Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

OK, this headline surprised me, as did the first paragraph,

Orders for diesel and petrol cars at Zenith in June were surpassed by those for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) for the first time.

but then I thought ...... 'perhaps it's just down to Tesla ships arriving in June and distorting the market', but then I read para 3:

Over the past 12 months, Zenith reports that 41% of orders were for BEVs.Great news, EV's and importantly BEV's, appear to be massively disrupting this sector already.

Zenith also said:

Zenith says that salary sacrifice is helping company car drivers to transition to BEVs. In one scheme, 85% of orders have been for BEVs, with the remaining 15% for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

Some of the change might be Hobson's choice. My employer's scheme, for example, has just had a shake-up and no longer offers ICE vehicles; it offers BEV/PHEV only. This is not a bad thing.

Edit to add: I've just checked our scheme website and I see I could get (lease) an e-up! for around £200pm. Not a bad price, TBH.

JKenH

This switch to EVs is being driven by salary sacrifice schemes.

A brief description here of how it works for those who don’t know already.

The salary sacrifice scheme involves participating employees giving up part of their pay packet, under the terms and conditions of their employment, while their employer gives them a car in return. Because the employee’s overall pay is reduced, they pay less tax and National Insurance.   

The Government still charges benefit-in-kind tax on salary sacrifice cars, but the current rate for electric vehicles is just 1%.

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/electric-fleet-news/2021/07/14/nissan-supplies-500-leafs-to-nhs-salary-sacrifice-scheme

Employers are course are keen to promote this because they also pay less Employer’s NI.

There’s an awful lot of revenue being lost by the Exchequer so I imagine the government will move to stop this before too long. Until then fill your boots.

There are also significant tax advantages for companies that buy EVs outright.

ABrass

JKenH said:

This switch to EVs is being driven by salary sacrifice schemes.

A brief description here of how it works for those who don’t know already.

The salary sacrifice scheme involves participating employees giving up part of their pay packet, under the terms and conditions of their employment, while their employer gives them a car in return. Because the employee’s overall pay is reduced, they pay less tax and National Insurance.   

The Government still charges benefit-in-kind tax on salary sacrifice cars, but the current rate for electric vehicles is just 1%.

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/electric-fleet-news/2021/07/14/nissan-supplies-500-leafs-to-nhs-salary-sacrifice-scheme

Employers are course are keen to promote this because they also pay less Employer’s NI.

There’s an awful lot of revenue being lost by the Exchequer so I imagine the government will move to stop this before too long. Until then fill your boots.

There are also significant tax advantages for companies that buy EVs outright.

It's a deliberate choice to increase the amount of EVs on the market and in two or three years the EVs on the second hand market. And as a way to get the big fleet buyers into the EV market in bulk, which in turn drives company charging points.

The drop in BIK is temporary and being phased out already. So yes, they will be stopping it in a few years, just like they planned.

But by then the price for EVs should also be dropping to near parity level anyway.

Martyn1981

QrizB said:

Martyn1981 said:

OK, this headline surprised me, as did the first paragraph,

Orders for diesel and petrol cars at Zenith in June were surpassed by those for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) for the first time.

but then I thought ...... 'perhaps it's just down to Tesla ships arriving in June and distorting the market', but then I read para 3:

Over the past 12 months, Zenith reports that 41% of orders were for BEVs.Great news, EV's and importantly BEV's, appear to be massively disrupting this sector already.

Zenith also said:

Zenith says that salary sacrifice is helping company car drivers to transition to BEVs. In one scheme, 85% of orders have been for BEVs, with the remaining 15% for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

Some of the change might be Hobson's choice. My employer's scheme, for example, has just had a shake-up and no longer offers ICE vehicles; it offers BEV/PHEV only. This is not a bad thing.

Edit to add: I've just checked our scheme website and I see I could get (lease) an e-up! for around £200pm. Not a bad price, TBH.

