The UK government has axed the plug-in car grant

Bad news for those considering an affordable electric car in the UK – the government has today axed the £1,500 plug-in car grant that was previously available if your EV cost less than £32,000.

“The government continues to invest record amounts in the transition to EVs, with £2.5 billion injected since 2020, and has set the most ambitious phase-out dates for new diesel and petrol sales of any major country. But government funding must always be invested where it has the highest impact if that success story is to continue,” said transport minister Trudy Harrison after it was announced that the scheme would end immediately. 

“Having successfully kickstarted the electric car market, we now want to use plug-in grants to match that success across other vehicle types, from taxis to delivery vans and everything in between, to help make the switch to zero emission travel cheaper and easier.”

The plug-in car grant scheme had been running since 2011, with the government claiming it had supported the sale of nearly 500,000 electric cars on our shores. There had been repeated cuts to the amount of money that new EV drivers were able to claim though, with the latest in December 2021 dropping the figure to £1,500 for anything costing less than £32,000.

The government has said that with the end of the grant, it will “concentrate funding on expanding the public chargepoint network”, although as of yet it seems there has been no addition to the £1.6 billion that it previously committed in order to build 300,000 new chargers by 2030. 

A government statement also says that “£300 million in grant funding will now be refocused towards extending plug-in grants to boost sales of plug-in taxis, motorcycles, vans and trucks and wheelchair accessible vehicles.”

What do we think of the news folks? Oh, and if you’ve just bought an EV – all existing applications for the grant will apparently be honoured, and any cars sold in the two working days before today’s announcement will be eligible if an application has not yet been made.