If you run a business in Cornwall or Devon, you’ve probably noticed more electric cars on your site.
Workplace EV charging gives employees and fleet drivers a reliable place to charge, while separate customer-facing charging can also make sense for businesses that want to offer charging to visitors.
Here’s how EV charging can benefit your business and your employees.
What Are the Benefits of Workplace EV Charging?
- Funding: The Workplace Charging Scheme can currently pay up to 75% of eligible costs, though scheme limits and eligibility rules apply.
- Hiring and retention: If staff can’t charge at home, your car park might be the only place an EV works for them. That makes workplace charging a real hiring and retention tool.
- Sustainability: Chargers give your sustainability goals something concrete behind them. Link them to solar PV and battery storage; your cars run on power from your own roof.
- Fleet costs: Fleet vehicles charge while they sit on site, so you spend less on public rapid chargers and less time driving to them.
- Tax relief: Charging staff cars at work isn’t a taxable benefit, and qualifying chargepoint spend has been eligible for a 100% first-year allowance. Check the current cut-off with your accountant.
- Convenience: Plug in while you work and leave with a full battery. For drivers without a driveway, that’s what makes EV ownership practical.
- Lower costs: Workplace charging is usually cheaper per mile than public rapid charging, especially when it’s powered partly by your own solar.
- Salary sacrifice: It also suits EV salary sacrifice. Anyone leasing a car through work gets somewhere to charge during the day.
EV Charging Benefits for Employers
Government Grants
The Workplace Charging Scheme can cover up to 75% of the purchase and installation cost, capped at £500 per socket, for up to 40 sockets across your sites. The per-socket cap went up from £350 on 1 April 2026, and the scheme is currently set to run until 31 March 2027. Government schemes can change at short notice, so if a project is on your list, don’t leave it to the last quarter.
Two rules catch people out. You must apply and get your voucher before installation starts, and the work has to be done by an OZEV-authorised installer. We’re one, and we handle the voucher and claim for you. Our workplace EV charging grant guide covers the eligibility rules in detail.
Talent Attraction and Retention
Pay and flexibility still lead most job decisions. But charging is turning into one of those perks people check, alongside free parking.
Not everyone can charge at home. Terraced streets, flats and rented houses rarely come with a driveway. A colleague who can’t plug in at home needs somewhere else to do it, and if your car park is the answer, you’ve solved a problem they’d otherwise take to another employer. That matters in Cornwall, where rural commutes are long and great staff are hard to replace.
ESG and Net-Zero Goals
Most businesses we speak to have a sustainability target somewhere. Fewer have a way of measuring progress on staff travel. Commuting sits in your emissions picture, and you can’t tell people to go electric without giving them a way to charge.
Chargepoints are visible, countable and easy to report on. Pair them with solar PV and your cars run on electricity you generated on site, which is a far better line in a sustainability report. Add battery storage, and you can use that daytime generation after the sun drops.
Fleet Management
If you run vans or pool cars, on-site charging stops being a perk and becomes infrastructure. Vehicles charge while parked overnight, you skip the detour to a public rapid charger, and you know what each vehicle costs to run.
Chargepoints can be set up to share power sensibly across a site, so six vehicles plugging in at 5pm don’t trip your supply. That’s worth getting right at the design stage, because fixing it later costs more than planning it now.
Tax Exemptions
This is the part many finance teams don’t know about.
- Charging staff cars at work isn’t a taxable benefit. HMRC doesn’t treat electricity you provide for an employee’s EV as a benefit in kind, as long as the facilities are available to all employees.
- Capital allowances. Qualifying chargepoint spend has been eligible for a 100% first-year allowance, and the government has extended it into 2027. Your accountant can confirm the exact cut-off for your year-end and structure.
- Low company car tax. Fully electric company cars have a low benefit-in-kind (BIK) rate of 4% in 2026/27, rising to 5% in 2027/28, 7% in 2028/29 and 9% in 2029/30. That’s substantially below the benefit-in-kind percentages that apply to most comparable petrol and diesel company cars.
Speak to your accountant before you commit, because the details depend on how your business is set up.
EV Charging Benefits for Employees
Convenience and Zero Range Anxiety
Charging while you work is one of the most convenient ways for an EV driver to start the day with a full battery. You park, plug in, work, and can leave with a substantial amount of range added. No standing in a service station car park on a Sunday evening, no planning a route around three working chargers.
For drivers without a driveway, it can be the difference between owning an EV comfortably and not owning one at all. And for anyone who’s felt that small knot of worry at 12% battery on a long Cornish lane, a charger at the office is a lot of peace of mind.
Lower Charging Costs
Public rapid charging can be considerably more expensive than charging at home or at a workplace, depending on the tariff.
Workplace charging, especially when it’s powered partly by your own solar, is usually far cheaper per mile. Some employers offer it free, some charge a modest rate, and either way it beats the forecourt.
If your site generates its own power, daytime charging can use that rather than buying from the grid. We design chargers that prioritise your own generation, which is a great use of a sunny roof.
Salary Sacrifice Synergy
Salary sacrifice is where workplace charging and the car itself start to pull together.
Employees lease an EV through their employer and pay from gross salary, which cuts the income tax and National Insurance they’d otherwise pay. The low 4% benefit-in-kind rate keeps the tax charge small. Employers can benefit too, as salary sacrifice may reduce the salary on which they pay employer National Insurance, charged at the standard rate of 15% in 2026/27.
Salary sacrifice and workplace charging can work particularly well together. Employees can lease an EV through their employer while paying from gross salary, and workplace charging gives employees who can’t charge at home another convenient option.
Check the terms of any scheme before you roll it out, particularly around minimum wage rules.
Is Workplace EV Charging Worth It?
For most businesses with off-street staff parking, yes. The grant takes a chunk off the upfront cost, and the tax treatment is kind. The sums work best when you plan the whole site together, from chargers to supply capacity, and, if it suits your building, solar and storage.
That’s where we come in. Our quote reflects your car park, your supply and the way your team actually works, rather than a template. Our installs come with a 5-year workmanship warranty, and we handle the grant paperwork too.
Thinking about workplace EV charging for your business? Book a consultation with Wired by Jessops, and we’ll tell you honestly what’s possible, what it will cost and what you can claim back.
