Electric Vehicles: Vans

(asked on 12th June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is undertaking with industry to support the production of electric vans in the UK.


Answered by
Andrew Stephenson Portrait
Andrew Stephenson
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 20th June 2019

The Government’s mission is to put the UK at the forefront of the design and manufacturing of zero emission vehicles, and for all new cars and vans to be effectively zero emission by 2040. There are a number of manufacturers already producing vans in the UK or with ambitious plans to begin production in coming years. The Government’s Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) offers a comprehensive package of support for ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs). This will see nearly £1.5bn invested in total over the period 2015-2021.

In order to ensure the development of new technologies happens in the UK, OLEV has awarded over £300m in grants via Innovate UK, supporting vehicle manufacturers, technology companies and academia in delivering a major programme of R&D into ULEVs, including vans.

In order to incentivise the purchase of ULEV vans, grant funding has been available since 2012. The plug-in van grant provides 20% of the price of a qualifying vehicle to a maximum grant amount of £8,000, or £20,000 for the first 200 large vans (3.5t+) or trucks, and will be available in some form until at least 2020. Our grant funding for chargepoint infrastructure in homes, at workplaces and on residential streets, as well as the upcoming Charging Infrastructure Investment Fund, all support charging infrastructure for ultra-low emission vans.

In order to aggregate demand for these vans, Government has focused on the biggest fleets. Working with environmental NGO Global Action Plan, 27 of the UK’s largest van fleet operators have joined the Clean Van Commitment committing to transition their total fleet of 65,000 vans to electric by 2028. Again, to support demand, we have legislated to increase the weight allowance for certain alternatively fuelled vans that drivers can drive on a standard Category B driving licence. This is designed to mitigate the additional weight alternatively fuelled power trains can add and avoid the payload of vans being affected.

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