Wifey's employers finally launched their salary sacrifice BEV scheme in June, that I've mentioned before, and was to launch Nov 2019, then May 2020 ...... then Covid ....... so we gave up and bought a Tesla. We were hoping to get an MG estate, for more practical transportation of the doggies, but the 'from' price of £209pm (fully inclusive) came out at £315pm when details were entered (I guess Wifey doesn't pay a high enough tax rate), so we are sticking with the Ioniq, which tbf, is a lovely car.

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

We were hoping to get an MG estate, for more practical transportation of the doggies, but the 'from' price of £209pm (fully inclusive) came out at £315pm when details were entered (I guess Wifey doesn't pay a high enough tax rate), so we are sticking with the Ioniq, which tbf, is a lovely car.

I cold be tempted by an MG estate but sadly it doesn't appear to be offered in our scheme

Also I'm prone to fitting random tat carefully-chosen accessories to my cars and so leasing isn't ideal!At least if I own it, I know that I'm going to have to explain to the next owner what the holes in the dash are for

Martyn1981

Pretty cool.

XL Fleet And ENow Collaborate To Reduce Emissions From Refrigerated Trailers

Actually, most of the food we eat is transported over long distances in refrigerated trucks that rely on diesel engines to power the air conditioning units that keep the products inside cold. More than 50,000 new refrigerated trailers are sold every year in US, joining the hundreds of thousands already in service. Each one of them can create as many exhaust emissions as a typical diesel powered delivery truck. If we are concerned about diesel emissions, we shouldn’t overlook the contribution to the problem made by refrigerated trailers.

XL Fleet and eNow are collaborating on the design and development of the system that will power electrically powered Class 8 refrigerated transportation units as a replacement for conventional diesel powered trailers. XL Fleet is developing the integrated lithium-ion battery and power electronics technology that will be installed under the floor of the Class 8 trailers. The system will provide about 12 hours of run time between charges.

eNow’s patented system captures the sun’s energy with solar panels mounted on the roof of the eTRU trailers and stores it in auxiliary batteries mounted beneath the floor of the trailer. That energy can be used to power lift gates, in-cab HVAC, trailer refrigeration, and telematics as well as appliances and lighting.

Martyn1981

After a quick read, the article title seems to be true, a brilliant idea that allows van users to try, for free, an electric van for 2 months to get a feel for how it all works, charging times, range etc. I'm sure it'll convert many (perhaps most) of those that give it a go. [Note - At the very end it mentions Leeds City Council running a similar scheme in 2020, so a shout out to Leeds for this excellent idea.]

UK County Identifies Simple Yet Brilliant Way To Get Butts In EV Seats

A county in the UK, Kent County, is taking all of that into account and trialling a brilliant new program. It is specifically targeting small businesses, which makes sense for variety of reasons, and is offering two-month trials of electric vans. To start with, Kent County has purchased 24 electric vans from Renault — 20 Kangoo E-Tech vans and 4 ZOE Vans (a van version of Renault’s popular ZOE electric car). The county said that it chose these 100% electric Renault vans due to their competitive range and ease of use, but that other electric vehicles will be added to the program over time. Eventually, over the course of the initial two-year period at least, the plan is to have 48 electric vehicles available for interested participants.

Highways England is also contributing to the scheme, providing £1.5 million in funding over a two-year period.

danjackson2021

How is the cybertruck so cheap? I think it will be odd to be at a Tesla dealership and see a basic model Y dual motor priced at the current £54,000, and sitting next to it a dual motor CTruck with all the above mentioned upgrades for £49,000. Seems like that could make the Y a hard sell to a lot of buyers when they see this CT with so many more cool features and it costs 10% less. They may not be in the market for a truck but it will make them wonder why the more expensive Model Y they are considering purchasing doesn’t have any comparable features but still costs more.

QrizB

danjackson2021 said:

How is the cybertruck so cheap?

I'm not aware of Tesla having announced UK pricing yet; certainly their website only offers a £100 refundable deposit option, nothing more. And there were concerns that it might not meet UK safety standards.

What exactly makes you think it's going to be cheaper than a Model Y?

ABrass

Trying to guess the prices in 2-3 years is unwise. Tesla tweak them constantly and neither the model Y or the Cybertruck have release dates, let alone prices.