UK Government Pulls The Plug On Electric Vehicle Subsidy Scheme

In an effort to improve affordability, and increase uptake, of electric vehicles in the UK, the Department for Transport has, for some time, offered a plug-in subsidy scheme. The scheme sought to make electric vehicles a more attractive option to purchasers by contributing a (small) proportion of the purchase price of new vehicles. The grant was created in an effort to shift the industry towards cleaner technologies, particularly in view of the UK's aggressive, possibly overly optimistic, ban of the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.

Back in December 2021, the Department for Transport announced that the government's plug-in subsidy scheme, used to buy nearly 500,000 electric cars in the last decade, was changing. The subsidy available for qualifying vehicles (i.e. electric cars priced under £32,000) was reduced from £2,500 to £1,500.