't find an empty charger or wasn't massively more expensive than petrol.

The trip for the last 9k has us at 140mpg.

 

[Hawk Tuah]

I get the idea of a lightweight ICE safety mechanism for arriving at a charger, only to find it's occupied, not working etc. But the usefulness of that is decreasing as infrastructure improves.

A PHEV is always going to be a heavily compromised EV, considering the alternative weight and cost of all the ICE components could just be spent on a bigger capacity battery.

 

[sandys]

You say that but my PHEV despite having two drive trains is still lighter at 2100kg than many EV with similar capability. Obviously it comes with its compromises, as in, not the best EV and not the best petrol but hey you can't have everything

 

[Greebo]

I tend to think the need for PHEV range is midguided. What you want is enough electric power to do your daily pootle to the supermarket, school, and work; and enough for the car to switch to electric power through the city after a long motorway run where it can recharge a bit. Go beyond about 30 miles of pure electric range and you're getting diminishing returns. It doesn't help much for the areas where PHEV's help but it's also not doing much on the really long runs. Instead it's just increasing cost and weight.

There are a few diesel PHEVs out there; I wonder whether there's real world data on their MPGs compared to petrol PHEVs? Obviously, usage patterns are a huge influence.



How big an issue is this? Presumably, less than for diesels in general.

For me its for two reasons:

1. the more range the lower the BIK becomes so saves me hundreds of pounds per month compared to "lesser" hybrids
2. I wanted a car with enough range that I could drive on full electric to work and back home again.

 

[Greebo]

I don't know what your exact commute is, but in a lot of PHEV's electric only mode is quite underpowered; so for most longer commutes you'd end up working the engine some anyway with the electric provided more efficiency than you'd get without it rather than pure electric power all the way. They're hybrids rather than EVs that have an engine that you can switch on when the battery runs out.

correct. Current generation have improved that though but with mine from 3 years ago, the electric motor isnt that powerful (for a big suv) and once on the dual carriageway at speed the ICE kicks in. Currently doing 67% of my mileage on EV only. But If i didnt have several miles of my commute on an unbusy dual carriageway, I would be 100% EV to work.

But the new model has 100bhp more EV motors as well as 20% more range so should stay on battery only for even longer.

 

[Greebo]

I get the idea of a lightweight ICE safety mechanism for arriving at a charger, only to find it's occupied, not working etc. But the usefulness of that is decreasing as infrastructure improves.

A PHEV is always going to be a heavily compromised EV, considering the alternative weight and cost of all the ICE components could just be spent on a bigger capacity battery.

And then cost £30k more (ev equivalent cost of my hybrid SUV) . Yes running 100% EV may well save money over running 67% (or hopefully 80%+ with the new model) on EV but since you use the ICE so little, its going to take a long,long time to get the extra cost of the EV back.

Plus EVs still wont tow big weight (cyber truck excluded)

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Unfortunately HMRC set the rules, and in this specific case "Hybrid cars are treated as either petrol or diesel cars for advisory fuel rates." https://www.gov.uk/guidance/advisory-fuel-rates.

Employers can pay their company car users what they like, this is true, but it then introduces the added complication of ensuring that all costs are recorded / proven and it also introduces a potential tax / NIC implication. In reality no employer is going to bother with that which is why they almost entirely stick to the HMRC advisory fuel rates and do away with all that hassle and pay a flat tax free amount.

I think you may be confusing two different issues. If the deal is your employer provides the car, pays for the fuel and recover private milage from you, your employer can (and should) pay for the electricity you put into the car at home as long as it can be measured (assuming it’s a plug in).

This was clarified by a HMRC bulletin here:

October 2023 issue of the Employer Bulletin

www.gov.uk

Like I said, it’s an issue between you and your employer, if they pay for the petrol but not the electricity for plug in car, I’d be having words or don’t plug it in, hence why lots of people don’t bother. Plugging it in ultimately saves your employer money even if they are paying for the electric.

