Incredibly, when a property manager uses their own car the mileage rate for a fully electric car is the same as for a petrol or diesel car. This is set at 45 pence per mile for the first 10,000 miles, then 25 pence per mile for any additional mileage.
Fuel Costs
It is well known that the running costs of an electric car are considerably lower than their combustion engine counterparts. I have owned an electric vehicle for 18 months and I am paying between 1-3 pence per mile (depending on where I charge it) whereas a petrol will cost you around 20 pence per mile.
The average motorist in the UK does around 7000 miles per annum and, lets be honest, unless you’re a desk-jockey property manager, you will almost certainly do more than this.
Those 7000 miles in a petrol car will cost you £1400 per annum but in an electric car those same miles will cost you between £70 to £210 per annum.
Running costs
Electric cars are less mechanically complex than electric cars and therefore much cheaper to maintain. I’ve yet to get a maintenance bill in my 18 months of electric car ownership. Combustion engine equivalents need regular servicing and have many more moving parts that are prone to wear and tear.
A little known fact is that, potentially, you might never have to change the brake pads on an electric car. The regenerative breaking in many electric cars can be used in lieu of the brakes. When you take your foot off the accelerator of an electric car, the regenerative braking system (an energy recovery mechanism) slows down the car converting its kinetic energy into electricity which is feed back into the cars batteries. I have a mechanic friend who has seen 5-year-old electric vehicles with next to no braking system wear and tear.
The case to management for a leased electric company car
If you’ve read this far then we have likely piqued your interest but perhaps you can go a stage further and ask management to lease an electric car for you. I also own a residential leasehold management company and my property managers can do up to 600 miles a month. They claim mileage back at a rate of 45 pence a mile and this comes at a cost of £270 for me as their employer. I currently pay £405 per month to lease my Tesla but other electric vehicles can be leased at rate comparable to the £270 a month that some of my property managers claim in mileage.
However, the real clincher is that the electric car will be TAX FREE. At present, there is no benefit in kind tax on electric vehicles. If you were to have a combustion engine company car, HMRC would see this as a “benefit in kind” and you will be taxed on it just like your salary. This is not the case for company electric vehicles.
I still drive it like I stole it.
Finally, electric cars are great fun to drive. Sadly for me, the brakes on my Tesla probably will need to be replaced.