News analysis


Left: Consultant Steve Winter expects cost increases for rented and leased vehicles.


and employer weren’t earning money from this process, and that was really all we had to do. The other side of it was we had to prove we had a system in place to accurately record everything.


“The noise disappeared after the first month’s reimbursement.”


Cuddy explained that before the switch, drivers’ discontent was delaying the fleet’s electrification process.


She said: “We have put a lot of effort into keeping our drivers happy and informed in what’s going on. We have seen our order bank increase phenomenally compared to where it was a few years ago, and the impact of that is that we actually employed additional resources just to be able to provide that link to our drivers, so that we can give them updates and chase manufacturers.”


Evans explained that drivers were facing a financial cost to the delays, due to the higher BIK company car tax payments incurred by older ICE vehicles compared with new electrified models.


She said: “We’ve changed to a BEV and PHEV policy for our company car fleet, so our drivers find that really attractive. They want their EV company car with the ultra-low BIK, and they don’t necessarily want to keep their ICE vehicle for longer, so there are some difficult conversations to have when there are delays.”


Another topic at the conference was mileage reimbursement for EV drivers, with HMRC’s Advisory Electricity Rate (AER) generally thought to be unsuitable for drivers using public chargers. Close Brothers head of fleet and travel Steve Cuddy said that his company had begun fully reimbursing drivers for their charging costs – a move effectively forced by employees’ displeasure with the previous regime.


He said: “From about September last year we started to get a lot of noise from our drivers that it was costing them to do business miles, because they were back on the road and having to use public chargers. Before that it wasn’t so bad because everyone was home and rates were a lot cheaper.


“We applied to HMRC for the exemption so that we could fully reimburse. Actually, it turned out to be a lot simpler than we thought.


“It was all based on that the employee


Right: Galliford Try Plant’s Emma Evans said supply problems were a particular issue.


www.businesscar.co.uk | June 2023 | 5


He said: “We have 700 salespeople on the road using public charging. To begin with, because they weren’t getting their money back, it stalled the EV transition. “Because word got round that ‘You’re going to have to pay for business miles’, they didn’t want to change.


“From the moment we put [full reimbursement] in, our EV transition accelerated again within a couple of months.”


AFP chair Paul Hollick told the conference that the organisation’s members had helped it become the “most significant” professional voice in the fleet sector, three years after it was formed through the merger of ACFO and ICFM.


He said the AFP was growing rapidly, financially sound, and had plans to tackle a wide range of issues.


He said: “While this is just the second AFP annual conference, it already feels like a well-established part of the fleet calendar.


“The fact that we are able to attract 300 members to this conference is a clear indication of the role that we play for our sector in helping fleet managers to meet the challenges they are facing head-on. “The event’s ethos of providing nuts- and-bolts guidance on current issues is very much based on a need expressed by many fleet managers to access practical guidance that can have a direct effect on the day-to-day issues they are encountering.”


In this issue


This month as we edge closer to the 2030 ICE engine cut-off date, we answer the question every fleet transitioning to EV is asking – will the UK’s public charging infrastructure be up to the job?


Everyone I seem to speak to in the industry is positive and believes it won’t be a problem. There’s no doubt it is improving, for example after managing with two lots of 7kW chargers in my own town in Hertfordshire, I noticed purely by chance that a batch of fast chargers have turned up in the car park of a hotel and restaurant in the next town. So, choice and speed are improving – but on the flip side, I’m waiting to see how much they will cost for the pleasure.


I’ll let you read Jack’s feature, which starts on page 24 for yourselves, but the upshot is, at this point the amount of chargers doesn’t tally up to the number of EVs sold. He believes that unless the Government gets somewhere near its optimistic target, we could all be in queues reminiscent of the last fuel crisis when we need a charge. A casual coffee stop would be fine, but any longer won’t be good for the productivity of fleets and drivers. On top of this, you’ve got to factor in the reliability of chargers and as I mentioned above – the cost. It will be interesting to see how this story develops during the rest of this year. Elsewhere, it’s hard to believe, but entries for this year’s Business Car Awards close at the end of this month. So, get your entries in now, as it’s always great to celebrate the best of the best in fleet. I’m also really pleased to announce that Fleet Operations are now a sponsor, too.


Enjoy the issue.


Martyn Collins Business Car Editor


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