Retailers sprint to beat EV grant cut

  17 March 2020

£400m of funding secured the Plug-in Car Grant to 2022-23 in last week’s Budget – but retailers and OEMs were caught unawares when, at 5pm on Wednesday, a clarification was issued announcing the amount had been cut from £3,500 to £3,000 and removed from cars over £50,000.

The changes were effective from midnight.

Auto Retail Agenda understands manufacturers immediately contacted retailers encouraging them to register as many cars on the old £3,500 amount as possible. Some retailers even returned to their offices to process confirmed orders.

Auto Retail Agenda has since learnt that OLEV (the government department responsible for the Plug-in Car Grant) recognises the issue. It has asked manufacturers to pass on all orders from genuine customers that were not able to be processed before the deadline and they will “assess and respond”.

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