The government has announced it will continue its fight against climate change by encouraging more drivers to swap their cars for electric vehicles (EVs) through its investment in more charging points across the country.
While the Department for Transport had put aside £300 million for its plug-in car grant scheme for new orders, it will refocus the money on expanding the charge point network for the public, as well as for electric taxis, vans, trucks, wheelchair accessible vehicles and motorcycles.
Transport minister Trudy Harrison said: “Having successfully kickstarted the electric car market, we now want to use plug-in grants to match that success across other vehicle types … to help make the switch to zero emission travel cheaper and easier.”
Since launching in 2011, the government’s plug-in car grant scheme has helped in the sale of nearly half a million EVs, boosting deals of fully electric cars from below 1,000 in 2011 to nearly 100,000 during the first five months of 2022.
In March alone, there were as many as 39,000 new EV registrations, which is more than there was during the whole of 2019.
It now wants to move its spending to increase the charge points available for the growing number of EV drivers on the road, on top of the £1.6 billion it has already committed to expanding the charge point network in the UK.
This will alleviate ‘range anxiety’ among motorists, and make it more appealing to buy an EV, particularly if they do not have access to private or off-road parking and rely on public charging points.
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