Electric cars on the Motability Scheme 2026: what you pay and what is included

Electric cars on the Motability Scheme are leased with your mobility allowance, £80.00 a week at the enhanced PIP rate in 2026/27, plus an advance payment if the car costs more than that. Your first fully electric car comes with a 7 kW home chargepoint and a standard installation included, and from 1 July 2026 every new lease carries an average of 10,000 miles a year.

Motability publishes a new price list every quarter. The current one covers applications made between 1 October and 31 December 2026, lists more than 670 cars, and names over 60 with no or low advance payment. This guide sets out what an electric car on the Scheme costs, what the lease covers and does not, and how much you will spend on electricity.

Who can get an electric car on the Motability Scheme?

You can lease any car on the Scheme, electric or not, if you receive one of seven qualifying allowances. The Motability Foundation lists them as the enhanced rate mobility part of Personal Independence Payment (PIP), the higher rate mobility part of Disability Living Allowance (DLA), the higher rate mobility part of Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance, the enhanced rate mobility part of Adult Disability Payment and the higher rate mobility component of Child Disability Payment in Scotland, the War Pensioners’ Mobility Supplement, and Armed Forces Independence Payment.

Greenhous, a BYD dealer, asks for at least 12 months left on the award for October to December 2026 applications. Carers and parents can drive on the disabled person’s behalf, and parents of children aged three and over can join.

The DWP’s rates for 2026/27 put both the PIP enhanced mobility component and the DLA higher rate mobility component at £80.00 a week, up from £77.05 in 2025/26. That allowance pays for the lease, and the lease covers insurance, breakdown cover, servicing and maintenance.

What electric cars are available on Motability, and what do they cost?

The fully electric cars on the Scheme this quarter include the BYD Atto 2, BYD Atto 3 EVO, Geely EX2, Geely EX5 and Leapmotor B10, according to Carwow’s list of Chinese-brand cars on the Scheme published on 4 November 2026. BYD’s own Motability page also lists the Dolphin.

Advance payments are set per trim and fixed when you apply. The figures below are dealers’ published Motability prices for applications from 1 October to 31 December 2026, for customers on DLA, PIP or AFIP. Range, battery and running costs come from the EV Compared spec dataset for the model. Running costs are EV Compared’s own: WLTP miles divided by usable battery gives miles per kWh, and we divide that into 6.5p/kWh at home (Intelligent Octopus Go, the cheapest off-peak rate in our energy price data) or 82p/kWh on a public rapid charger (Zapmap price index, October 2026). Our full method is on the methodology page.

Car	Type	Advance payment, Oct to Dec 2026	WLTP range	Usable battery	Pence per mile, home	Pence per mile, public rapid
BYD Atto 3 EVO Design	Electric	£1,999	316 miles	74.8 kWh	1.54p	19.41p
Geely EX2 Max	Electric	£1,999	156 miles (entry version)	35.4 kWh (entry version)	1.48p	18.61p
Geely EX5 Pro	Electric	£6,849	267 miles	60.2 kWh	1.47p	18.49p
Geely Starray EM-i Pro	Plug-in hybrid	£999	51 miles electric	18.4 kWh	2.35p (electric miles)	not applicable

The EX2 row uses the dataset’s figures for the entry version; the Motability trim is the EX2 Max with a 47 kWh battery, so it has more range than the 156 miles shown. Motability’s own price list names eight no-advance-payment picks, and three of them are fully electric, so an EV does not have to cost anything upfront.

Since 1 July 2026, new car advance payments include standard rate VAT of 20%. Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle advance payments carry 0% VAT for customers who complete an eligibility declaration, and most customers still pay no VAT on the lease payments taken from their allowance.

Do you get a free home charger with a Motability electric car?

Yes, if it is your first fully electric car on the Scheme and your property is suitable, Motability includes a 7 kW home chargepoint and a standard installation in the lease. The chargepoint has a three-year warranty, and Best Chargers explains how home chargepoints work if you want the detail.

You pay for the chargepoint if you have had a fully electric car on the Scheme before, if you lease a plug-in hybrid, or if your home needs a non-standard installation. If you move house you pay for a new chargepoint, and you also pay for any work to separate a supply looped with a neighbour’s.

