Mobility Budget

An EV Charging Budget: How To Stay in Control Without Losing Flexibility

By Roeland Vanrenterghem | Posted sep 17, 2025

As electric vehicles (EVs) become the new company car standard, many employers are discovering a new challenge: how to keep EV charging costs under control, especially with the rise of public and fast charging.

The reflex is often restrictive: limit or even ban fast-charging altogether.

But that’s a short-term fix. Smart companies take a more sustainable route: introducing a clear, fair, and flexible charging budget.

Here’s how it works — and how you can implement it successfully.

Why EV Charging Costs Are Hard to Manage

EVs may seem predictable on paper — no fuel cards, lower total cost of ownership. But the reality is more complex:

  • Not all employees can charge at home

  • Fast-charging networks (Fastned, TotalEnergies, Circle K…) are expanding rapidly — and they’re just so convenient. Charged in 15 minutes and off you go!

  • Public charging can cost 3–4x more than home or office charging. Fast-charging is often 2x more expensive than slow public charging

  • Limiting fast-charging often leads to ongoing discussions with employees — especially those who simply don’t have home charging access

The key is not to restrict, but to empower employees with clear boundaries and ownership.

Give them the tools to manage company money as if it were their own.

Two Models for a Charging Budget

We see two practical approaches emerging across the market:

1. The All-In Charging Budget

In this model, all charging costs (home, public, office) — including the monthly cost of a home charging station — are combined into a single monthly budget per employee.

✅ Pros:

  • Fully predictable

  • Easy to communicate

⚠️ Cons:

  • Rigid — hard to adjust for employees who live far away or frequently visit clients

  • Can feel unfair across different user profiles

2. The Flexible Cafeteria Budget with a Charging Cap

A more dynamic approach: allow public and fast charging, but only up to a capped rate per kWh.

Example:

The employer covers the first €0.50/kWh.

If the employee charges at €0.75/kWh (e.g. via fast-charging), the €0.25 difference is automatically deducted from their mobility cafeteria budget (bruto).

✅ Pros:

  • Employees remain fully mobile and autonomous

  • Excess charging costs are paid using gross salary (not out-of-pocket)

  • Employer has built-in cost control

  • No more endless charging policy debates

🎯 Bonus:

That same cafeteria budget can be used for sustainable transport too: train, metro, shared bikes…

Why push employees into a heavy EV for a city trip when public transport is smarter?

What’s the Impact?

Fast-charging are typically accounting for 20-25% of annual EV charging costs — that’s easily €500 per user per year.

With a capped charging model, companies can reduce those costs by up to 50%.

On average: 10–12% reduction in total charging costs.

In a company with 1,000 EV drivers and €2M in annual charging costs, that’s a saving of €200,000–€240,000.

How Vaigo Makes It Work

Managing this manually is nearly impossible. That’s where Vaigo comes in — we automate the entire flow:

✅ Seamless integration with major public charging cards (Circle K, TotalEnergies, Shell, etc.) and large providers of home-charging stations (Mobility Plus, Blossom,…)

✅ Real-time budget & cost tracking per employee

✅ Budget allocation and automatic net salary deductions when limits are exceeded

✅ Integration with leading cafeteria plan providers to enable smart mobility budgets

✅ Transparent policy enforcement — no surprises, no disputes

With Vaigo, you don’t have to choose between cost control and employee flexibility. You get both.

Ready to Build Your Own Charging Policy?

We help HR and mobility teams translate principles into working policies — backed by real-time data, clear rules, and full automation.

Roeland Vanrenterghem, CEO Vaigo | Mobility Policy Expert

With years of experience in corporate mobility, Roeland has seen and analyzed hundreds of policies that influence employee commuting behavior. As CEO of Vaigo, he helps large enterprises simplify and manage those mobility policies, making sustainable choices effortless for both HR teams and employees.