A guide to EV grants

Looking to buy an EV? Or maybe you’re thinking about having an EV chargepoint installed. You could be in luck. There are so many EV grants available. But, they can get pretty confusing.

We’ve put together this handy guide to answer all your burning questions:

• Is there a grant for at-home chargers?
• Are there EV charging grants for landlords and residential car park owners?
• Can my workplace get a grant for charge points?
• Can I get financial support for buying an EV?
• What EV grants are available in Scotland?

Yes. In some circumstances, you can receive financial support when installing an EV charger at home.

People who could be eligible for an at-home charging grant include:

• Renters
• Flat owners
• Landlords

If you rent your home or own a flat, you could be eligible for the chargepoint grant for renters and flat owners.

With this grant, you can get 75% off the cost of buying and installing a chargepoint socket.

To be able to get this grant:

• You must own an EV
• Your home must have its own private off-street parking space
• You must own and live in a flat
• Rent any residential property

There are two types of charging grants available to landlords and residential car park owners. One for the chargepoint itself and one for infrastructure.

The EV chargepoint grant gives you money off the cost of buying and installing a chargepoint socket.

With the EV chargepoint grant, you can get:

• 75% off the cost of buying and installing a socket (up to a max of £350 per socket)
• Up to 200 grants a year for residential properties (and a further 100 for commercial properties)

The EV infrastructure grant gives you money off the cost of any wider building or installation work that might be needed to install multiple chargepoint sockets (this can include both sockets you want to install now and later).

Examples of things that the EV infrastructure grant covers, includes:

• Wiring
• Charging posts

With the EV infrastructure grant, you can get:

• 75% off the cost of work (up to a max of £30,000)
• Up to £350 per chargepoint socket installed
• Up to £500 per parking space enabled with supporting infrastructure
• Up to 40 grants each financial year

It’s important to note that you can’t apply for the infrastructure grant if you’re a commercial landlord.

Like landlords, there are two types of grants available to businesses. Both for the installation of charging points and infrastructure.

The EV infrastructure grant for staff and fleets is only available to small and medium-sized businesses. The EV infrastructure grant helps out with any costs to do with building and installation work that’s needed to install multiple chargepoint sockets, such as the installation of wiring and posts.

With this grant, you can get:

• 75% of the cost of the work paid for (up to a max of £15,000)
• Up to £350 per chargepoint socket installed
• Up to £500 per parking space enabled with supporting infrastructure
• Up to five grants across five different sites

The Workplace Charging Scheme (WCS) is a scheme run by the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) and is available to businesses, charities, and public sector organisations that meet the eligibility criteria.

It’s a voucher-based scheme that provides support towards upfront costs of the buying and installation of EV chargepoints. And is available in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (but not in the Channel Islands or Isle of Man).

This grant can also be used at the same time as the EV infrastructure grant for staff and fleets. Both grants can be used for the same site, but never the same chargepoints.

The workplace charging scheme includes:

• Cover of up to 75% of the total costs of purchasing and installation of chargepoints
• Up to £350 per socket
• Up to 40 sockets across all sites per applicant

You can find more information about the WCS on the Government website.

In certain circumstances, yes. There used to be more grants available, but with EVs becoming more affordable with schemes such as salary sacrifice, the government reduced the help they would offer, though they do still have good incentives through low Benefit in Kind.

With our salary sacrifice scheme, you can save up to 40% off the monthly cost of an EV. Take a look at our EV savings calculator, to see how much you could save.

Instead of offering grants for all EVs, the UK government currently offer a scrappage scheme to residents in London, and the Plug-in Grant.

The UK Government’s Plug-in Grant, originally introduced in 2011, is a scheme designed to help financially support drivers who want to purchase an electric vehicle by covering a portion of the cost of their EV. Since its introduction the grant has supported the purchase of more than 285,000 vehicles, totalling around £1.3bn in funding!

In  Scotland, there is other financial support available, such as:

• Domestic chargepoint funding - with this you can get up to £400 towards the cost of buying and installing home chargepoints.
• Used Electric Vehicle Loan - this loan is funded by Transport Scotland and can help you purchase a used EV.