LONDON -- The UK government is considering giving drivers up to 6,000 pounds ($7,600) to swap their diesel and gasoline cars for electric vehicles, a British newspaper said.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is said to be looking at July 6 as a potential date to announce the scrapping program, The Telegraph reported on Sunday.
The program is designed to provide a boost for UK electric car manufacturing following the impact of coronavirus lockdown, the newspaper said.
Currently, the only full-electric cars built in the UK are the Nissan Leaf in Sunderland and the Mini Electric in Oxford.
The Telegraph said government ministers hope that the scrapping program would increase sales of EVs from Nissan's alliance partner Renault, and encourage Renault to build cars at Nissan's Sunderland plant to use spare capacity. Nissan may build the Renault Kadjar and Captur SUVs at its plant in Sunderland, England, the Financial Times reported last month.
The Sunderland factory is the UK’s largest car assembly plant, but has seen production fall from a high of more than 500,000 to 325,243 cars in the financial year to the end of March, down 22 percent on the year before, company figures show.
A scrapping program could also boost Jaguar Land Rover by reducing the cost of the Jaguar I-Pace electric crossover, which is built by Magna Steyr in Austria. Jaguar Land Rover plans to produce a full-electric version of the Jaguar the XJ sedan at its Castle Bromwich factory in England.
Kerrigan Advisors’ proprietary annual OEM Survey of over 100 executives reveals that the majority of respondents are worried about the financial impact of Chinese automakers’ growing global market share, and most expect that the EV transition to be slower than expected. The survey also queried executives on their outlooks for dealership valuations and profitability, as well as their expectations for the future of dealer networks and facility requirements.
Germany and France also plan to encourage consumers to buy electric cars.
The German government said last week that buyers of full-electric cars with a price of up to 40,000 euros will be eligible for a grant of 9,000 euros as part of a package that doubles incentives for ultra low emissions models.
An 8 billion-euro aid plan in France includes incentives for electric vehicles that can reach 12,000 euros with scrapping incentives.
Reuters contributed to this report
