Real-world range, 2026 VED, Plug-in Van Grant, charging costs, and the four numbers that decide whether an electric van fits your UK fleet.
Key Takeaways
- Electric vans now make up roughly 6.6% of new van registrations in the UK, with around 109,000 zero-emission vans on the road as of March 2026.
- Real-world range for a modern medium electric van sits between 150 and 220 miles. Large electric vans like the Mercedes eSprinter and Renault Master E-Tech can claim up to 271 and 285 miles WLTP respectively.
- Zero-emission vans now pay £345 a year in road tax (VED), the standard light-goods rate, after the April 2025 change ended the EV exemption.
- The Plug-in Van Grant (PiVG) still applies in 2026: 35% of the purchase price up to £2,500 for vans under 2.5 tonnes, up to £5,000 for vans 2.5 to 4.25 tonnes.
- Electric vans pay no van benefit charge for company use, while the petrol-or-diesel rate is £4,170 for the 2026/27 tax year.
If you run a UK fleet you have probably looked at an electric van and stopped at the price tag. The numbers are moving, fast. Range is now usable for most trade and delivery routes. The plug-in grant still exists. Public rapid chargers crossed 27,000 in the UK in March 2026. The April 2025 VED change removed the EV exemption, which complicates the running-cost maths but does not undo the case.
This guide covers what electric vans cost to buy and run in the UK in 2026, what range you can realistically expect, what the tax position now looks like for a small fleet, and the four numbers that decide whether the switch makes sense for your specific routes.
How much does an electric van cost in the UK in 2026?
A new medium electric van starts at roughly £38,000 (Vauxhall Vivaro Electric) and a new large electric van from roughly £47,100 (Renault Master E-Tech), both excluding VAT and after the Plug-in Van Grant. A small electric van (Peugeot e-Partner, Vauxhall Combo, Citroen e-Berlingo, Toyota Proace City) sits below £30,000. The petrol or diesel equivalents are typically £8,000 to £15,000 cheaper at the front end. The closing of that gap depends on miles driven and electricity tariff, covered later in this post.
The Plug-in Van Grant (PiVG) for 2026 covers 35% of the purchase price, capped at £2,500 for vans under 2.5 tonnes and £5,000 for vans between 2.5 and 4.25 tonnes. Eligible vehicles must produce under 50g/km CO2 and have a range of at least 60 miles, which every current production electric van clears. The grant continues until at least the end of the 2026/27 financial year following the £120 million top-up confirmed in February 2025.
Used electric vans have started to trade at meaningful discounts, particularly two-to-three-year-old fleet returns from large operators. A 2023 Vivaro Electric with a long battery warranty and 30,000 miles can sit £15,000 below new. The depreciation curve is the steepest in years one and two, which makes the second-hand market the cheapest entry point for a small fleet that does not need warranty cover.
What range should you plan for?
WLTP figures published by manufacturers run higher than what you will see in real-world conditions, particularly when the van is loaded, the heater is on, or the route is motorway-dominant. A practical planning rule is to take the WLTP figure and use 70 to 80% of it for cold-weather mixed-route work, 85 to 90% for summer urban routes. That gives you a usable range to plan against without over-promising on a route that does not fit.
The numbers by class break down roughly like this:
Small electric vans (Combo, Berlingo, e-Partner, Proace City): WLTP range around 170 to 200 miles. Plan for 130 to 170 in real-world use.
Medium electric vans (Vivaro, Dispatch, e-Expert, Scudo): WLTP range up to 205 miles for a Vivaro Electric. Plan for 150 to 180 real-world.
Large electric vans (Master E-Tech, Movano Electric, Boxer, Ducato, Transit, eSprinter): WLTP range 196 miles for a Ford E-Transit (68kWh) up to 285 miles for a Renault Master E-Tech and 271 miles for a Mercedes eSprinter (113 kWh battery). Plan for 160 to 220 real-world depending on battery, load and route.
For a typical small-fleet trade in the South East doing 80 to 120 miles a day with depot returns, a medium electric van with a 75kWh battery covers the day comfortably with a margin for diversions. For a long-distance courier on 250-mile motorway days, the maths is tighter and the rapid-charge stop becomes part of the route, not a contingency.
What does road tax (VED) look like for an electric van now?
From 1 April 2025, zero-emission vans lost their VED exemption. Electric vans registered after 1 March 2001 now pay the standard light-goods rate, currently £345 a year. New zero-emission cars registered on or after 1 April 2025 pay £10 in the first year and £195 a year thereafter, with the Expensive Car Supplement (£425 a year for years two to six on cars listed above £40,000) now applying to electric models too.
The VED change was a step up from £0 a year, but the £345 figure is the same as a petrol or diesel van of the same class. It does not reverse the running-cost case for an EV; it removes one of the small bonuses. The bigger commercial bonuses sit elsewhere: the van benefit charge, the fuel cost per mile, and the maintenance cost.
For a complete view of how vehicle tax bands work for cars and how the change interacts with a fleet that mixes EVs and petrol-or-diesel, see understanding vehicle tax bands: how much will you pay in 2026?.
What is the company-vehicle tax position?
Electric vans are still treated favourably for company use compared to their petrol or diesel counterparts. Three numbers matter for a fleet operator:
Van benefit charge. A zero-emission van currently has a nil van benefit charge for the 2026/27 tax year, against the standard van rate of £4,170. For a 20%-band employee, that is roughly £834 of tax saved per year per van; for a 40%-band director it is £1,668.
Van fuel benefit charge. Electricity is not classified as a fuel by HMRC for benefit-in-kind purposes, so charging an electric van at work or a paid-for charge at a public point does not generate a van fuel benefit charge. The petrol-or-diesel van fuel benefit charge for 2026/27 is £799.
