PICG extending to PIVG from OLEV

The new PICG extending to PIVG from OLEV means EV light duty vans clean up in London – and that’s not just in Carbon, air quality or noise.

With the launch of vehicles such as the Kangoo from Renault we are seeing a major change in the economics of the EV compared with their Diesel equivalent in London.

So it was with great interest I got my colleagues at EST to do a comparison of these two vehicles now we have both congestion charge (101g/km cars receive a 100% discount so pay nothing, vans do not qualify for this discount unless electric) and the extension of the OLEV PICG to include them at 20% (up to a maximum of £8,000) grant funding.

How does a typical cost saving of 22ppm sound against a three year 45k miles change cycle (59ppm for  the Diesel, 37ppm for the EV)? Not bad I thought, but even if you make some wild assumptions with a big discount on the Diesel and no discount on the EV, you still get nowhere near the cost savings experienced by the man who decides on an EV in London and drives approx. 60 miles per day…

We then looked outside London, added in the same big discount, reduced the mileage, and finally we started to get to parity between the ppm costs. Great news, and 2012 will see fleets taking up EVs in the sweet spots that will emerge with EVs working over defined drive cycles.

OLEV may find that they finally start spending their money fast. Maybe we might get one of those PV panel moments in the next year when the PICG money starts to run out and the minister has to cut the grant: I would like to see that headline on Top Gear, with Clarkson saying: ‘They’re great…go buy one now before they run out…’!

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