The low-emission vehicles plug-in grant can help you save up to £4,500 on the purchase price of a new electric or hybrid car. The scheme was first launched in 2011 and is available across the UK and offers a grant towards the price of eligible new cars. The paperwork for the grant application is handled by the dealer you purchase your car from.

HMRC publishes a list of qualifying cars, and only cars listed are eligible for the grant. The list is divided in to 3 main categories.

• Category 1. Vehicles with CO2 emissions lower than 50g/km and a ‘zero-emission’ range of at least 112km.
• Category 2. Vehicles with CO2 emissions lower than 50g/km and a ‘zero-emission’ range of at least 16km.
• Category 3. Vehicles with CO2 emissions of 50 to 75g/km and a ‘zero-emission’ range of at least 32km.

The maximum grant of £4,500 (previously £5,000) is available for cars listed in category 1. For cars listed in categories 2 and 3, the maximum grant is £2,500. The grant will pay for up to 35% of the purchase price for these vehicles up to the monetary cap of each category. The scheme is open to qualifying purchases by private individuals and businesses.

Planning notes

To qualify for the grant, the cars must also come with a warranty covering batteries for at least three years, or 60,000 miles. There is also an ‘on the road’ price cap of £60,000 over which no grant is available. This means that many popular environmentally friendly electric cars such as some Tesla models are not available under the scheme.

As part of the Budget measures, it was confirmed that the a further £100m has been set aside to ensure the scheme will remain available until at least 2020 to help encourage the growth of this sector.