Capital allowances. New zero-emission vans qualify for a 100% First Year Allowance, allowing the full purchase price to be deducted from taxable profits in the year of acquisition. Diesel vans use the standard 18% writing-down allowance.
Across a five-van fleet, those three lines together can shift the year-one tax position by tens of thousands of pounds when the alternative is new diesel. Speak to an accountant before any switch; the headline numbers are right but the application to your business depends on profit, employee tax bands, and whether the vans are owned, leased, or PCP'd.
What does charging cost a small fleet?
Charging cost depends on where the energy comes from. Three rates apply in real fleet operation:
Depot charging on a business tariff: typically 8 to 15 pence per kWh. A 75kWh battery filled from 20% to 80% costs £3.60 to £6.75. That works out to roughly 4 to 7 pence per mile on a real-world 200-mile range.
Workplace or home charging on a domestic tariff (off-peak EV tariffs): typically 7 to 10 pence per kWh on a smart tariff, or 24 to 28 pence per kWh on the standard rate. Off-peak charging brings cost-per-mile to under 5 pence on a typical electric van.
Public rapid charging: 65 to 89 pence per kWh on the major rapid networks. A 60kWh top-up costs £39 to £53. That is the worst-case running cost, equivalent to roughly 25 to 35 pence per mile.
A diesel Transit at 35 mpg and £1.45 per litre runs at roughly 19 pence per mile in fuel alone. So depot or workplace charging beats diesel comfortably; pure public-rapid charging is more expensive than diesel. The realistic mix for a small fleet is 80% depot or workplace charging, 20% public rapid as a top-up. That mix usually lands around 6 to 9 pence per mile, with rapid stops budgeted on long days.
The Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) covers up to 75% of the purchase and installation cost for chargepoints, capped at £500 per socket from 1 April 2026 (up from £350 previously). A business can apply for up to 40 sockets across all sites. For a fleet of five vans installing two dual-socket chargers, the grant covers £2,000 of the typical £4,000 to £8,000 install cost.
The four numbers that decide the switch
Across every electric van case study a small fleet should run, four numbers do most of the work:
1. Daily mileage and route shape. If most days fit inside 70% of the van's WLTP range, electric is straightforward. If the routes regularly exceed it, depot returns mid-day or rapid stops become part of the plan, and the maths gets harder. Pull the last six months of mileage records before deciding.
2. Where the van charges overnight. A fleet with off-street depot parking and a 22kW charger has the cheapest possible electric-van fuel. A fleet without that, where drivers take the van home and there is no driveway, has to lean on workplace charging or paid public charging. The cost-per-mile gap between the two is often three-fold.
3. The replacement window for the existing van. Electric makes its strongest case at the point you would buy a new van anyway. Replacing a four-year-old diesel that has another three years of useful life rarely beats running the diesel out, then switching. The numbers are the maintenance savings versus the residual value of the diesel still on the fleet.
4. The company tax position. A profitable Ltd company that pays corporation tax can take the 100% First Year Allowance on a new EV and recover a meaningful slice of the purchase price in the same year. A sole trader or a less-profitable business sees a smaller benefit and the maths leans more on per-mile running cost.
For a deeper view on real per-mile economics, see how to calculate cost per mile for your fleet (UK 2026) and the true cost of running a van in the UK (2026 breakdown).
What does this look like in Autodue?
Autodue tracks an electric van the same way it tracks a diesel one: MOT and VED reminders, walkaround checks (the standard 19-point van check, fixed), service schedule by manufacturer interval, expense capture for charging receipts and tyre replacements. The expense categories cover both fuel and electricity, so a mixed fleet of EVs and diesels lands in one dashboard. The mileage tracking captures the data you need for cost-per-mile analysis on either powertrain, which is the single most useful metric when running an EV pilot inside an existing fleet.
For the underlying features, see /features/expense-tracking and /features/fleet-management.
Charging infrastructure: what does the network look like in 2026?
The UK had 119,080 EV chargers across 46,107 locations by the end of March 2026, including 27,372 rapid or ultra-rapid chargers across 6,785 locations. Ultra-rapid charging (150kW+) grew 40% year-on-year in 2025, the fastest segment of the network. For a fleet planning a route, the practical effect is that rapid charging on motorway corridors and major A-roads is dependable, while rural minor-road coverage is patchy and worth pre-planning.
Zapmap and the Carwow charger maps, plus the manufacturer-specific apps for Tesla, BP Pulse and InstaVolt, are the live sources for chargepoint availability. For fleet route planning, a rapid charger every 60 to 80 miles on the route is a comfortable margin; planning to within 30 miles of one rapid charger pulls the contingency tighter than most fleets want.
The bottom line
An electric van in 2026 makes commercial sense for the right route shape and the right tax position. Daily mileage inside 70% of WLTP range, a depot or workplace charger, a profitable company taking the 100% First Year Allowance, and a replacement-window decision rather than a forced upgrade: those four together turn the maths green. Without them, the case is closer and the route shape becomes the deciding factor.
The April 2025 VED change took away one small EV bonus but left the bigger commercial advantages (van benefit charge, capital allowance, fuel cost per mile) intact. The grants are still live, the chargers are denser than they were a year ago, and the manufacturers have closed most of the range gaps that made the 2022 generation borderline. The next step for any small fleet considering the switch is to pull the last six months of mileage data and run the four numbers above against the specific routes you actually drive.
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Sources: Vehicle tax for electric, zero and low emission vehicles (GOV.UK) · Plug-in van and truck grant: eligibility and applications (GOV.UK) · Van benefit charge and fuel benefit charges for cars and vans for tax year 2026 to 2027 (GOV.UK) · Electric vehicle public charging infrastructure statistics: January 2026 (GOV.UK) · Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 (GOV.UK)