It’s even more striking when you compare the figures for EVs against combustion-engined cars. While a Tesla Model S costing £97,700 attracts a 0% company car tax from 6 April, a slightly cheaper Mercedes-Benz S450L AMG Line costs the driver a whopping £13,116 for the year.

Preparations have been under way for some time. Hyundai, for example, earlier this year, revised its EV range and was making sure cars are available. EVs such as the Kona Electric have been in short supply, but that was expected to have changed by now.

“We expect there to be a surge for our fully electric vehicles and we will be seeing greater availability of those models this year and beyond,” said Ashley Andrew, managing director of Hyundai Motor UK in February. However, the coronavirus pandemic is likely to have a significant impact on vehicle supply.

Businesses are also revising their electric vehicle policies, some radically. Consulting and IT firm Atos, for example, now offers electric cars only to any new employee signing up to its company fleet scheme.

Charge point firm Pod Point, meanwhile, has reported “record” demand for installations at businesses over the past six months. “With the BIK change, we expect to see a massive increase in company car drivers going electric. It’s going to turn the industry on its head,” Pod Point CEO Erik Fairbairn said.

It won’t all go smoothly. The BVRLA’s Keaney points out that a surge in demand can only come if there are enough EVs available on the market. One Atos employee, who wanted to remain anonymous, grumbled that delivery times for new electric cars were so long that the policy had in effect imposed a ban on company cars.

Some companies, however, don’t offer their employees the option of an electric car. Sometimes this is because they have a deal with just one manufacturer, which might not yet sell an EV. For example, Serco and Capita, both service companies, only use Ford, which won’t have an EV available until the pricey Mustang Mach-E arrives late in the year.

Sticking with combustion-engined cars, however, is set to get more costly. Switching to the WLTP method of calculating CO2 for tax bands means that an Astra 1.2 jumps from its 99g/km emission figure to 119g/km. After some pressure, the government adjusted the bands to account for the WLTP jump, but our sample Astra still goes from a 23% band to 26%, costing drivers more.

“The reduction in rates for two years is unlikely to compensate drivers fully for the increase in emissions,” said Caroline Sandall, chairman of fleet industry pressure group ACFO. She also pointed out that because of December’s general election, the changes haven’t yet been made law.

The changes also benefit plug-in hybrids, fleet sales of which have exploded since the July announcement. SMMT figures show that in the second half of last year, three out of four of new PHEVs sold went to fleets. The new tax rules benefit longer-range plug-in hybrids. For example, the new BMW X5 xDrive45e, with an electric range of 54 miles, will fall into the 6% tax band from the 6th of April, rather than the 12% band it would have been in if BMW had stuck with the previous version’s 20-mile range.

Of course, what the government gives it can also take away. After April 2023, it will have the power to create new tax bands. By that time, however, the temptation of cheaper motoring will have persuaded thousands of company car drivers into switching to plug-ins.

Nick Gibbs

READ MORE

Top 10 Best Electric Cars 2020

UK Government doubles funding for EV infrastructure

Renault confirms Twingo ZE to be launched later this year