Electric Vehicles: What Are The Benefits?

Sales of electric cars are booming with electric car sales more than doubling in 2021 to 6.6 million and more than tripling their market share from two years earlier. Electric vehicles are a greener alternative to petrol and diesel cars, but did you know there are many other benefits of electric cars too?

1. Tax and VAT

One big factor that puts people off buying an electric car is the upfront cost. There’s no denying that electric vehicles are currently more expensive to buy than petrol or diesel cars. However, with advances in technology, the cost of electric car batteries is falling year on year, and soon electric cars will be on par price-wise with petrol and diesel cars.

If you buy an electric vehicle to be used as a company car, you’ll enjoy a 2% tax through Benefit in Kind. If the vehicle is used for personal use as well as a business then benefit in kind tax must be paid. The tax rate used to be 16% for EVs, however, from April 2022 until 2025 the new rate will be 2%. It is also important to remember that businesses can claim back VAT on both the purchase of an EV vehicle and on charging. Making EV vehicles an attractive prospect for businesses across the UK.

The government have also created the Plug-in Grant which covers EV cars, vans, motorcycles, trucks and taxis. the maximum grant for cars is £2,500 while the pay-out for vans and trucks can vary between £3,000 and £16,000.

2. No Congestion Charge

Low emission zones or clean air zones are found across major UK cities such as London and Birmingham. These zones essentially mean you have to pay a fee to drive through these areas. However, owning an Electric vehicle produces zero emissions, which means EV drivers do not have to pay Congestion Charges in Low Emission Zones or Clean Air Zones.

3. Impact on the Environment

Electric cars don’t emit any soot or exhaust gases. This means there’s much less harmful air pollution, particularly in big and busy cities. The European Union Agency found that in an EVs lifetime, even with the electricity generation needed, CO2 emissions alone are around 17-30% lower than driving a petrol or diesel equivalent.

Electric cars use less energy to travel the same distance than their petrol or diesel counterparts, meaning less energy is required per car and less energy needs to be produced overall. Also, perhaps not an obvious environmental issue but electric vehicles are incredible quiet, which results in reduced noise pollution. EVs are so quiet that many of them have Acoustic Vehicle Alert Systems (AVAS) fitted to emit a ‘whirring’ noise for safety reasons.

4. Recharging VS Refueling

Recharging your electric car battery is much cheaper than the cost of refilling a petrol or diesel tank. Depending on the price of your electricity at home, home charging will cost you 2-10p per mile, compared to the fuel for a petrol or diesel car costs 12-20p per mile.

Maintenance costs are likely to be much cheaper too: servicing an electric car can be as much as 50% less. Most electric cars use regenerative braking, meaning there’s less wear and tear on the brakes. There are also fewer mechanical parts so there’s less that can go wrong, or that needs to be repaired or replaced over time.

5. Electric Vehicle Performance

Overall, electric vehicles perform much better when accelerating, handling and power than their combustion engine counterparts. An electric car’s low centre of gravity and heavy battery in the chassis improves handling, making for a more comfortable and safe driving experience.

Electric vehicles have more responsive acceleration and use regenerative braking so that the energy used to slow the car is put back into the battery. Electric cars can be incredibly powerful and fast too. Take the Porsche Taycan Turbo S that can go 0-62mph in an impressive 2.8 seconds!