The Government has sent out confusing and mixed messages about the uptake of electric vehicles in the corporate sector.

In the same week, the Coalition has backed – both verbally and financially – a project to encourage the use of EVs among businesses, and simultaneously washed its hands of responsibility for standardising charging points and establishing vital targets for getting EVs on the road.

Speaking at the Energy Saving Trust’s Plugged-In Fleets Initiative (PIFI) debrief at London’s City Hall late last month, parliamentary under secretary of state for transport, Norman Baker, said: “The Coalition and the Department for Transport have agreed to provide nearly £300,000 of additional funding to continue the [PIFI] programme for another year.”

The decision follows the results of the EST’s first PIFI, which comprised an in-depth study of 20 different fleets – including Boots, the London Fire Brigade and local authorities – to establish the suitability of plug-in vehicles for business use. The report found “real opportunities for fleets to adopt plug-in vehicles now and reap the cost and non-cost benefits”.

Baker continued: “The fleet industry is the arrowhead for a low-carbon future in transport. The decisions you make are critical and influence the rest of the market.

“We are serious as a Coalition about reducing our carbon footprint and that’s why we’ve given support to electric cars. The trajectory of uptake we’re seeing now is on a par with DVDs replacing videos. But we recognise that some guidance might be needed for their integration.”

Despite this positive action, two days earlier on 21 January, the Government published a response to the Transport Committee’s ‘Plug-in Vehicles, Plugged in Policy?’ report from autumn 2012, which made a series of informed suggestions as to how the Government could foster the growth of electric vehicles in the UK.

The Transport Committee highlighted the widely held belief that the UK requires a standardised charging infrastructure for EVs to flourish.

The Government shirked responsibility for this, claiming it was down to markets and the EU: “Markets, rather than national governments, will drive the adoption standards.

“There is clearly a role for the EU in helping to ensure that anyone who drives an ultra low-emissions vehicle is able to do so in a simple and consistent way.”

The report also challenged the Government to set milestones for the amount of plug-in vehicles on the roads before its next spending review, in order to make a proper assessment of future EV policies.

It once again dodged responsibility: “The Government does not agree that rigid targets for the uptake of ultra low-emissions vehicles would be helpful.”

It cited unknown “market penetration” and continued to evade the still-looming issue of a rise in company car taxation for EVs in 2015.