UK Plans New Incentives to Lower EV Purchase Costs

According to foreign media reports, the UK plans to introduce new incentives to reduce the cost of purchasing new electric vehicles for its citizens. The UK Labour government is working towards phasing out the sale of polluting petrol cars. On July 13, UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander announced that she would unveil a series of new measures to promote electric vehicle sales within the week, but did not directly respond to media inquiries regarding the scale of subsidies. Reports from The Daily Telegraph and The Times revealed that the new UK policy aims to invest up to £700 million (approximately $948 million) to lower the costs for consumers purchasing new electric vehicles through purchase subsidies and other forms of support. In an interview with the BBC, Alexander stated, "We will enable consumers who wish to switch to electric vehicles to do so at a lower cost." On July 13, her office also announced that as part of the measures to reduce the cost of purchasing electric vehicles, the UK government plans to invest £63 million in building charging stations in homes and logistics warehouses across the UK, including funding for installing chargers at residences without driveways. Her department has also proposed a £2.5 billion plan to support manufacturers in transitioning to zero-emission vehicle production. These investments are important steps by the UK government to promote electric vehicle sales. Currently, the average price of electric vehicles in the UK market is more than twice that of traditional petrol cars. As the largest electric vehicle market in Europe, the UK government has set clear targets for the automotive industry's transformation: to completely stop the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030 and to stop the sale of hybrid vehicles by 2035. However, sales data shows that before these deadlines, manufacturers have failed to meet the UK's targets for increasing the proportion of electric vehicle sales, attributing this to consumer concerns over the high purchase costs of electric vehicles and anxiety over insufficient charging infrastructure.