E Rider Shames The Government!!!

In March 2015 the Office for Low Emission vehicles announced with a great deal of fanfare a 7.5 million pound fund for grants to encourage the use of electric scooters and electric motorcycles.

We were delighted.

As the leading supplier of electric mopeds in the UK we thought this was just the impetus that was needed to kick start the fledgling electric bike industry. So we applied for the grant, spending many long days (and a considerable sum of money) obtaining statistical information to prove the percentage performance of our batteries after three years usage (not as easy as you might think unless you’ve got three years to spare!!).

In any event we must have missed a hoop and our application was rejected.

Boohoo.

But it seems there must have been a lot of other applications rejected because there are currently only three mopeds on the PIMG list and a quick Google seems to suggest that only one of these is currently available to purchase.  So perhaps it was no surprise that my recent Freedom Of Information request has revealed that there were only 87 grants made in the last year. 

Yes that is correct EIGHTY SEVEN. 

In 2017 the UK government helped to improve the environment by encouraging 87 people to purchase electric two wheeled vehicles- and that is a tiny fraction of the environmental contribution made by the customers of E Rider Ltd!!! Furthermore at the current rate of spend the PIMG fund is going to last until the end of the century.

But the other interesting statistic from my FOI request is that the figures reveal an average purchase price to consumers of around £6000 (more than three times the price of an E Rider bike).

So if you have £12.000 or more to splash out on a BMW Evolution or a Zero speedster  the Government will give you £1500. But if you just need a practical, low cost, zero emission vehicle to get to work in the morning….they won’t help you.

What was that slogan about the many and the few?