Grants relating to electric vehicles are provided by The Office of Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) in England and Wales and The Energy Saving trust (EST) in Scotland. These institutions were set up by the respective governments to help increase the number of ultra-low emission vehicles on our roads. There are two main types of grant available: The Plug-in eVehicle grant and the Electric Vehicle Charging Scheme grant.
The first of these is offered in order to offset the price of new electric vehicles. Many new electric vehicles cost more than their petrol or diesel counterparts and so this grant is aimed at making alternative fuelled cars more accessible. It can be applied to cars, vans or motorcycles. However, the vehicle must cost less than £50,000, have emissions of less than 50g/km and a range of more than 70 miles. The maximum grant for cars is a very generous £3,000. Even better, you do not need to do anything in order to receive this grant. The dealer or manufacturer will factor the grant amount into the price of the vehicle at point of purchase. You can read more about this type of grant here
The second grant available applies to the cost of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. OLEV will provide a grant of up to 75% of the cost of the EV chargepoint up to £350. EST will provide similar funding but with a maximum amount of £300, plus a £100 supplement for those living in qualifying rural areas. This type of grant is accessed through your chargepoint installer and both government institutions will have a list of approved suppliers that can offer the grant as part of the install. In order to access the grant, you simply need to enquire with one of these suppliers and they will do the rest. You can find out more about home-charge grants here or have a look at our recent update on Scottish grants
You may fear that the process requires a lot of admin and documentation but this is not the case. More often than not, the leg work will be completed by a professional and most grant claims take a matter of days. We promise, it really is as easy as it sounds!
If you are an individual looking to switch to an electric vehicle or a company owner looking to convert some, or all, of your fleet then please get in touch to discuss this further. A member of our team would be happy to talk to you and answer any questions that you have. Call us on 0141 280 8890 or drop us an email at info@britetechnicalservices.co.uk.
We also have a variety of platforms available with extensive information about electric vehicles (brite-ev.com), EV charge points (evchargepoints.com) and EV accessories .