Govt Reducing EV Grants.....increase adoption by lowering/removing grants......of course!!

[rockits]

Government cuts electric car grant from £3000 to £2500 | Autocar

Electric cars costing more than £35,000 will now no longer be eligible for the incentive

www.autocar.co.uk

Is this not an odd way to try to encourage people to adopt EV's and increase take up? Reduce the grant for the bulk of sales and remove for all EV's over £35k. Seems a bit odd to me.

Means I definitely won't be buying an EV now then.

 

[rockits]

Didn't realise they had already reduced it in the 2020 budget as well.

'Until this time last year, all electric cars were eligible for a £3500 government grant. It was reduced by £500 and restricted to sub-£50,000 cars as part of the 2020 budget, at which point funding was said to have been secured to run the scheme until 2022-2023.'

 

[rockits]

I guess the govt will take the money saves to quickly roll out a cutting edge world leading charging infrastructure.

 

[Phil H]

I guess the govt will take the money saves to quickly roll out a cutting edge world leading charging infrastructure.

Nope.
As soon as MP's have had a chance to switch their investments into Hydrogen technology, they will use the spare cash from the EV programme to run scrappage schemes for all that old battery-powered junk.

 

[Chrisb2015]

Nope.
As soon as MP's have had a chance to switch their investments into Hydrogen technology, they will use the spare cash from the EV programme to run scrappage schemes for all that old battery-powered junk.

How cynical.

 

[Oneball]

If you can afford £35k for a car you don’t need a government hand out.

 

[bigbob]

Government cuts electric car grant from £3000 to £2500 | Autocar

Electric cars costing more than £35,000 will now no longer be eligible for the incentive

www.autocar.co.uk

Is this not an odd way to try to encourage people to adopt EV's and increase take up? Reduce the grant for the bulk of sales and remove for all EV's over £35k. Seems a bit odd to me.

Means I definitely won't be buying an EV now then.

Makes sense really. Most new expensive cars are bought as company cars and there is a massive BIK tax incentive to take a BEV. This will lead to a huge uptick in the sales of BEVs in the next three years and, it could be argued, is overly generous so the grant cut is the right thing IMHO.

 

[rockits]

So they won't increase BIK on EV's soon then?

I don't think £35k seems much for a new EV these days as most are very expensive. Doesn't even get you a top of the range Honda E does it?

I'll let everyone else buy an EV I think. I'll just stick with my ICE V8's

 

[rockits]

I would have thought company car numbers will reduce with more working from home.

Also with many business going to likely struggle over the next few years I think there will be much tightening of belts.

 

[rockits]

If you can afford £35k for a car you don’t need a government hand out.

A new family Skoda EV Enyaq and other similar family EV's will be more than £35k I suspect and there doesn't seem to be many EV's under £35k that aren't smaller more city cars.

Even a new MG EV is not much under £35k.

Just seems a silly think to do when you need to encourage people to buy them. To create a reason not to buy one seems odd to me.

 

[Phil H]

How cynical.

Nah, just history repeating itself; politicians can't help themselves.....

 

[alfatwo]

There going have to pay me lots of money to stop me driving around in petrol powered cars!

Until this battery shite stuff gets below 15k for something that worth buying, except for the fat wallets out there, no one can afford the buy them!

Dave

 

[rockits]

This is my problem too Dave as they are just too expensive to justify IMHO.

A lesser car for me and heavier also more expensive. Also in the real world likely no more 'green' to manufacture or to run so not sure I see.the upside.

The grant to offset the higher cost made sense and doesn't any more. It was the main reason that buying my Outlander PHEV made sense also with zero CC and ULEZ charging.

Now the grants and benefits are going it isn't worth it.

I am guessing road charging will be next as they will need to fill that chasm caused by reduced tax revenues on fuel and also no car tax on EV's.

So EV's will get an extra charge there and unless they price ICE cars much much higher per mile then the cost difference will reduce further.

 

[bigbob]

So they won't increase BIK on EV's soon then?

Hope so.

 

[bigbob]

I would have thought company car numbers will reduce with more working from home.

Also with many business going to likely struggle over the next few years I think there will be much tightening of belts.

Company cars are a throw back to the high tax Labour governments when some bright spark was looking for low tax ways of incentivising employees. They make no sense really for most employees so I am sure they will die out when EV BIKs go up in a few years time.

 

[Phil H]

The Treasury and their HMRC cronies always see the motorist as a cash cow so it won't matter whether you use steam power, petrol, diesel, EV, hydrogen, horse poo, or any other form of fuel because you're going to be fleeced anyway, it's just a question of how they take it and to what extent they can screw you. BIK simply gives them another tool to play around with, and if you choose to abandon travel completely they'll impose a window tax for staying home.

This guy used to work for the revenue until he bailed out and bought a pub:

 

[Ewan]

BIK on EV’s is definitely going up over the next few years. Hence if you want one on that scheme, get it now, before the next budget. It’s a short window of opportunity that while not relevant to all, is appropriate for some.

 

[safrane]

Given its just a £500 drop in a sub for a car than in 9 out of 10 cases comes from a far Eastern country, as well as the country being skint... I have no problem with it at all.

Added to that its less than 8 years before the only new car you will be able to buy will be an EV, why do they need to spend what little is in the treasury coffers in subsidising fleet car buyers.

 

[rockits]

I suspect a bulk of company cars are more small to medium sized businesses than large businesses. Therefore ones that will be less able to keep absorbing increased costs. Especially the next few years.

I'm guessing that lease companies don't qualify for any grants?

It would make sense to just get rid of company car tax and just have fuel and/or road use pricing. The more you use the road or the more you drive the more you pay.

Don't really see how company car schemes are really appropriate these days.

One business we have done work for had 180 staff with about 40 fields sales reps with company cars. Over the last year they now have 140 staff and 10 field sales reps who are mainly based from home now. Quite a big shift for just one business. I suspect this won't be uncommon.

Ironic that the govt have forced as to stay at home and will have massively revenues because of it. I wonder where the next raft of tax will be coming from as not only will tax revenues be down but they wil need to increase to cover the immense cost of the last year and the next year on top.

You can only average tax people so much as they will be nothing left to tax.

 

[schell70]

Just wondering what the future for LPG is? It never really took off did it....

I was looking at a Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT that was LPG converted recently - that 6.4 V8 almost made sense with man maths

Maybe if we used biogas instead to keep our ICE cars running......plenty of that coming from Government