By Paul Holland, managing director for UK/ANZ vehicle payments at Corpay, including UK brand Allstar. HMRC’s decision to maintain separate advisory electric rates for home and public charging is
By Paul Holland, managing director for UK/ANZ vehicle payments at Corpay, including UK brand Allstar.
HMRC’s decision to maintain separate advisory electric rates for home and public charging is the right one. Public charging costs have diverged significantly from domestic electricity prices and reimbursement frameworks need to reflect that reality. For drivers covering long distances away from base who are relying on rapid public charging rather than a home charger, the gap between the two rates is material. A single flat rate no longer served anyone fairly and HMRC has been right to acknowledge that.
But for the SMB fleet operators managing drivers who charge across multiple locations, every day of the working week, this update also adds another layer of complexity to an already fragmented payment environment. And fragmentation, as anyone running a small commercial fleet will tell you, is already one of the defining operational challenges of the transition to electric.
Before this update, the picture was already difficult. Allstar’s SMB fleet research, which surveyed 300 UK SMB owners and directors managing fleets of between four and 20 vehicles, found that 97% reported feeling anxious about managing fuel and EV charging payments. That is the overwhelming majority of small fleet operators telling us that something most people regard as a basic operational task has become a genuine source of stress.
The reason is not hard to identify. Eight in ten SMB fleet operators already use more than one payment method or platform just to keep vehicles moving. Nearly half, 48%, spend between four and six hours a month on fuel and EV charging payment admin alone. That is time and resource being pulled away from running the business, managing customers and keeping vehicles productive.
When reimbursement rates, charging costs and payment systems all vary depending on where a driver happens to plug in, that administrative burden grows.
The industry often measures EV readiness through vehicle availability, charger deployment and policy support. Those factors matter but readiness is also determined by whether fleets can operate electric vehicles efficiently day-to-day, without introducing additional administrative burden, uncertainty or cost.
Right now, for many SMB fleet operators, that operational readiness is not there. Almost all of the businesses we surveyed told us that managing fuel and charging payments affects driver productivity or time back on the road. That challenge is around systems rather than technology or infrastructure problem and it sits squarely in the gap between policy ambition and operational reality.
Every new variable in the reimbursement landscape, however well-intentioned, adds to that uncertainty for operators already managing multiple payment methods, multiple providers and multiple charging scenarios across a mixed fleet.
The industry has the technology to solve this. A single payment solution that works seamlessly across traditional fuel and EV charging, that provides real-time visibility of fleet spend and that handles the complexity of different charging locations and reimbursement rates without placing that burden on the fleet operator is what 98% of the SMB fleet operators we surveyed said they need.
For many SMBs, becoming EV-ready is no longer a decision about whether to electrify, we’ve moved past that. Now, it’s about ensuring the systems that sit behind those vehicles are simple enough to support growth. Charging infrastructure remains essential, but so too are the payment, reimbursement and management tools that allow fleets to use that infrastructure efficiently. Until those elements work together seamlessly, true EV readiness will remain out of reach for many operators.
