£40 Million Grant for Electric Car Plug-in schemes in ‘Go Ultra Low Cities’

The UK government has delivered a £40 million grant to eight ‘Go Ultra Low Cities’ to promote the uptake of ULEV cars with a raft of new incentives.

Although still a minuscule part of the UK car landscape, ULEVs (ultra low emission vehicles) are seen as the way forward for cutting emissions and making cities cleaner.

So the UK government is spending £40 million on new schemes in eight UK cities for a raft of schemes designed to encourage motorists to make the switch to ULEVs.

Four cities – Bristol, London, Milton Keynes and Nottingham – get the bulk of the grant, with four others –  Dundee, the North East, Oxford and York – sharing seed funding for EV projects.

London gets £13 million to create ‘Neighbourhoods of the Future’ where EVs get parking and traffic priority, Milton Keynes gets £9 million for an ‘Electric Vehicle Experience Centre’ to promote EVs and provide short-term EV loan cars, as well as 20,000 free parking spaces for EVs, priority in traffic and the right to use bus lanes.

Bristol gets £7 million to give ULEVs access to carpool lanes and to set up a plug-in leasing scheme, Nottinghamshire and Derby share £6 to install 230 charging points, discount parking, ‘Try before you Buy’ for businesses and access to some bus lanes.

Dundee, Oxford, York and the North East (that well-known city) will share £5 million to help get interest in ULEVs front and centre.

Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin said

These Go Ultra Low Cities have proposed exciting, innovative ideas that will encourage drivers to choose an electric car. I want to see thousands more greener vehicles on our roads and I am proud to back this ambition with £40 million to help the UK become international pioneers of emission cutting technology.

All of which is just fine and dandy, but does encouraging the take-up of ULEVs actually do anything for pollution? Or does it just move it out of cities (a good thing) and move it to wherever the electricity is generated (a bad thing)?

And at what point in the development of electric car sales does the government decide it needs to tax electricity at the same level as petrol and diesel?