Due to the CO₂ conversion flexibility included in the ZEV Mandate legislation, which allows a manufacturer to sell fewer ZEVs in exchange for reducing their CO2 emissions of their non-ZEVs, the Government believes that the car market as a whole has complied with the 22% target. In December the Government launched the consultation Phasing out sales of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 and supporting the ZEV transition which seeks views from the public and industry on how to support vehicle manufacturers to meet the targets going forward.

We are alive to the global challenges the industry is facing, which is why we’re investing £2 billion to support the transition of domestic manufacturing, and over £300 million announced in the Budget to drive uptake of electric vehicles, as we continue to work closely with the sector to make the transition a success.

We remain committed to phasing out the sale of new cars powered solely by internal combustion engines by 2030, and we will soon bring forward a consultation which will consider how to support industry to reach this phase out date.

The Government is committed to supporting the transition to zero emission vehicles and the Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate includes a range of flexibilities. Over £2.3bn funding was announced in the Autumn Budget to support manufacturers, businesses and consumers with this transition. The funding sits alongside a range of favourable tax incentives, designed to encourage the uptake of zero emission vehicles.

Additionally, the Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate includes a range of flexibilities to accommodate manufacturers’ different starting points in the transition.

Government grants have been in place for over a decade to help reduce the up-front purchase price of electric vehicles, with over £1.8 billion in grant funding provided since 2011. Grants remain available for vans, trucks, wheelchair accessible vehicles and taxis. Favourable tax benefits also remain in place to support the transition to EVs.

As stated in the Plan for Drivers, the Government will also continue to support the uptake of zero emission vehicles, by addressing common misconceptions and showing how they can be a practical option for most drivers.

The Government continues to engage extensively with the automotive industry to ensure the transition supports the sector.

Government has already spent over £2 billion to support the transition to ZEVs. This funding has focused on reducing barriers to the adoption of such vehicles to support demand, including offsetting their higher upfront cost, and accelerating the rollout of chargepoint infrastructure. The Government’s plug-in vehicle grants, favourable benefit in kind tax rates and generous tax incentives also remain in place to encourage the uptake of ZEVs.

As part of the Advanced Manufacturing Plan, the Government has also announced over £2 billion of capital and research and development funding to 2030, to further boost the UK’s competitiveness and unlock strategic investments in the automotive industry.

As committed in the Plan for Drivers, the Government has published factual information on electric vehicle (EVs) and EV charging infrastructure, to address misinformation surrounding EVs.

Due to the success of the Plug-in Car Grant in driving the growth of the EV market, the Government is now targeting its incentives toward charging infrastructure and grants for harder to transition vehicles. In June 2022, the Government published a public evaluation report, highlighting that while the plug-in car grant was vital in building the early market for EVs, it had since been having less of an effect on demand.

The Government continues to provide tax incentives to encourage the uptake of EVs. EVs currently pay zero rates of VED and from 2025, they will continue to have preferential first year rates in comparison to the most polluting vehicles. Favourable rates of company car tax for EVs have been confirmed out to April 2028.

The development and adoption of electric aircraft is considered within the government’s Jet Zero Strategy. On 20 July 2023, DfT published a Jet Zero Strategy One Year On document which highlights the progress and achievements that have been made since the launch of the Strategy, and the next steps to deliver net zero aviation by 2050.

As noted in the Jet Zero Strategy the government is investing a record £685 million over three years into R&D in the UK aerospace sector through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) programme. In February the Department for Business and Trade announced £113 million of co-investment with industry in three Rolls-Royce led projects on hydrogen and Vertical Aerospace work on battery-electric aircraft.

The government works with industry and academia through the Jet Zero Council to drive the delivery of new technologies and innovative ways to cut aviation emissions. In 2022 a Delivery Group of the Council was established on Zero Emission Flight which considers electric aviation.

Since financial year 2018/19, the Government has spent the following on supporting the rollout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure:

*Total spend is rounded to the nearest £million and includes the following schemes: Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme, Workplace Charging Scheme, On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme and Taxi Infrastructure scheme.

Details relating to 2022/23 Government grant spending will be available in due course.

