***
Extension of £5000 plug-in electric car grant
until 2015 ***
Details have been released of the first
nine electric cars that will be eligible for grants of up to £5,000 in a
government subsidy scheme. Under the £43m initiative that starts
on 1 January, buyers will get a 25% discount up to the maximum £5,000.
However, only three of the nine cars
will be immediately ready for delivery, with others following as late as
2012. The government also said that a further five areas were to
install charging points after bidding for funds. The additional
locations getting a share of £20m to build plug-in points are the
Midlands, Greater Manchester, the east of England, Scotland, and
Northern Ireland. They follow after London, Milton Keynes and the
north-east of England.
At the launch of the electric car
subsidy, Transport Secretary Philip Hammond spoke of motoring costs
of just a couple of pence per mile, echoing claims made in the past
about nuclear power "too cheap to measure".
But he also acknowledged that there
is no point in switching the car fleet to electrics if the power
plants emit vast amounts of carbon dioxide.
Consequently, electric motoring
makes perhaps less sense in the UK now than it might do in the
future, once the intended shift towards more renewable energy
becomes reality.
By then, the low cost of recharging
the cars may have become a thing of the past, however, as in the
long run the government will probably want to tax electric motoring
in a way similar to how other forms of motoring are taxed today.
"Anyone who's
filled up at a petrol station recently will realise that the ability to
recharge overnight at 1-3 pence per kilometre is extremely attractive,"
Transport Secretary Philip Hammond told BBC News at the launch.
"The point of supporting this
technology is to get it up to scale."
However, he acknowledged that how the
power was generated was an issue.
"There's no point in switching the car
fleet to running on electricity if the electricity emits vast amounts of
carbon dioxide."
Of the nine electric cars so far
confirmed as qualifying for the subsidy scheme, the three that will be
available for delivery in January are the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, the Smart
fortwo electric drive and the Peugeot iOn.
The Mitsubishi is being advertised for
sale from £24,000, after the £5,000 government grant. The Smart and the
Peugeot electric cars will initially only be available through four-year
leases.
The Nissan Leaf and Tata Vista will
then follow in March, while the Citroen CZero is currently only
confirmed for "early 2011".
The Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid and the
Vauxhall Ampera (which will also be sold - with some modifications - as
the Chevrolet Volt) are due to see their first UK deliveries in early
2012.
Cars and
availability dates
-
Mitsubishi
i-MiEV: Jan 2011
-
Smart fortwo
electric drive: Jan 2011
-
Peugeot iOn: Jan
2011
-
Nissan Leaf:
March 2011
-
Tata Vista:
March 2011
-
Citroen CZero:
Early 2011
-
Toyota Prius
Plug-in Hybrid: Early 2012
-
Chevrolet Volt:
Early 2012
-
Vauxhall Ampera:
Early 2012
Where the
eligible cars are leased by drivers instead of being bought, the up to
£5,000 subsidy will mean a deduction on their monthly leasing fees.
The initiative was unveiled by the
former Labour administration, with the coalition government announcing
in July that its funding would be ring-fenced from any spending cuts.
The successful consortia who have
successfully bid to build electric car charging points include public
sector bodies and private companies.
In Greater Manchester, the lead partner
for the instillation of plug-in points is Oldham Metropolitan Borough
Council.
For the east of England region it is
Evalu8 Transport Innovations, a company set up by the University of
Hertfordshire.
Business Minister Mark Prisk said:
"Today's announcement further confirms the UK as a global front runner
in the market for ultra-low emission cars, and open for business for
hi-tech green manufacturing."
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11985866
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