Government EV grant creates unfair advantage, says Hyundai

Hyundai has slammed the impact of the Government’s Electric Car Grant (ECG). The Korean brand has criticised the scheme for unfairly distorting the electric vehicle market while also setting EV sales targets for manufacturers that can result in hefty fines for brands failing to hit a 28% electric market share this year. 

Hyundai is yet to qualify for the grant with any of its electric cars as it doesn’t have the Science-Based Target (SBT) eco accreditation. The company said that it is working towards achieving certification, alongside sister brand Kia, but it’s a process that takes several months. 

“It does disrupt the market,” Hyundai’s European boss Xavier Martinet told Auto Express. “What was a bit strange was this inclusion of this SBT element, which is very specific and which is not easy to get - not in terms of the content, but in terms of timing. It's a very comprehensive project, and the fact that this one [accreditation] was chosen and not some others is unfortunate for us.”

Hyundai does have a number of other environmental accreditations and commitments, including the global initiative RE100 in July 2021, with a target of 100% renewable electricity in all its facilities by 2045, a commitment approved in 2022. Its European plants in Czech and Turkey, and its Indian facility, already run close to or fully on renewable energy. The brand also achieved an A-rating for CDP - formerly known as Carbon Disclosure Project and claimed to be the world’s largest environmental disclosure system - which put it among 2% of the assessed companies worldwide.

The brand has introduced its own ‘EV grant’ to try and offset any drop in interest in its cars in favour of those that do qualify for the official £1,500 discount, or in the case of the Ford Puma Gen-e and e-Tourneo Connect, the higher £3,750 grant level. 

On the Auto Express Buy A Car service a new Hyundai Inster city car is currently available from under £17,000 at UK dealers with discounts of up £6,000 on the list price. Many rival cars in the small class are being bolstered by the ECG, like the Renault 4, Nissan Micra and Peugeot E-208. 

With all brands needing to hit 28% EV share of new car sales this year to avoid heavy fines, Hyundai said it’s an unfair distortion to give some manufacturers favourable conditions at the expense of others. It also raised concerns about the grant being available to all new car buyers, with businesses, leasing companies and even manufacturers’ own internal sales all eligible, rather than the genuine retail customers the company said most need incentives to switch to EVs. “A lot of the industry don't understand why it is open to all channels, it just needs to be retail,” he continued. 

“It's not like we're not doing our job in terms of developing eco-friendly vehicles, or in terms of reducing our carbon footprint at the company level,” added Martinet. “We're one of the brands investing the most in terms of EV product development, and with what the company is doing as well.” 

“It's destroying the market, it's unfair, because our products are very competitive and we're doing all we can to offer the best EVs to our customers, and also to reduce the carbon footprint of the company,” he concluded. “In industry you don't make a decision overnight, you cannot change something overnight. It takes some time and there was no consultation.”

Our electric car deals page has all the top electric car offers and our parent site Carwow is running a live hub page for the latest EV grant discounts.