Affording an electric car – The CCC Sector summary for Surface Transport says   “our analysis suggests that BEV cars are likely to become cost-effective by the late-2020s, while the higher fuel savings for vans mean that BEV vans will become cost effective by the mid-2020s” Click Five-year-costs for a calculation spreadsheet for the cost of an electric vehicle compared to alternatives. Also consider:

Electric Car Salary Sacrifice Scheme – check if you have a job where you could take advantage of the scheme’s tax benefits. See the Fleet Alliance explanation here. The Electric Car Scheme company claims to have the best package to take advantage of the very large savings to be made by leasing as electric vehicles through them, where the employer joins the scheme.

Could you convert your car? – There are also more options becoming available to convert an old car with an internal combustion engine to an electric vehicle,  Electric Classic Cars promises “Here at Electric Classic Cars we can convert your classic to electric, building your electric classic to your specifications.” The price might be high, but you would keep a loved vehicle, gain all the benefits of EVs, especially the need to buy high price petrol or diesel, as well as saving the planet from the scrapping and exporting of your old car – perhaps to continue spewing out carbon emissions and pollution particles in the third world.

Upfront cost –

• The Government closed the purchase subsidy from 14th June 2022, as reported by The Guardian. “The DfT said it wanted to focus funding on expanding the public electric chargepoint network, and £300m in grant funding will be directed towards extending plug-in grants to encourage sales of electric taxis, vans, trucks, motorcycles and wheelchair accessible vehicles, as announced in last year’s autumn statement.”
• The Government provides funding of up to 75% towards the cost of installing electric vehicle chargepoints at domestic properties across the UK. See here.
• The Mayor of London offers scrappage grants for drivers who scrap older, more polluting vehicles to meet required emissions standards which will be extended to the whole area within the North and South Circular roads in October 2021. See here to check whether your vehicle does not meet the ULEZ standards and therefore could get a grant.
• Zip Car offers up to £3,500 for businesses to scrap their vehicles to match the GLA payment. See here.

Yearly cost savings – include:

• Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) this shows £0 for electric and the cost for alternative petrol and diesel cars, depending on CO2 emission levels.
• Congestion Charge this shows that electric vehicles will be entitled to an exemption on the congestion charge, compare with £15 a trip,
• ULEZ this checks whether a particular (old replacement vehicle) would have to pay the Ultra Low Emission Zone cost of £12.50 a day (across whole of London from October 2021)
• Fuelling – instead of paying for petrol or diesel at a garage there is a large range of options to charge at very different prices. Generating your own electricity from solar panels and charging at home can be extremely low cost. High speed charging at a public chargepint can be very expensive. Which has a good explanation of the choices here. Even high priced public charging is less per km than petrol and diesel.  
• Maintenance for an electric vehicle will be less because of fewer moving parts.

Hence a finance plan spread over a long period can be better than considering just the upfront cost, especially if you can pay though gross salary rather than net.

Leaseplan offers personal leases and Next Green Car, also has a leasing partner  Green Car Leasing

Second User cars – Green Alliance has good information about buying EVs. It points out that most car purchases are second and third hand, so the more new EVs that are bought the more are freed up for low income owners. It also says that Element energy has calculated that low income households could save £3,000 to £5,000 per car if they were to buy or lease a used EV compared with the cheapest diesel, on a total cost of ownership basis. 

GoGreen have a good selection of second user cars and Eco-cars do too, plus a very informative FAQ. Older EVs will have lower miles per charge – fine for many motorists.

Choosing a model – Next Green Car – has comprehensive information about electric cars and the EV Experience Centre Milton Keynes – has experts and test drives. Similarly TryEV – will arrange test drives  

Disposing of old petrol and diesel vehicles –  This can be an ethical problem if putting a polluting vehicle onto the second hand market for someone else to drive around.

Charging from additional renewable electricity – The UK supply will need more capacity for every new EV vehicle. New EV owners that can install solar panels can contribute to this. For those who cannot, but can charge from their domestic supply there are special tariffs that are used to invest in more renewable capacity. Power My EV compares EV tariffs, but many use fossil fuel to produce electricity so check here before switching