Electric Vehicles For Business

Introduction

Electric vehicles offer an increasingly practical option for business transport with low running costs. Electric vehicles – also known as ecars – are vehicles which are powered exclusively by electricity, removing the need for fossil fuels. Electric vehicles offer an alternative with a cheap and secure power source.

The Northern Ireland government has already provided over 300 charging points in almost 200 locations across the country to support the uptake of electric vehicles. Many businesses are taking their first steps into investing in electric vehicles and charging points around their premises. There are obvious environmental benefits to reducing petrol and diesel consumption and electric vehicles may be a good fit with your business ethos.

This guide will help you to decide if switching to electric vehicles can work for your business. It will explain the business benefits of electric vehicles and some financial incentives which are available to offset vehicle purchase costs and to installation of private charging infrastructure. It will also take you through some of the practical concerns which businesses may have in operating an electric car or van.

Electric vehicles business benefits

Electric vehicles offer a great reduction in transport costs for businesses, especially for fleet vehicles with regular journeys of up to 100 miles per day. Although electric vehicles are more expensive to buy, they have significantly lower running costs when compared to petrol or diesel equivalents.

The British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association has calculated that depending on when and how an electric vehicle is charged it will cost two to four pence per mile. This compares to 10 to 14 pence per mile for an equivalent petrol or diesel vehicle, representing a saving of around 80 to 90 per cent on fuel costs.

There are a series of financial incentives for businesses, including tax and duty exemptions for you and your employees and enhanced capital allowances. For more information on these see the page in this guide on electric vehicles incentives for business.

Find more information on the benefits of electric vehicles on the ecarni website.

Moving to using electric vehicles gives businesses the chance to become involved in innovative transport developments which are addressing environmental issues. Electric vehicles have no tailpipe emissions. It is estimated that an electric car powered from today’s grid could emit between 15 per cent and 40 per cent less CO2 over its lifetime than a similar sized petrol car.

For more information on the benefits of setting environmental concerns at the heart of your business see nibusinessinfo‘s guide on corporate social responsibility.

Read more: nibusinessinfo.co.uk

nibusinessinfo are running a short survey on business awareness of electric vehicles during March. The four questions will take less than a minute to complete – take part in the electric vehicles survey now.