Government plug-in car grant slashed to £1,500, price threshold reduced to £32,000

• Government’s plug-in grant cut to £1,500
• Previously covered £2,500 towards a new electric vehicle
• EVs eligible must now cost £32,000 or less
• Previously available for cars under £35,000
• No longer applies to plug-in hybrid vehicles
• Change comes into effect immediately

Previously, you could claim £2,500 towards the price of a new electric vehicle costing £35,000 or less. Now, you’ll only be able to claim a maximu of £1,500, and the grant is only available on new electric cars costing £32,000 or less.

Previously the grant was also available for vehicles that emitted less than 50g/km of CO2 and be capable of driving for at least 70 miles without producing any emissions. No cars in the UK met these requirements anyway, but this too has been scrapped — with the grant available exclusively to electric vehicles.

Trudy Harrison, Transport minister, said: “The market is charging ahead in the switch to electric vehicles. This, together with the increasing choice of new vehicles and growing demand from customers, means that we are refocusing our vehicle grants on the more affordable vehicles and reducing grant rates to allow more people to benefit, and enable taxpayers’ money to go further.”

This is the second change to the plug-in grant in 2021. The first came in March, when the grant was reduced from £3,000 to £2,500.

Wheelchair-accessible electric cars will continue to be eligible for a £2,500 grant, however, with the £35,000 cap remaining for these vehicles too.

Grants for plug-in vans are changing as well. This will now be a maximum of £5,000 for large vans and £2,500 for small vans, with a cap of 1,000 grants per customer annually. These stood at £6,000 and £3,000 previously.

Looking to make the switch to an electric car? Compare EVs on sale today