The admin is probably a ball ache which is why they don’t do it and just take the hit on the extra fuel. See the all star solution I mentioned earlier (I doubt this is a free service mind) and I’m sure others are available.

To note this doesn’t apply if you pay for the fuel and they pay you business miles. I’d not accept this arrangement for a EV though due to the wildly varying cost of public charging.

Paying back private miles is the only thing that makes sense as an employee so you don’t get short changed if you need to use a lot of rapid chargers for work.

We were having the same issues, quite a few companies operate in the same way, many folk dont have fuel for private use due to tax implication.

It actually held back EV adoption at our place, as with the HMRC reimbursement, you were out of pocket if you did a decent amount of miles. Its all changed, the bandings have been ammended, so EV's are cost effective again, and you can claim back public charging if you cover more than 200 miles in a trip. As of 2025 all company car drivers at our place will only be able order EV's. And to further complicate matters, low mileage users, who can opt out, will no longer be able to have company provided insurance.

What’s this 200 mile rule you refer to?

They can either pay for the fuel and claim back private miles from you or you pay for the fuel and claim business miles from them. You can’t mix the two up.

If they are paying you business miles, any additional claims for using rapid chargers are probably a taxable benefit.

 

[Tinders]

I think you may be confusing two different issues. If the deal is your employer provides the car, pays for the fuel and recover private milage from you, your employer can (and should) pay for the electricity you put into the car at home as long as it can be measured (assuming it’s a plug in).

This was clarified by a HMRC bulletin here:

October 2023 issue of the Employer Bulletin

www.gov.uk

Like I said, it’s an issue between you and your employer, if they pay for the petrol but not the electricity for plug in car, I’d be having words or don’t plug it in, hence why lots of people don’t bother. Plugging it in ultimately saves your employer money even if they are paying for the electric.

The admin is probably a ball ache which is why they don’t do it and just take the hit on the extra fuel. See the all star solution I mentioned earlier (I doubt this is a free service mind) and I’m sure others are available.

To note this doesn’t apply if you pay for the fuel and they pay you business miles. I’d not accept this arrangement for a EV though due to the wildly varying cost of public charging.

Paying back private miles is the only thing that makes sense as an employee so you don’t get short changed if you need to use a lot of rapid chargers for work.


What’s this 200 mile rule you refer to?

They can either pay for the fuel and claim back private miles from you or you pay for the fuel and claim business miles from them. You can’t mix the two up.

If they are paying you business miles, any additional claims for using rapid chargers are probably a taxable benefit.

200 miles is the figure our company has come up with, it’s not a HMRC edict.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Fair enough, I’d suggest it’s not ‘legit’ and would fall foul of the regs if they are mixing paying business miles and paying for ‘fuel’ but that’s up to them.

 

[Tinders]

I’d be surprised if they are doing something not within the rules. We’re not a tinpot outfit. You would hope One of the bigger employers in the country would be playing by the rules…..or they have found a loop hole

 

[Ste]

Hmrc have not make phevs straightforward!

 

[Jonnycoupe]

You say that but my PHEV despite having two drive trains is still lighter at 2100kg than many EV with similar capability. Obviously it comes with its compromises, as in, not the best EV and not the best petrol but hey you can't have everything

Yep.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

It's not completely cold, the High Voltage Coolant Heater warms the coolant for the cabin heating and the engine, does run on a little I guess for the CAT but not too long.

Its cold.

 

[paradigm]

Its cold.

Indeed. We tend to let the engine run through one cycle of idling whilst using EV power if we know we will be needed the engine later on in the journey, then making sure we have “hybrid” mode enabled so it continues to switch between EV and ICE depending on throttle load.

We NEVER use GTE mode until the engine is 100% warm.

It is an oversight IMO, and the engine should be artificially limited in RPM until warm.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

If the HV heater is heated an aluminium engine to 90C before it gets to the cabin something is really wrong