Once your application is approved, Motability allocates a chargepoint provider, which contacts you within three working days. You send your MPAN, the 21-digit supply number on your electricity bill, plus photos of the parking space, fuse box and meter. Fitting takes up to two hours when the charger sits near the fuse box and up to five hours if groundworks are needed. If you rent or own a leasehold, you need the landlord’s permission first; our guide on whether you need permission for a home charger covers the rules.

On a 7 kW chargepoint, an empty BYD Atto 3 battery takes about 10.7 hours to fill and a Geely EX5 about 8.6 hours. That fits an overnight off-peak window. Our guide to how long charging takes at each speed explains the maths.

What if you cannot charge at home?

Without a driveway, you rely on public chargers, and Motability’s Go Charge app and card work at more than 80,000 UK chargepoints. You pay only for the electricity, with no pre-authorisation fees, and our guide to how paying for public charging works covers the other options.

Public charging costs far more per mile. On our figures, the Atto 3 costs 1.54p a mile on a 6.5p/kWh off-peak tariff but 19.41p a mile on an 82p/kWh rapid charger, more than 12 times as much. Even on the price cap rate of 26.32p/kWh, which runs from 1 October to 31 December 2026, the Atto 3 costs 6.23p a mile. If you have no off-street parking, read whether you can live with an EV without a driveway before you choose.

Worked example: a BYD Atto 3 EVO on the Scheme

Take a PIP claimant on the enhanced mobility rate who applies in November 2026 for a BYD Atto 3 EVO Design, charges at home on an off-peak tariff and drives the allowance’s average of 10,000 miles a year.

• Advance payment: £1,999, paid once, including VAT.
• Allowance that funds the lease: £80.00 a week, or £4,160 a year over 52 weeks.
• Electricity at home: 10,000 miles at 1.54p is £154 a year, or £462 over the three-year lease.
• Electricity on the price cap rate instead: 10,000 miles at 6.23p is £623 a year.
• Electricity if every mile came from a rapid charger: 10,000 miles at 19.41p is £1,941 a year.

Now suppose the same driver does 12,000 miles a year. Over three years that is 36,000 miles, 6,000 over the 30,000-mile allowance, and at 25p a mile the excess comes to £1,500. That is nearly three times the £554 that all 36,000 miles of home electricity cost at 1.54p a mile. The tariff matters too: our comparison of Octopus Go and Intelligent Octopus Go shows how off-peak rates work.

Should you go fully electric instead of a plug-in hybrid on Motability?

For most drivers who can charge at home, yes. The Geely Starray EM-i is a plug-in hybrid with a 51-mile electric range, and at £999 it needs a lower advance payment than the electric cars in our table. But Motability does not include a home chargepoint with a plug-in hybrid, so you either pay for one or charge from a slower source.

On electric miles, the Starray plug-in hybrid costs 2.35p a mile at the 6.5p/kWh home rate against 1.54p for the Atto 3, because it covers fewer miles per kWh. Beyond 51 miles it runs on petrol. A plug-in hybrid suits someone without off-street parking who drives long distances far from rapid chargers; a fully electric car suits someone with a driveway whose daily trips fit its range. Our hybrid versus full electric guide compares the two in more depth.

What are the common mistakes with Motability electric cars?

The most common mistake is treating the WLTP range as winter range. Cold weather cuts it, and that matters far more in a car with 156 miles of WLTP range, such as the entry Geely EX2, than in the 316-mile Atto 3. Our guide to winter range loss shows the effect.

The second is ignoring the new mileage cap. Motability says about three in four customers drive within it, averaging around 7,500 miles a year, but if you are in the other quarter, the 25p charge adds up. Motability offers additional mileage support for healthcare, education or employment journeys, so ask before you sign.

The third is assuming every car comes with a charger. Only your first fully electric car does, and only with a standard installation.

Which Motability electric car should you choose?

Choose on range and charging first, then on the advance payment. The BYD Atto 3 EVO suits a driver who needs over 300 miles of WLTP range and a 490-litre boot for a folded wheelchair or shopping, and its £1,999 advance payment is the same as the much smaller Geely EX2’s. The EX2 suits shorter local trips rather than regular long motorway journeys. The Geely EX5’s £6,849 advance payment is hard to justify when the Atto 3 offers more range for less upfront. This verdict rests on published data; EV Compared has not driven these cars.

Check the advance payment for your exact allowance on Motability’s Find a vehicle search, book a test drive with a Scheme dealer, and confirm your home is suitable for a chargepoint before you apply. Prices are fixed when you apply, and the next list arrives on 1 January 2027.