Why electric vehicles are fantastic for city-based employers

Have you ever considered offering electric vehicles to your employees? Do any of them live in a city or the suburbs? Then this article is for you. We explore why cities are ready for EVs now and how they can save your organisation money and boost your eco-credentials.

CITIES ARE EV-READY ZONES

EV charging infrastructure is ready and waiting to be used in city centres. Data shows that in the UK there’s an average distance of 1.72km between charging points. But in cities, this figure drops significantly. For example, in Westminster charging points are on average 0.16kms apart from one another.

Having charging points installed at work will definitely help with the take-up of electric cars. But employees still need to be able to charge their car away from work. And, if they live in flats or a home without a drive or garage, they still need to be able to top up their battery. As city dwellers, they have plenty of options on their doorstep, or a few hundred metres away.

Here are the average distances between EV charging points in the following major cities:

Exeter – 0.39km
Southampton – 0.52km
Bristol – 0.55km
Newcastle – 0.59km
Bath – 0.62km
Oxford – 0.66km
Manchester – 0.72km
Birmingham – 0.77km
Liverpool – 0.84km
Leeds – 0.84km

And these numbers are likely to decrease as local authorities are planning to introduce more chargers, including running charging points off lamp posts, to boost inner-city access.

CLEAN AIR ZONES AND CONGESTION CHARGES MAKE EVS AN ATTRACTIVE PROPOSITION

If your employees need to drive for work or visit other city-centre locations, electric vehicles will help you save a lot of money. Why? Because lots of cities have already introduced, or are in the process of introducing, clean air zone and congestion charges.

How much might this cost businesses and commuters? London has led the way with a congestion charge of £11.50 per day and an ultra-low emission zone charge of £12.50 per day, which EVs are exempt from. If every city follows suit, those costs will increase the cost of the commute for employees who drive in to work. And it will also inflate business travel costs as employees visit other city locations and claim for these fees on their expenses.

Even if your local council hasn’t announced any changes yet, most major cities are at least reviewing their clean air policies and deciding whether to charge vehicles for city centre driving. The best way to avoid these costs is to adopt vehicles that don’t emit any CO2 at all. And your city centre employees could be the best way to start.

BE PART OF THE CLEAN AIR SOLUTION

Corporate social responsibility is a major factor for many businesses and being part of a clean air solution is much better than being part of the carbon-emitting problem.

553,000 working days were lost in 2016 due to respiratory problems. By reducing your company’s contribution to inner-city emissions, you’ll help your own employees, city dwellers and visitors to enjoy cleaner air that’s easier to breathe.

REDUCE YOUR ORGANISATION’S CARBON FOOTPRINT AND YOUR TAX BILL

Of course, reducing your company’s emissions also means you’ll have a much smaller carbon footprint to record in your annual report. In an increasingly environmentally aware culture this can only be a good thing, particularly for investors and employees seeking ethical places to work.

And there’s another plus point too: your organisation and your EV-driving employees will also save cash. HMRC’s new car benefit tax bands for 2020-2021 provide amazing 0% Benefit in Kind (BIK) incentives for those adopting electric vehicles. And even if people aren’t ready for pure electric cars just yet, they can also benefit from significantly reduced benefit-in-kind for low emission cars like hybrids.

To find out how much cash your employees and your enterprise could save by going electric, take a look at our articles which explain the impact of the new benefit-in-kind rates for staff and organisations .

Switching to electric vehicles is a great option for city-based businesses as it could save you significant sums of money in clean air zone charges and tax. Plus, it puts you on the right side of history when it comes to reducing carbon emissions and marks you out as an ethical business that’s good to work for.