Road to Zero or Road to Nowhere? Will the Government deliver in its Budget 2018

Will the Government deliver in its Budget 2018?

In July 2019, the Government published its Road to Zero Strategy which was broadly welcomed by industry as a statement of intent to support the growth of electric vehicles and EV charging.

The acid test comes on 29th October with the Budget to see what the Chancellor will do in practise to help deliver the strategy.

There is a clear support structure in place now to provide grant assistance for the purchase of pure electric cars and hybrids, however unless plans change this support will drop off – the support for plug in hybrids will disappear and the support for pure electric cars will drop from £4,500 to £3,500.

Now whilst we can see an industry that is becoming more efficient, particularly in terms of battery technology, it is not true to say that most manufacturers have anywhere near a full range of electric cars on offer.   So it could be seen that the Government is pulling the rug from under the feet of manufacturers just as they are getting into the implementation stages of their electric car roll out programmes.

Similarly there is a good level of support for EV charge points – the EV Homecharge Scheme works well and the Workplace Charge Scheme has benefitted since July from a slightly increased level of support…however such increased support is only currently funded until end March 2019 (subject to a cap on funding as well).

Will the Government also pull back on this support or will it deliver on its promises to continue to support our nation’s change to EVs?

Will the hugely encouraging numbers of people making the change be continued? 1 in 12 of new cars in August was electric or hybrid.  Will we continue to see a good level of enquiries for EV charge points for the workplace for homes and for businesses who want to attract EV driving visitors?

What will the Chancellor do in #budget2018?

 

 

 

#EVs #PHEV #EVCharging #rolecEV