Depending upon where you are sitting, the amount of subsidy provided by the government can vary enormously.

For a few years EV drivers have been smiling broadly at the £5,000 grant provided in the UK as they glide quietly about in the latest EV. But are UK drivers going to get a raw deal.

France in particular, right down to where you live in France and how much you earn can offer the driver over £11,000. There are even subsidies for nearly new cars. (Seeing how much residual values are dropping for EV’s even a considerably lower subsidy is probably worth it.). The whole system is supported by the European Carmakers association the #ACEA.

They are also supporting the process at the other end with thousands of scrappage subsidies. Again depending upon which region you live in.

But aren’t they trying to push French (or European, the Italian and German governments are looking to implement the same EV subsidy model).

The short answer is yes. Of course they are, they would be foolish to give state money away to a foreign manufacturer.

But to do that when the Chinese models are expected to be so cheap is looking difficult. How do you square that circle.

The current guidelines do a couple of things, including an upper level £40,000 on the price of the car. OK for France certainly, an a few German models. Tesla and Porsche miss out, but China should, almost certainly, slide under that bar.

Limit production / manufacturing CO2 emission levels to 14.75 tonnes CO2.

Ok, a few people are looking lost here. We know that the CO2 emissions that the government talk about, for the vehicles running costs. So that they can be compared, mile per mile, to petrol or diesel models.

So what is production CO2. Simply put it is how much it actually costs to manufacture the car. (and the French model is also looking at including the cost of getting that car to the country it is selling it within). The French guide lines have a 14.75t of CO2 limit.

This rules out a lot more models. For example Tesla batteries vary from 2.5t to 16.5t depending upon the model. Add that to the steel costs for the rest of the car and it’s easy to trip over that limit.

A lot of the Chinese models from BYD don’t make it. Even the Chinese manufactured BMW iX3 fails to meet the limit.

So, are the French pulling up the draw bridge, emphasising the benefits of a small Citroen or Renault (still part state owned). Of course, but then they would be foolish not to.

It might be cheap to manufacturer batteries, or produce adequate steel in China, but aside from the labour rates, they don’t always use the most ecologically sourced materials. Plus you have to transport said car via a costly shipping route, or overland by rail. Both of which have rising costs due to war torn areas of the world.

So what should Brit’s do? We can’t buy small cars made in Birmingham any more. Our best hope is that China builds factories here and uses UK steel.

At the moment the picture is very unclear. But it would certainly help if we had over £11,000 from the government to play with and a few grand subsidy for those nearly new models that are clogging up retailer forecourts.

Your comments would be appreciated.