Government scraps plug in buying grant
No more plug-in perks for new car buyers from today as focus switches to charging infrastructure
Having recently been reduced to £1,500, the Government’s plug-in car grant has now been scrapped entirely. Introduced in 2011, the grant orginally offered £5,000 off eligible hybrid vehicles to encourage buyers into cleaner transport. (Assuming they plugged their car in, of course, but that’s a discussion for another time.) A lowering of the price threshold had already seen the number of eligible EVs drastically reduced, but today the Government has confirmed that it will end the discount with immediate effect.
Instead £300m of grant money will now be allocated to extending plug-in benefits for taxi, bike, van and truck buyers, while the private buyer apparently stands to benefit from a planned expansion in public charging spots. They’ll be needed - there were 39,000 EV registrations in the UK in March, more than the whole of 2019, and the government’s stated plan is to have 10 times more on street chargers by 2030.
Having spent more than £1.4bn on the plug-in grant, the government’s research has shown it was “having less of an effect on demand”, though it might equally be said that the reduced amount of the grant did that. Having kickstarted the electric car revolution (the statement’s words, not ours), the plug-in grant has been retired permanently to instead refocus funding “towards the main barriers to the EV transition.”
Transport Minister Trudy Harrison added: “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… We are continuing to lead the way in decarbonising transport, with generous government incentives still in place, while creating high-skilled jobs and cleaner air across the UK.”
So, what does this mean for the customer? As with the previous reduction in funding, this has been sprung without much warning. The statement says that all applications in process will be honoured, and any car sold in the past two working days (where perhaps the application hasn’t yet been submitted) will be eligible. Otherwise, that’s it; a decade and a bit of plug-in discount - back in 2011, just 1,000 pure electric cars were sold in the UK - is finished.
Given the advances in both technology and popularity of EVs since that time - almost 100,000 have been sold here in the first five months of 2022 - it’s perhaps no surprise the grant has been wound up. Though it does potentially make the case for all the plug-in hybrids a little harder to make for the private buyer. Did you benefit from the grant? Should the government continue to offer some sort of incentive - or is the electric vehicle (and its infrastructure) far enough advanced to make it redundant? Over to you - this one could run a little while…
This settles my choice to wait it out. Now no reason to go electric right now.
What percentage of road registered cars are electric in the UK? I last heard 6%, I assumed there would be grants in place up to 15-20% to support the switch.
The balance of waiting and hoping to catch the last of the grants was always a risk
This is fine if you're trying to push an alternative but public transport in this country is also prohibitive compared to other countries - such as in Europe where trains are monumentally cheaper for commuters.
Boris can't keep having a go at the public for not wanting to return to the offices whilst at the same time the government continue to push transport into being some form of luxury travel for the wealthy rather than what ought to really be an affordable thing for all.
Town centres outside of London city are being turned into gentrified blocks of poorly architected and expensive flats at the expense of retail units and actual amenities which means we'll all end up having to travel further to get to large towns that actually have employers on the transport we can't afford!
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plug-in-grant-f...
Not that it affects me but if I had an electric vehicle on order and was waiting for it to be delivered in a few months, would I still get my grant or is it only applicable for those that have now been registered...?
Not too sure what the incentive is now to move to electric, as the price of fuel is escalating and last time I looked my electric bill was only going one way...
Many of the poorest and most hard working people don't even have a £3,000 car!
Same for company car users
If you are a 40% tax payer and you are important enough, and your company is wealthy enough to fund you a Tesla Model 3 / S / Y / X through the business as a company car, you should be paying a damn sight more than £80 per month on it!
EV's and low emission vehicles have been open tax dodges for a long time - completely legal of course, and I would also take full advantage myself. But what I'm saying is the hole shouldn't be there!
Don’t forget the car will need funding via profits that will have incurred significant corporation tax. Not to mention the VAT incurred if the car is used for any private mileage. You are only including the monthly tax liability.
Don’t forget the car will need funding via profits that will have incurred significant corporation tax. Not to mention the VAT incurred if the car is used for any private mileage. You are only including the monthly tax liability.
Don’t forget the car will need funding via profits that will have incurred significant corporation tax. Not to mention the VAT incurred if the car is used for any private mileage. You are only including the monthly tax liability.
As for profits, you can easily use "the profits" to buy the car which reduces the profits - ergo reducing tax
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/money-mentor/story/tax-...
"I did it for my childrens health not for the £15,500 in tax I saved!"
https://comcar.co.uk/companycar/tax/calculation/?v...
You can call it a rant, don't act like it doesn't happen, and don't act like your Typical Tesla or premium EV owner needs any further incentives to save money , they're already in the top
Can't find the details to the UK but in the US
https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/11/tesla-owner...
Average Tesla owner household earns more than 2x the national average, I would imagine the average Tesla owner in the UK to be on at least £60,000 per annum (of course some less, some more) - if business owners then I'm sure they'll be on minimum wage
Don’t forget the car will need funding via profits that will have incurred significant corporation tax. Not to mention the VAT incurred if the car is used for any private mileage. You are only including the monthly tax liability.
As for profits, you can easily use "the profits" to buy the car which reduces the profits - ergo reducing tax
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/money-mentor/story/tax-...
"I did it for my childrens health not for the £15,500 in tax I saved!"
https://comcar.co.uk/companycar/tax/calculation/?v...
You can call it a rant, don't act like it doesn't happen, and don't act like your Typical Tesla or premium EV owner needs any further incentives to save money , they're already in the top
Can't find the details to the UK but in the US
https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/11/tesla-owner...
Average Tesla owner household earns more than 2x the national average, I would imagine the average Tesla owner in the UK to be on at least £60,000 per annum (of course some less, some more) - if business owners then I'm sure they'll be on minimum wage
To do my bit, I will be selling my Model S which I have had for 2 years and done about 3k miles in it to run the kids to school. Will be getting a Taycan for the same duties.
May run that for 5k miles or so then probably replace it with a FFRR when the electric version is available.
I can then laud it over the ICE parents at my local school about who is the greenest of them all...
By the time 2030 rolls round they won’t be a penny cheaper to run than an ICE.
It has been a bit of a joke that my father and I have put a couple of hundred thousands pound worth of cars through our company at pretty hilarious minimal cost. At one stage BIK was 0% personal cost to me negligible. It’s literally the only reason we bought Teslas we think they are terrible cars other than being cheap.
By the time 2030 rolls round they won’t be a penny cheaper to run than an ICE.
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