Data on electric vehicle charging devices in the UK, held by the Department for Transport, is sourced from those installed or funded under government approved grant schemes, operated by the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) and from the electric vehicle charging platform Zap-Map. Charging devices not supplied via these schemes or recorded on Zap-Map are not included and the true number of charging devices may be higher than recorded in these figures.

The below table provides the data requested, for the years available for the United Kingdom as at 01 January 2023;

Table notes:

- Zap-Map data not available before this or grant scheme not running in this time period

i. Denotes the increase in the number of publicly available electric vehicle charging devices in each year;

ii. EVHS was introduced at the end of the 2014 calendar year and so has been grouped with 2015 to allow minimal suppression of counts.

In March 2022, the Department for Transport published its Electric Vehicle (EV) Infrastructure Strategy, which sets out its plans to accelerate the rollout of public EV chargepoints. The strategy states that the Government expects that approximately 300,000 public chargepoints will be installed across the UK by 2030.

The Department monitors progress and publishes data on the installation of public chargepoints, broken down by local authority areas, on a quarterly basis. The latest data, published on 1 March 2023, shows that public charging devices have more than tripled in four years from 10,300 devices in January 2019 to over 38,700. This includes more than 7,400 rapid devices. In 2022, an average of 723 public charging devices were added to the UK’s public charging network each month.

The Government is now focusing on two crucial sectors: ultra-rapid chargers on the strategic road network through the Rapid Charging Fund, and local on-street charging through the Local EV Infrastructure Fund and On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme.

The UK has been a global front-runner in supporting provision of charging infrastructure along with private sector investment. Of the £2.5 billion of Government funding committed to the electric vehicle (EV) transition since 2020, over £1.6 billion will be used to support charging infrastructure.

Our UK electric vehicle charging infrastructure strategy (published 25 March 2022) sets out our vision and commitments to make EV charging cheaper and more convenient than refuelling at a petrol station.

To ensure that the transition to EVs takes place in every part of the country, we are pledging at least £500 million to support local chargepoint provision. As part of this, the Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) fund will provide approximately £400 million of capital and £50 million of resource funding to support local authorities to work with industry and transform the availability of charging for drivers without off-street parking.

In addition, to ensure the private sector can continue to expand the charging network at pace in the 2020s, the Government will invest £950 million in future proofing grid capacity at motorway and major A road service areas to prepare the network for uptake of zero emission cars and vans ahead of need.

The Department has committed over £1.3 billion to accelerate the roll out of charging infrastructure on motorways and major A roads, in homes and businesses and on-street. This funding includes the Local EV Infrastructure Fund, which will be available to English local authorities in 2022/3. This fund will facilitate the roll-out of larger scale charging infrastructure projects across the country.

Local authorities in rural areas are also able to take advantage of the On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme, which assists them with the cost of installing chargepoints on residential streets for their residents without access to private parking.

To support local authorities in accessing this funding, DfT funds Energy Saving Trust to offer expert advice on EV charging and support on developing EV strategies. Energy Saving Trust, in partnership with DfT, also hosts a library of webinars and guidance for local authorities on installing charging points. This includes webinars specifically for rural local authorities.

The Government is investing £1.3 billion to accelerate the roll out of charging infrastructure over the next four years. We are targeting this support on rapid chargepoints on motorways and major roads, and installing more on-street chargepoints near homes and workplaces to make charging as easy as refuelling a petrol or diesel car.

Later this year Government will publish our EV Infrastructure Strategy. This will define our vision for the continued roll-out of a world-leading charging infrastructure network across the UK. It will also set out the action plan for charging infrastructure rollout to ensure this is delivered at the pace needed to achieve the 2030/35 phase out successfully and to accelerate the transition to a zero-emission car and van fleet. We will set out our next steps to address barriers to private investment, level up charge point provision, and regulate to protect consumers.

The Government’s current grant funding schemes support chargepoint infrastructure at homes, workplaces and on residential streets.

The £400m public-private Charging Infrastructure Investment Fund will see thousands more electric vehicle chargepoints installed across the UK. The Road to Zero strategy, published in July, includes new commitments to expand electric and low emission vehicle infrastructure significantly across the country.

We will be launching a consultation shortly on the proposal for chargepoints to be installed in all newly built homes in England, where appropriate, and we also want all new lampposts to include charging infrastructure.