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Thursday, 1 April 2010

£5000 towards your next electric car, BUT...


The Department for Transport’s £5000 grant towards the purchase of a fully electric or plug-in hybrid car will be available from January 2011.

But, in order to qualify for the grant, the amount claimed must not represent more than 25 per cent of the cost of the car and the vehicle must have a range of at least 70 miles, a minimum top speed of 60mph, and meet European safety standards. This means the only two vehicles on launch that would qualify for the grant would be the Tesla Roadster (which we love but exceeds £80,000 in price tag) and the Mitsubishi iMiev (which is around £33,000).

PS This post is not an April Fool's Joke.

13 comments:

Jane Price said...

This should be an AFJ, it's crazy! I was looking forward to this kickstarting the electric car rollout and this has just been a complete mess.

Anonymous said...

The But is big. No pun intended.

TankX3479 said...

Threshold and requirements + given current vehicles on market = massive FAIL.

Anonymous said...

No cigar to the govt. Good idea, terrible execution. Great for the Roadsters-wanners.

FUDGEMAN said...

Yes I read this and to say I'm disappointed is an understatement. What a wasted opportunity.

matt t said...

The Mitsu is massively overpriced

Russell Tank said...

Sorry but WHAT'S THE POINT. Buy an e-car but pay what you cannot afford for it so only the elite will adopt it. Given how much a car depreciates this is atrocious. The Prius (perceived as green but not so much so) is overpriced and does reasonably well, the Mitsu is trying to take advantage of the situation. The Tesla I applaud for innovation and obviously they've a different marketable product so power to them for getting money off the roadsters then ploughing it back into producing sedans.

Rob Schwarz said...

Whatever the post, you made my day with the image of the Tesla. Sizzle away, my monitor's still smoking!!!

Terry J said...

Super Opp, Super Fail. Unless you want the Supercar.

Anonymous said...

Er, I'll save my money cheers.

Simon Paterson said...

If you can afford the £80k you don't need a discount of £5k, trust me.

Daniel P said...

If the Leaf is £22k then with a £5k grant it would be £17 which is on par with the Prius. The Mitsu would be down to 28 which is still high.

Graham F said...

Man this is bad news until vehicle manufacturers step up their game and release AFFORDABLE cars for all of us! No wonder the car industry is in such dire straits.

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