One-in-five UK homes to benefit from new electric car charging scheme
New grant scheme will help electric car drivers living in rented properties to charge at home...
Landlords, tenants and flat owners can now get grants of up to £350 towards the cost of installing an electric car home charger.
The new grants from the Government's Office for Zero-Emission Vehicles (OZEV) replace the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS), which was available for owners of detached, semi-detached and terraced houses, as well as bungalows. The EVHS's eligibility rules changed at the end of March 2022 to exclude most dwellings.
The new payments are aimed at landlords of rental properties and those living in leasehold flats. The Government hopes they will encourage electric vehicle (EV) uptake in densely populated urban areas.
In order to be eligible to apply for a home charging grant, residents must own, lease or have ordered an electric car. Landlords will be able to apply for up to 200 chargers per year, but private parking must be available for every property applied for.
From 2014 to 2021, 189,815 home chargers were installed under the EVHS scheme. That figure should rise as home charging grants become available for rental properties, which make up 20% of the UK’s housing market (in other words, one in five homes).
Most renters (80%) live in a city, and helping more households fit chargers should lead to more electric car sales. According to industry figures, sales of pure-electric cars are up by more than 88% so far in 2022, compared with the same period in 2021.
Increased home charging should also help to ease concerns over range, which is often cited as one of the biggest barriers to drivers choosing an electric car. Indeed, What Car? Research has found that although one in five new car buyers is looking to choose an electric car, 31% said they were worried about range.
One UK charging installer, Smart Home Charge, will be working with a rental property provider called Annington to install home chargers at its properties to highlight the benefits of the new EV charging grant.
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