UK Electric Car Grant Is A Waste Of MONEY Scrap NETZERO
Now, I’ve been reporting about used and new electric vehicles for over 10 years, and I’ve been really enticed into the industry for a very long time. So, you’d think I’d be over the moon to find out the government have announced a new EV subsidy grant. Well, I’m not. In fact, it’s an absolute joke that this new Labor government that have introduced this new grant. You’d think that it would be great for EV industry. But I’m going to tell you in this video why it’s not some of the stupid hoops you have to jump through to actually get it. And also, this story is going to be constantly evolving. In fact, there’s going to be some other government announcements that I think are going to come very, very soon, which I’ll talk about in this video. But if you want to know when they’re going to happen, make sure you click subscribe and that notification bell to stay in the loop. When the electric car grant first came in, it started off very high. It kept reducing and reducing and changing and the goalpost kept moving. But the one thing that stayed consistent is it applied to pretty much all cars when it first existed. It didn’t matter what the value of the car was. It just applied to all vehicles at the first time that it came out. Uh they kept tweaking it, changing it, and it also included vans. There was also a separate subsidy for EV charges. So you could get reduction on EV charges. And obviously all these grants went away. Then they introduced what we call luxury road tax on all electric vehicles that were over £40,000 which was pretty much all the market apart from the odd little car. Then the government reversed they U-turned this and basically refunded people who already paid it for that tax year and they left it alone. And then just before the Conservative government knew they weren’t going to be in power anymore, they put the luxury road tax back on EVs, which this Labor government then ended up carrying on into their into their budget. Now, it it seems silly that there’s a luxury road tax of £40,000 on an EV, but it also seems ridiculous to have £40,000 luxury road tax on any car. The average price of car has increased over the last 10 years. luxury road tax hasn’t moved with inflation and average vehicles are near 40 grand. Even non-EVs that if 40 grand is not a luxury road uh vehicle anymore. It is just basically around where the market is with inflation on new vehicles. So I do think this is an evolving story. I do think it’s going to change and I do have more of it in this video. Now this new grant. Let’s first say that it’s an absolute joke. We don’t need it. the industry does not need a new car subsidy. So they’re saying that they introduced it because there is not enough new personal sales and not enough new car purchases. Car purchases are down for all cars, not just electric, down for petrol, down for diesel, but electric is still a growing percentage of the market share. That’s the important part there. Growing market share. The sales are down, but that’s a wider economy issue. It’s got nothing to do with the electric cars. It is a wider economy issue. Why they’re making this an electric car issue, I do not know. But there a grant was not needed. In fact, anything this grant will cause more problems than it would cause solutions. In fact, if you have to see the amount of hoops you have to jump through, Sonic the Hedgehog would be very jealous. Now, let’s look at some of the conditions and hoops you have to jump through to qualify for this grant. Now, first of all, a car has to be priced under £37,000. Now, I actually think this was a genius move off the government because when the luxury road tax came in, many manufacturers scrambled to get their car under £40,000 so their car didn’t have to pay luxury road tax cuz they knew it would affect the sales. Now, manufacturers are going to have to scramble to find another £3,000 discount to qualify for the discount on their car in the first place anyway. So, this is actually probably going to drive down the cost of new cars. Now, I fully agree that manufacturers need to work at driving down that that that buying cost for a brand new EV. I didn’t think it needed government subsidy, but this basically might force a couple of manufacturers to reduce their profit, their selling targets on the way they sell EVs. There was other levers that were being pulled regarding ZEV mandate, and I’ve done other videos about that. See that top right, but again, slightly genius move. Now, it will drive the cost of electric cars down to get the grant, but the amount of people that are going to qualify for the grant, well, that’s part of the next lot of hoops. Now, the grant is up to £3,750. More on that in a bit, but you have to have a minimum range of 100 miles WLTP. And this is going to be now the next tricky part is 100 miles WLTP dead easy for any car these days. But the warranty and drivetrain uh manufacturers warranty on the battery and the drivetrain has to be a minimum of eight years or 100,000 miles. Now, nearly everybody does an 8-year battery warranty, but hardly anyone does an 8year drivetrain warranty. In fact, I’d like to know in the comments if you can think of any manufacturers that currently offer an 8-year battery and drivetrain warranty. Let me know down below in the comments. Now, the grant separated into two bands. When I say up to £3,750, it’s £3,750 or £1,500. Now, to get the full band one, £3,750 grant, they have to be signed up to an SBT, which is basically like a carbon reduction target system. Um, and that will get them the full grant. Now, they also to get the full grant, band one, they must meet an additional criteria, including over 80% of renewable energy usage. verified carbon neutral manufacturing must all be in place for them to get