I’m with you, I don’t meter the power I use to recharge. In short, the power I use is much, much cheaper than if I didn’t charge and used petrol (plus other benefits like not scraping the screen as it warms up before I leave), so I take it on the chin. I don’t take private fuel so I avoid the tax on that (about £2k p.a.) because 90% of the private trips I do are electric only.
I also pay for fuel with a fuel card. Business mileage is deducted from total mileage and I pay the percentage of private miles from the total fuel cost. But that cost is so much less than before I am still much better off. The worst it has been since I got it is £70 for a month, about 1100 private miles.
If I opted out I’m not sure it would work out as well, so for now I am better off in the scheme.
I’ve just upgraded from a 330e saloon to a Touring (delivered in March) which, due to reg year is £20 a month cheaper on tax, so it gets better.
I was the same as you with my previous employer. Had a fuel card but paid back the company every month my private mileage at the government rate, was about 11p a mile for a sub 2lt diesel 3 years ago.
Present employer pushed the opted out option.
Extra cash to run your own car.
No company car tax to pay.
Actually get more tax back than it costs you BIK for the fuel used. This therefore covers for your private miles plus running costs.
For example my M140i costs me effectively 6.5p per mile in fuel, but for the first 10,000 miles business mileage I get 18p back, so 11.5p extra per business mile. Thus reduces to 3.5p extra once above 10,000 miles.
You do have the advantage of then driving what you want, no way could you have a M140i as a company car the normal way, the BIK tax would kill you!
In the 3 years its worked out for me well doing on average 15K business miles a year. I do bugger all private miles based from home in it.
If I cashed it in, I'd also will have made about £5k profit on the car over the 3 years. This being the difference from what I will have paid, via extra income (after tax) buying it, to what its currently worth.
However this only being possible buying 1 year old, not brand new.