Tesla offers £4,000 “cash for clunkers” trade-in for new EVs

Tesla has launched a car scrappage program – also known as a “cash for clunkers” program – in the UK to incentivise new electric vehicle customers and help take older polluting vehicles off the road.

For the month of June, UK customers who want to trade in a petrol or diesel car with a trade-in value of £2,000 or less qualify for an additional discount equivalent to the value of the vehicle. The discount is available for Model 3 and Model Y only.

For example customers with fossil car with a trade-in value of £1,000 will receive an additional £1,000 discount. A £2,000 trade-in value will get you £4,000 off a new Model 3 or Y.

The vehicle must have been registered in the owner’s name for at least three months and the trade-in valuation needs to be made be made between June 1 and June 30, 2023.

“In support of our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy, Tesla are removing petrol and diesel cars from UK roads as part of our trade-in process.” Tesla said in a statement to electrifying.com.

In Australia the Gillard Government introduced a similar scheme called The Cleaner Car Rebate scheme (CCR) which ran from 2011 until the end of 2014.

Under the CCR customers trading in pre-1995 cars were eligible for a $2000 discount provided by the federal government. The scheme’s target was to get 200,000 older polluting vehicles off the roads.

At the time there were around 2 million pre-1995 vehicles on Australian roads. The CCR was a good policy which helped transition Australia’s fleet to more efficient ICE vehicles. Perhaps it’s time to revisit the scheme but apply it exclusively to electric vehicles.