ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: MostlyBonkers on October 16, 2016, 03:11:48 PM
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The first thing to bear in mind is that the subsidy will (most likely) only apply to the full retail price. Therefore any end of season discounts may not be eligible. I hope I'm wrong and it will depend on the finer details of the subsidy. Your local dealer should have more information and any clarification on this would be gratefully received.
Actually, I really hope I'm wrong with this. For example, I just looked up the price of a 2016 SR: 18,140 EUR. That's £16,325 at the current exchange rate. My guess is that the UK price list may have it down as £15,999 but that is still a ton of money for a bike. If there's a grand off as an end of season discount, then a £15k bike will drop to £13,500 with the subsidy. That's still a ton of dosh, but a little more palatable. In comparison, I'm pretty sure they were asking about £13k for a 2013 S three years ago.
To keep the figures a little simpler, I'm going to imagine I can pick up a 2016 S for 11,500 on the road. Applying the subsidy means I'd pay £10,000. Nice, but what does this mean?
11500 = [Zero's price] x 1.2 [tax]
So the price before tax is 11500/1.2 = 9583.
VAT = 11500 - 9583 = 1,917
On this deal the government still makes £417. That's not a subsidy if you ask me. Certainly better than a kick in the bum, but not enough to bring the price down to compete with a comparable ICE bike, like the Honda NC750 which retails for about £6,000.
If you're reading this and feel a little disappointed, please keep in mind that you'll save a ton of money on maintenance and fuel, so as long as you keep the bike for a few years and ride plenty of miles, you'll break even buying a Zero.
The news gets better if you fancy buying one of the vmoto scooters that recently came to market.
Buying a new scooter and want a top box and enough range to do a day's work around the city? You can buy a vmoto for £3,399 or a Honda SH125i for £3,199.
Apply the 20% subsidy and the vmoto costs:
3399 x 0.8 = 2719
That's nearly £500 cheaper than the Honda. That's a big deal for people in that market. I know the Honda does well over 100mpg, but a busy workhorse might use £10 worth of petrol a week. The vmoto would struggle to use £2 of electricity a week, thus giving the rider a net saving of £8 a week. That's probably an hour's wages. Worth the effort to plug it in a few times.
By the way, the ex. VAT price of that vmoto is £2832.50 so at these lower price points the government is actually subsiding the price. In this case by a whopping £113.20.
If businesses are able to take advantage of this subsidy, we might see a lot of electric scooters on the road pretty soon. I also hope that there are a lot of people out there that have been waiting for the subsidy to kick in so they can buy their first Zero. There was some latent demand when Streetbike became a dealership around a year ago. Now we have at least four dealerships in the UK and now an added financial incentive. Get in there quick before that £3.75m gets burnt through by all those vmoto scooters flying off the shelves!