the full grant. Now, get to a little bit on this later, but basically it looks like any car made in China is pretty much out of the course here. Um, and a couple of other countries as well. Now, band two is £1,500. It requires SBT commitment with internal uh basically carbon reductions and measurable sustainable progress is in place as well. Quite a few more manufacturers will qualify for this but even even band two with the £1,500 less manufacturers than you think would qualify. Again, no Chinese manufacturer is going to qualify for either band one or band two. Now, one thing they’ve done that’s different to previous grants is normally when the list price of extras or paint changes, the grant disappears. On this one, it doesn’t. As long as the starting list price of that car is under the £37,000 price limit, you can then add extras that take it over £37,000. So, it does mean we’re not going to have a load of basic colors on the road. If the car is £37,000 list and someone adds £5,000 worth of extras, it still gets the full grant. It also gets really clever because it also means that if the drivetrain and the battery are the same, then manufacturers can sell very verial different trim levels. So, they could sell a basic trim that comes in at 37 and a top level trim at 55 grand. As long as it’s got the same battery and drivetrain, that means all-wheel drive or or rear wheel drive has to be exactly the same, then all the trim levels will qualify. Every single one of them, plus the extras that someone adds on. So manufacturers might get really clever selling a base level trim level for the £37,000 price and then a top level trim maybe at £60,000 and still qualify for that top level trim. What be interesting is how many manufacturers introduce a base level trim at 37 that’s a loss leader money that they’re going to lose hoping that nobody buys the bottom trim. Now many manufacturers OEMs are going to struggle to hit all these hoops. In fact, I think some of them won’t hit it at all, especially cars made in China where the grid’s too dirty and they just can’t compete. In fact, some manufacturers from China have already introduced their own version of these grants. other manufacturers aren’t signed up to carbon reduction scientific targets, so they won’t qualify either. And there some of them have already decided they’re going to do a similar kind of grant copying scheme. Um, but it does make the question to me whether the UK government went a little bit lax on this because it looks like the Nissan’s going to qualify and the Mini is going to qualify as Mini production moves back to the UK and Nissan production is in the UK. Now, some people have speculated that this was designed to be a UKonly car grant. Cars made in the UK. I disagree with that because obviously any cars made in France will qualify because the French grid is very clean and they should qualify for the full grant. I think if they want the UK UK government wanted to make a Britishonly car uh scheme, they should have. I think it would have actually gone down quite well. I’d have actually been quite supportive of it. I’m not supportive of this one. I think this one’s rubbish. If they announced it was a Britishonly car grant and it was 1,500 pound if the car was built here and three and a half thousand pound if the car and the battery were assembled in the UK. I think a Trump style protective car grant would actually work when the rest of the world is going protectionism being a globalism economy over here seems a bit stupid. It does seem that maybe a protectionalism system like that would actually have worked quite well for the UK economy. Let me know down below in the comments what you think. Now, I do think we’ll see some road tax reversals on electric vehicles coming up. Now, what I mean by that is I do think EVs should pay road tax. I fully agree, but I don’t think they should pay the full amount of road tax at the moment while we’re trying to incentivize people to buy them. Instead, I think petrol and diesel car road tax should go up slightly and by what they go up, EVs should be reduced down. So, maybe 250 for regular vehicles, 150 for EVs. And I also think by the time we get to the October budget, the October budget will either see the total removal of luxury road tax on EVs or an EV higher target. So maybe regular cars come in at 40 grand and EVs come in at £55,000. I’d be interested in what you know in the comments. Let me know down below. Don’t forget to click subscribe and that notification bell because this story is going to be evolving. I’m going to try and cover it as much as I can. Now, check out this video that YouTube thinks you’ll like, or click the subscribe button so you don’t miss the follow-up videos.
The impossible UK electric car grant system is now live but who qualifies and how they qualify seems almost impossible infact since making this video car companies I thought would be band 1 are in Band 2! and NO cars currently qualify for band1 why? who knows the hoops I predicted are even harder to jump threw so if your wanting a new electric car and wondering who qualifies for the grant good luck all cars listed below!
Band 1 cars
The maximum discount available for cars assessed as Band 1 is £3,750.
There are no cars eligible for a Band 1 discount currently.
Band 2 cars
The maximum discount available for cars assessed as Band 2 is £1,500.
The eligible vehicles are:
Citroën ë-C3 and Citroën ë-C3 Aircross
Citroën ë-C4 and Citroën ë-C4 X
Citroën ë-C5 Aircross
Citroën ë-Berlingo
Nissan Ariya
Nissan Micra
Renault 4
Renault 5
Renault Alpine A290
Renault Megane
Renault Scenic
Vauxhall Astra Electric
Vauxhall Combo Life Electric
Vauxhall Corsa Electric
Vauxhall Frontera Electric
Vauxhall Grandland Electric
Vauxhall Mokka Electric
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