Labour's latest electric car grant will 'close the affordability gap', Greenwood tells GB News

GB News

GB News host Eamonn Holmes has grilled Labour's Roads Minister Lilian Greenwood on the Government's latest electric car incentive, declaring the scheme is "only good if people buy them".The initiative provides discounts of up to £3,750 to make zero-emission cars more affordable for British consumers and aims to bridge the price difference between electric and traditional petrol vehicles.FULL STORY HERE.

Transcript

00:00Now, I want to ask you, because you say you are looking after taxpayers' money, but a

00:03discount of up to £3,700 on electric cars, the government is trying to encourage us to

00:09buy them by giving us a discount. That is going to cost hundreds of millions. Why are

00:14they doing this? Because most people don't really want an electric car. I mean, do you

00:18have an electric car? Our household car is a hybrid, but we are going to be getting an

00:24electric one next. I think we are in the same position as lots of people. If you are thinking

00:30of changing your car, maybe you would like to have an electric vehicle, you want to go

00:36green, but you are perhaps a bit worried about the upfront cost and a bit worried about whether

00:40you will be able to charge it easily and conveniently. We are determined as a government to tackle

00:47both of those things. Today's announcement of this discount of up to £3,750

00:54is about closing that affordability gap. We know at the moment, on average, it costs a bit more

01:00to buy an electric vehicle than it does to buy a petrol one, and so we want people to be able to

01:07make that greener choice, so we are helping them with the cost of it. Of course, it is great news

01:13for consumers, people who are going to buy a new electric vehicle, but it is also great news for

01:18British jobs and British manufacturing. You know how important the car manufacturing sector is to us

01:24here in the UK? It is only good Lillian if people buy them, and obviously at the moment they are not

01:32buying them, and you have got to make that attractive. I suppose it is not what you buy them for,

01:36it is your resale values, the real worry with these sort of things. I appreciate the task that you have,

01:44and I appreciate that I for instance would want to do what I would deem to be the right thing,

01:50the right thing for the environment and all that sort of thing, but I just know it wouldn't be the

01:54right thing for me, and I will not be buying it until I am forced to buy one.

02:00Well, actually, a lot of people do want to buy them. If you look at the last month, one in four

02:07new cars bought in the UK was an electric vehicle. That is up, I think, 38% increase in the first six

02:15months of this year compared with the first six months of last year, but we know that upfront cost

02:21is an issue. Obviously, when people do get an electric vehicle, they can get around for, they can save

02:28about £1,500 a year because they are very economical to run, especially if you can charge at home. You

02:35can travel for as little as 2p a mile, so you could drive from London to Birmingham for about £2.50,

02:42so it is really good value. I recognise not everybody is yet convinced, but a lot of people

02:47do want to be able to do it, and of course, we are expanding the charge point network all the time.

02:53There is a new charge point, a public charge point going in every 30 minutes now, 82,000

03:00across the country, and we are determined to make sure that that continues to ramp up so that people,

03:05when they are making that, when they are thinking, what is my next car going to be?

03:09This is unrealistic. I just want to say about the charges there, you know, great job, I applaud you for

03:13that and super duper, but the fact that there are different charges for different cars, you should hit

03:22that on the head, you should hit these manufacturers with that, it is like your mobile phone, oh I can't

03:26plug that in, I need that particular charge, I need that change, change, change. You know, it should be a universal,

03:33one charge fits all, and it isn't, so I don't envy you that task.

03:41Well, it is absolutely getting there. I am sure, like you, you will remember when people first had video

03:46recorders, and was it going to be VHS, or was it going to be Betamax, and pretty quickly it became clear

03:52that everyone was going to be VHS. And it is a bit the same with the chargers, at first there were two

03:57different sorts, now there is one that has clearly emerged as the standard charger, and that is what,

04:02I mean, that is what is rolling out across the country, and that is what new electric vehicles

04:07are going to be. So it will be a pretty much a universal thing, so people can feel confident

04:13that the charges they are going to encounter around about on the network, whether it is on the street,

04:18or at motorway service areas, is going to be the one that works for their vehicle.

04:22I just want to briefly ask you, so what about people in flats, and also the fact that there is a different

04:27sort of electric system when you are plugging in the electricity for your car from your home.

04:32So have you factored in where people who live in flats, people who do not necessarily have somewhere

04:39to park their car in their drive, that is the most of us, by the way, how are we going to charge our EVs,

04:45and can the grid honestly sustain us charging in that way?

04:52Well, that is a really important question. It is about 68% of people have got a driveway,

04:59so can charge on their drive at home. But we want everyone to have the opportunity to switch to a

05:06cleaner, greener electric vehicle. And that is why there is a grant available to people who own or

05:12rent a flat to install a charger if they have got a car parking space in the car park. But also at

05:19the weekend we announced a new grant of £25 million to enable local authorities to roll out

05:26cross-pavement solutions. So if you live in a terrace street, you maybe can park on the road

05:32outside your house, but obviously you do not want a dangerous cable trailing across the pavement.

05:37So there are these pavement gullies that allow you to run the cable through the pavement,

05:43but there is a sort of flap over the top that keeps the pavement safe for anyone walking along.

05:49The whole thing is so ridiculous, honestly. It is not even realistic. You seem to have lots of

05:54money for all these other things, but no money in real terms for really important things that the

05:58people of this country are currently suffering with. But I want to move on to this.

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