You don’t have to do anything more than provide some basic information and have a private parking space, typically a drive. And the grant is yours. If you were one of the lucky ones you may have saved £500 on the installation. But, from April 2020 this suddenly dropped to £350. Why?
The government’s Office of Low Emissions Vehicles (OLEV) has a set budget for these installations and until April 2020 there was enough money in the pot to pay for these. But, with EV ownership increasing rapidly, money was running out fast. So, to ensure as many people could benefit from the grants as possible, they lowered the grant for each one. A common sense approach.
So, when will they lower it again? Is it ending soon? No one knows, at least if they do they’re not saying. So lets look at the most likely scenario.
OLEV charger and EV grants are mostly a political strategy. The government wants to be seen to be pushing for environmental changes. And so it should. However, if it could use the money elsewhere it would.
People buy EVs because they like them and they like the low-cost ownership and feeling ‘green’ for doing so. No-one buys EVs of Hybrids because of the government grants for their home or workplace chargers.
Also the government are committed to kick starting the EV market (or at least assisting it) and when they feel that has been achieved the grants will cease.
But won’t they just lower the grants again? They may do but in doing so the cost of administering the grants for installers and OLEV themselves would make it uneconomic. Installers too, would just install low cost (currently non-OLEV approved) chargers for a lower cost and cut the government out completely.
So, the next step is the ending of the grants. With BREXIT and COVID-19 potentially having a huge impact on UK government budgets, do not be surprised to see the sudden disappearance of the charger grants…
UPDATE: OZEV HAVE ANNOUNCED THAT THE HOME AND WORKPLACE CHARGING GRANTS WILL CEASE 31 MARCH 2022
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