Eleven Electric Cars Now Qualify for the Full £3,750 Government Grant

The number of new electric cars that come with the maximum £3,750 government discount has just risen to eleven, after the Kia EV4 was upgraded into the top band of the Electric Car Grant in early June. It joins a list that now spans superminis, family hatchbacks and SUVs, and it means a brand new EV4 can be driven away from £30,995, undercutting the smaller EV3. If you are shopping for an electric car this summer, knowing which models carry the full grant and how the rules work could save you thousands at the point of sale.

The Electric Car Grant, or ECG, is the government’s attempt to chip away at the one barrier that still puts many buyers off going electric: the higher up-front price. The discount is applied automatically by the dealer, so there is no form to fill in. But the rules around which cars qualify, and for how much, are changing almost weekly, so it pays to understand the system before you sign anything.

What the grant is and how much it saves

There are two levels of discount. Band 1 is worth £3,750 and Band 2 is worth £1,500. The band a car lands in is not decided by its price but by how sustainably the manufacturer can prove it is built and shipped. The cleaner the production and the shorter the journey to the UK, the better the chance of the full Band 1 figure. That immediately makes life harder for cars built far away and brought in by high-emission cargo ships, which is why so many of the full-grant models are European-built.

To be considered at all, a car must have a list price of £37,000 or less for at least one version. There is some headroom above that: higher-specification versions of the same model can still qualify up to a £42,000 ceiling, provided the body, battery, driven wheels and motor output are unchanged. The car also has to be a battery or hydrogen passenger model capable of at least 100 miles on the WLTP cycle and a top speed of 60mph, which rules out tiny quadricycles such as the Citroen Ami.

The eleven cars that now get the full £3,750

As of early June, the models qualifying for the top Band 1 discount of £3,750 are the Alpine A290, the Citroen e-C5 Aircross in Extended Range form, the Ford Puma Gen-E, the Ford E-Tourneo Courier, the MINI Countryman Electric, the Nissan Micra in Extended Range form, the Nissan Leaf, the Renault 5 E-Tech in Comfort Range form, the Renault 4 E-Tech, the Renault Scenic E-Tech, and now the Kia EV4 in Air and Motion trims.

That list leans heavily towards French and European production, which is no accident given how the bands are judged. The Renault Scenic E-Tech, the latest family SUV to reach Band 1, now starts at £33,245 after the discount. The spread of body styles is the useful part for buyers: there is a hot supermini in the Alpine, practical family transport in the Scenic and Leaf, and a small SUV in the Puma Gen-E, so the full grant is no longer limited to one corner of the market.

A far longer list of cars qualifies for the smaller £1,500 Band 2 discount, including the Citroen e-C3, the Vauxhall Corsa, Astra, Mokka and Grandland Electric, the Volkswagen ID.3, ID.4 and ID.5, the Peugeot e-208 and e-2008, the Hyundai Kona Electric, the Toyota C-HR+ and the Skoda Elroq and Enyaq. The Kia EV2 and EV3 also sit in Band 2 for now. The full, regularly updated list is published on the government’s plug-in vehicle grant portal.

Why the Kia EV4 just jumped a band

The EV4 Air and Motion variants started life in Band 2, on the smaller £1,500 discount. They moved up to the full £3,750 after Kia supplied additional environmental sustainability evidence to the government and the European-produced battery used in the car was reassessed. The result is a £2,250 jump in the discount, which is what drops the EV4 Air Standard Range to £30,995 and makes the larger EV4 cheaper than the smaller EV3 in some trims.

It is a useful illustration of how fluid the scheme is. A car’s band can change as a manufacturer improves its sustainability case or shifts production, so a model that only qualified for £1,500 a month ago can suddenly carry the full £3,750. For buyers, the lesson is to check the current band right before you order, rather than relying on figures you saw earlier in the year.

The catch with the £42,000 ceiling

The most common way buyers lose the discount is by tipping a car over the £42,000 limit with options. The cap is based on the list price including any extras, not the price you negotiate. So an EV listed at £41,500 that you specify with £700 of metallic paint and a heat pump pushes past £42,000 and loses the grant entirely, even if you then haggle the transaction price back down.

It is the advertised list price that the rules look at, not the deal you strike. Remember that most new cars come with only one free paint colour, and anything else can add £500 or more before you have touched the options list. If you are buying near the ceiling, add up every extra carefully and keep the configured list price under £42,000. It is also worth knowing that the grant only applies to brand new cars, so a used electric car, however cheap, cannot carry the discount.

If your car is not on the list

Plenty of manufacturers whose cars do not yet qualify for the official grant have launched their own discounts to compete, and several match or beat the £3,750 figure. Suzuki is knocking £3,750 off its e Vitara under a scheme it calls Suzuki Granted, taking the starting price to £26,249. Leapmotor, Omoda and Jaecoo are all offering £3,750 reductions on models that are unlikely to receive the state grant at all, while Smart, MG, Dacia, BYD and Hyundai are running their own deposit contributions and zero percent finance deals. Many of these manufacturer offers are set to run until 30 June, so they are worth weighing against an official grant car.

This is worth weighing carefully, because the cheapest route to a new EV is not always the model carrying the government grant. A manufacturer discount plus a strong finance rate can beat a grant-eligible rival, so compare the full out-the-door cost rather than fixating on whether the badge says ECG. Our guide to why now is one of the best times to buy an electric car looks at how these discounts stack up against running costs.

How to claim the discount

The good news is that there is nothing for you to do. The scheme opened on 16 July 2025 with funding committed until at least the 2028/29 financial year, and it is the manufacturers, not buyers, who apply. Once a model is approved, the discount is built into the price list and configurators, so it is deducted automatically when you buy or lease. If you are taking a salary sacrifice or lease deal, the saving is applied before your monthly figure is calculated.

Before you order, do three things. Check the government portal for the model’s current band, because it changes. Confirm the configured list price stays under £42,000 once options are added. And compare the grant price against any manufacturer scheme on rival cars, since a private discount can sometimes save you more. With eleven cars now on the full £3,750 and the list growing, the choice for buyers has never been wider, and the running-cost case still stacks up if you can charge at a sensible price. Just be aware that public charging costs have been climbing, so factor in where you will plug in before you commit.

Sources:

• Honest John: Electric Car Grant 2026 full list of eligible cars
• Autocar: Kia EV4 now cheaper than EV3 due to upgraded grant
• GOV.UK: Plug-in vehicle grants