Renault UK Welcomes Government Financial Support For Electric Vehicles

PARIS – July 28, 2010: Renault welcomes this morning’s Government announcement that electric cars will benefit from grants worth 25% of the purchase price, up to a maximum of £5,000, for an initial period of January 2011 until March 2012.

Today’s news was greeted with considerable enthusiasm by Renault UK’s new Managing Director, Thierry Sybord. “We’re convinced that our range of 100% electric cars and vans are going to appeal to a wide cross-section of private individual and business customers in their own right, with an exciting combination of innovation, style and technology. Now, with this financial incentive in place, their affordability and lower running costs make the financial argument for electric vehicles, compared to conventional fossil-fuelled vehicles, as compelling as their environmental one. As a result of this morning’s news, we are even more excited about encouraging as many people as possible to consider using electric vehicles to drive down vehicle emissions, or as we say here at Renault, ‘Drive the Change’.

Following the unveiling of no less than four striking concepts at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2009, Renault’s charge into the zero-emission electric vehicle arena commences in Europe in mid-2011. The French brand’s assault begins with an initial four-model Z.E. (Zero Emission) family, designed to be an affordable, mass-market proposition. The first of its innovative, fully-electric vehicles will be a Kangoo Van. In 2012, it will be joined in the UK by the Fluence four-door saloon, a city vehicle based on the two-seater Twizy concept and a five-door supermini.

Pre-booking for the Fluence and Kangoo Van Z.E. models is already open. For more information on both, together with full details on Renault’s ‘Zero Emission Vehicles for All’ plans, see www.renault-ze.com.