The Scottish Government is set to provide more than £20 million to encourage households and business owners to purchase electric vehicles (EVs), forming part of the nation’s efforts to meet strict net-zero targets.

The funding package, set to roll out across 2025/26, will support individuals and businesses on lower incomes with three new initiatives, including the Used EV Loan, Switched On Taxi Loan, and a new Used Electric Low-Carbon Vehicle Loan for vans, run alongside the Government’s core Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund.

The investment builds on the Scottish Government’s support for EV adoption, which has already seen more than £230 million in loans to help people across Scotland transition to electric transport.

With these new loans, the Scottish Government hopes to provide a further boost at a range of price points and allow more people to take climate action as part of a net-zero transport system.

“Scotland is currently the only part of the UK offering financial support in the form of an interest-free loan for consumers to purchase electric vehicles,” said Fiona Hyslop, Scotland’s secretary for transport.

“These streams of investment work in tandem to make electric cars and vans the natural choice for drivers by 2030.”

The Scottish Government plans to phase out petrol and diesel cars altogether within the next five years, ahead of the UK Government’s 2040 target, and has ploughed £65 million into establishing the fourth largest electric vehicle charging network in the UK.   

According to ZapMap, Scotland experienced 49% growth in public EV charging between June 2023 and October 2024, with the country now having over 6,000 public EV charge points, and the Scottish Government plans to add 24,000 more charge points by 2030, largely financed and delivered by the private sector.

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“Scotland has more public EV charge points per capita than anywhere else in the UK, outside of London, and we have more rapid public EV charge points than any other part of the UK,” continued Hyslop.

“We’ve met our target of 6000 charge points two years earlier than planned through a combination of Scottish Government funding, increasing private sector investment and local authority planning and leadership.”  

The latest statistics show that these efforts are making a difference, with the number of ultra-low emission vehicles registered in Scotland increasing by 20% between 2022 and 2023.

In December last year, Transport Scotland said that there are now more than 80,000 EVs on Scottish roads, with the Government claiming it has supported the purchase of 8,700 zero and ultra-low emission vehicles in the taxi sector, which together are estimated to have saved 230,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

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