Electric car scheme has only 534 takers

Government's £5,000 grant intended to boost sales of electric cars which cost a third more than petrol vehicles
Nissan Leaf electric car
People can get government subsidies of £5,000 to buy electric cars such as the Nissan Leaf. Photograph: Nissan

The government's hoped-for electric car revolution, jump-started by a £5,000 purchase grant per vehicle, is getting off to a slow start with just over 500 people signing up to the scheme since it was introduced at the start of the year.

The figures, revealed in a parliamentary answer by the junior transport minister Norman Baker, show that 534 electric vehicles were registered to the so-called plug-in car grant during the first quarter of 2011. So far, 213 have been delivered.

The incentive scheme, devised by the Labour government to mitigate the fact that electric cars typically cost at least a third more than conventionally-powered equivalents, has sufficient funding during 2011 – the only year for which it is guaranteed pending a coalition review – for 8,600 cars. If sales fail to pick up it will struggle to reach a quarter of that figure.

However, even current registrations are a significant rise on 2009, when just 55 fully electric cars were sold, nearly half of these being the diminutive G-Wiz runaround.

There is likely to be a sales surge as more of the nine cars that qualify for the grant come onto the market in the coming months, among them Vauxhall's Ampera, the Volt from Chevrolet and the new, all-electric version of Toyota's popular Prius hybrid.

While electric cars are a significant outlay – the first two cars on sale, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan Leaf both cost about £28,000 – the AA calculates they can be run for about 2p per mile, against around 14p per mile for a similar-sized petrol or diesel car. They also pay no vehicle excise duty, have cheaper insurance premiums, are exempt from London's Congestion Charge and can be charged for free at some public car parks.

The Leaf, which saw 20,000 pre-orders worldwide, has won the European and world car of the year awards, voted by motoring journalists.

Baker's parliamentary answer outlined a series of other green transport schemes, including 201 public sector low carbon and electric vans now on the roads and a £46m scheme to help councils and bus companies introduce hybrid or electric buses.