It’s Love MK Day!

On this Love MK Day we wanted to take the time to explain exactly what it is that has made us fall in love with this town we at the EVEC call home.

Read more “It’s Love MK Day!” →

Charging, then and now

In a period in which many of our EV’s are standing dormant, it is important to look back on the last few years, and realise how far we have come as an EV community. 

Back in 2018, we celebrated the advent of 1000 rapid charging locations nationwide around this time in April. The data curated by Zap-Map also specified that this consisted of 1,484 devices, meaning many locations consisted of more than one rapid charger.

Now, in 2020, this number of rapid charging locations has more than doubled to 2168, and with 3133 devices we are still seeing installations that can facilitate multi-car charging.

So where are we going? If we apply the growth of the last two years, we expect to see as many as 4700 locations by the end of 2022!

With every rapid charge point installed, the achievable range of EV’s grows even further, so what will your next destination be once you return to the road? Wherever it is, make sure it’s electrifying.

(Data taken from Zap Map website and represent approximate predictions of growth in EV infrastructure, sourced here: https://www.zap-map.com/statistics/ – Zap-Map is the UK’s leading charging point platform. The charging point map, available on the desktop and iOS/Android apps, helps electric vehicle (EV) drivers locate available charge points, plan routes and share updates with the community.)

Happy Benefit in Kind day!

Happy 0% benefit-in-kind day! From today (06/04/2020) Benefit in kind for electric vehicles drops to 0%, while in 2019, BIK worked out at 16%, this adjustment to 0% represents a massive saving. This accompanies changes across the board favouring lower emission vehicles.

Below is some more information about benefit in kind and how it can help you as a company car driver, as well as a non-company car driver considering making the switch.

But what is benefit in Kind?

When you engage in any form of salary sacrifice scheme on a car through your business, you will often find that the government taxes this perceived benefit, through a system called Benefit in Kind (BIK).

Often, this BIK is measured against the value to you of your car, accounting for things like the car’s value, as well as fuel type.

The value of this can be reduced in cases such as; you use it part-time, you make a contribution towards the cost, you receive fuel contributions or, as is most important to this article: It has low CO2 emissions.

What does it mean to me as a company car driver?

The savings can run up to £1300 a year as shown on our chalkboard we advertised in our centre very recently!

Across your company car catalogue, it can mean that an electric car represents a massive saving when compared to other combustion models in class, meaning you can operate an electric car in a higher class than normal, or run a similar class to your existing vehicle at a massive saving to your fuel costs, and with the complete removal of BIK tax.

Additionally, with the transition of emissions testing moving from NEDC testing to WLTP, some high CO2 combustion vehicles may well see their BIK taxation increase, in line with the government’s green fleet targets.

What can it mean to me as a non-company car driver?

If your company is offering a salary sacrifice scheme this can represent a much more attractive offering than previously.

Normally on salary sacrifice schemes, you would pay a monthly fee for the car and a benefit in kind figure as a form of tax, with the movement to 0% benefit in kind an electric company car can represent a surprisingly low salary sacrifice, as well as a vast decline in maintenance and fuel costs when compared to your current combustion vehicle.