Scoop: DfT officials exploring used EV grant
DfT sounding out industry on expanding scope of Electric Car Grant
Hello, I’m Tom Riley, and welcome to the final Fast Charge newsletter of 2025.
Top story in today’s edition... Top dogs at the Department for Transport are quietly exploring how to make the Electric Car Grant work for used vehicles.
Elsewhere... The latest EV news and recapping my favourite articles of 2025.
Before all that, whether you’ve already broken up or are just about to, I wish you and your family a tremendous Christmas and a Happy New Year. This newsletter will return on the 7th of January.
As ever, if you have any comments or feedback, please reply to this email or message me on LinkedIn.
🚨 Top DfT officials are quietly exploring how to make a used EV grant work
According to several industry sources, senior officials at the Department for Transport have recently been entertaining debate and sounding out views from industry on how the Electric Car Grant could be extended to cover used electric cars.
The Fast Charge understands policy officials are said to be broadly warm to the idea and sensitive to industry asks for including second hand EVs under the grant scheme. However, it’s understood that the main barrier is how such a scheme could practically function.
One industry figure suggested DfT had been considering ways to make it work and wanted to be handed models for how it could be implemented. Another sector source suggested officials are concerned about potential fraud within the scheme if the existing scheme specifications were to be changed.
A source at the Whitehall department told The Fast Charge that the grant criteria is kept “under review” but that there are no current plans to expand it to used vehicles. Notably, there was no denial that DfT isn’t keen to expand it, nor a denial that it’s being discussed with industry.
Making used EVs eligible for the scheme would certainly be popular in the automotive sector, as it has been asked for by several organisations, including the AA, the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (BVRLA), and Motability. Major carmakers such as Tesla and Jaguar Land Rover have also made similar asks for used EV support schemes this year within their ZEV mandate consultation responses.
At the recent Budget in November, it was confirmed that the Electric Car Grant would be boosted by £1.3 billion – the initial funding for the scheme was £650 million. Currently, 43 EV models are eligible under the scheme, which is focused on making new EVs more affordable.
A DfT spokesperson said in response to this story:
“The Electric Car Grant has helped more than 40,000 drivers make the switch to an EV, saving up to £3,750 on a new electric car. By boosting competition, the grant is helping drive down prices and expand choice for consumers.
“Sales of used electric vehicles rose by 44% between July and September compared to last year, and two in five used EVs are now priced under £20,000.”
Latest EV news...
🚗 KIA is the latest carmaker to have models added to the Electric Car Grant scheme. Read more.
👍 Congratulations to friends at the think tank New AutoMotive who are uniting with the global energy think tank Ember. New AutoMotive will become part of a new group led by Ember, continuing to operate as an independent organisation in the near term. Read more.
🚙 Great feature by The Guardian on the £450 million upgrade at Nissan’s plant in Sunderland and the wider goings on around carmakers, further to the EU’s move to lower its EV ambition. Read more.
⚡️ EVA England has launched a new survey on cross-pavement charging to understand the experiences of drivers without access to off-street parking. Learn more.
💷 Renault has been accused of cashing in on the Electric Car Grant by the website Electrifying. This is because the finance rates have risen sharply on cars which are eligible for the grant, whereas before they were available as low as 0%. Renault denies this. Read more.
📍 A GPS tracking system being used by charging network InstaVolt has been successful in recovering equipment and cables from two thefts. Read more.
🚑 The Welsh Ambulance Service has revealed its first 10 fully electric vehicles, which will be used by paramedics. They are from the Chinese carmaker Maxus. Read more.
🤔 A recent readiness survey conducted by the AA has shed light on what we all know: the ups and downs around EV policy, both in the UK and EU, are not inspiring confidence in drivers. Read more.
🔌 Glasgow City Region – which is made up of eight councils – is looking for an operator to deliver more than 3,000 chargers across the area. The operator would also take over 600 existing charge points, with the cost met by private sector investment and £3.6m of Transport Scotland funding. Read more.
Top stories in 2025…
Thank you for continuing to read my ‘Private Eye for EVs’, especially to those of you who have parted with actual money pounds – you have enabled me to pursue stories I would never normally have time to chase and, in turn, this publication has had more scoops than a Knickerbocker Glory!
Amazingly, Fast Charge exclusives were picked up more than 15 times by national outlets this year, including the BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, Mail, and The Sun (alongside countless others in the trade media). Subscribers have grown by 50% year-on-year, and readership is up 75% - currently averaging 18,000 a month. Which isn’t bad for a niche publication posting once a week.
In case you missed them, here’s my top five most viewed and shared stories of the year...
1) Plans reversed: In the top spot was my scoop that BT had pulled the plug on its plans for turning green boxes into charge points, after only installing one, despite planning to do 60,000. The story ended up being picked up everywhere and was even the tiebreaker question in one of Radio 4's weekly news quizzes.
Funny thing about it all was… the day this story got picked up by lots of outlets, I was stuck in the basement of a hospital with no signal. It was only while getting a coffee that I saw on another person's phone that they were reading it on the BBC.
2) EV inferno: In the number two spot, it was the news that the UK’s first electric fire engine had never actually been used to, err, tackle a real fire... after three years! This story was not a good one for London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, and it went through certain Facebook groups like a hot knife through butter.
3) Dealer EV knowledge: In third place, my ‘test’ of the EV experience at 15 West London car dealerships during the Summer. It was very popular, and my insights (and amateur video documenting), which revealed how dire the EV education was amongst dealers, inspired several others to go out and try the same thing, including, I hear, some staff at carmakers. It was great fun to do, and the fact that it may have inspired some positive action as a result is thrilling. Read it here. Or why not watch my video below?
4) Cable theft: Another popular story this year was my special feature on the rise of cable theft by organised crime gangs. To me, this is the biggest and, despite the cost, still fairly unreported on story of this past year. It’s an issue which, without the UK government taking more seriously asap, is surely going to hit the mainstream before too long. If you haven’t read it, do give my feature a read.
5) Carmaker lobbying: And last, but by no means least, my stories and publications of lobbying undertaken by carmakers about weakening the ZEV mandate continued to be popular this year. I appreciate that they are not quite as exciting as the Epstein files, but you can access all the submissions made by carmakers within the story below (with Tesla, Ford, and Mercedes now added in too).
And that’s it for 2026!
Thank you again for all your support this year. I cannot put into words how much I value every read, like, share, reply, thumbs up, or even criticism.
Also, special mention to my partner, Eve, for supporting me this year every step of the way as I’ve taken this publication full time. Not only has she had to put up with some really nerdy automotive chat, but she’s also had to share in my anxiety after taking on several more, err, sensitive stories. Thanks Eve 🩵
Right, gushy bit out of the way. I look forward to writing for you all again in January, and I wish you all a great festive period before then. Merry Christmas! x