
Chinese carmaker slashes prices to match Labour grant
Leapmotor, based in Hangzhou, is ineligible for Labour's Electric Car Grant scheme after the Government blocked Chinese carmakers from accessing the discounts because their cars were not made in an environmentally friendly way.
But on Friday, Leapmotor said it would offer a £1,500 and £3,750 price reduction on two of its cars – the same amount as the UK government grants.
The Chinese business will sell its small T03 runaround for £14,495, including the £1,500 price cut.
This makes it Britain's cheapest electric motor after undercutting Dacia's £14,999 Spring, which is also made in China. The company also lowered the cost of its C10 SUV by £3,750. The car now costs £32,750.
Leapmotor billed the price cuts as 'Leap-Grant' and said it had introduced the offers to 'help car buyers make the leap into electric by offering immediate savings'.
The business, which builds its cars in China but sells them in Europe in a joint venture with Vauxhall-owner Stellantis, said the government grant scheme had 'left many potential car buyers in a state of limbo – unsure of when or how to take advantage of the promised incentives'.
'Consumers are still waiting to learn which vehicles will qualify, how much financial support will be available and when the grants will take effect.'
Labour's electric car grant scheme comes as Chinese EV brands flood the UK market, with the launch of cheap models from businesses including BYD, Chery and Jaecoo.
While the grants will offer discounts on electric cars worth up to £37,000, the Department for Transport officials do not intend to extend the subsidies to Chinese-made cars due to the industry's reliance on fossil fuels.
Lilian Greenwood, the transport minister, this week said: 'The grant is restricted to those manufacturers that reach minimum environmental standards.
'Frankly, if you generate a lot of the electricity that powers your factory through coal power stations, then you are not going to be able to access this grant.'
The decision prompted a warning from the Chinese embassy, which said it would 'resolutely safeguard' the interests of its electric car industry against potential discrimination.
The world's largest EV maker, BYD, said it planned to apply for the discount scheme despite the likelihood it would be rejected.
The discounts by Leapmotor threaten to fuel a price war for battery-powered cars in the UK, which could mirror a similar battle in China.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Telegraph
29 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Robot bricklayers that can work round the clock coming to Britain
Robot bricklayers are set to be trialled on British construction sites amid warnings of a major labour shortage in the house building industry. The machines, developed by Dutch company Monumental, use two mechanical arms that dispense mortar and lay bricks at a similar pace to a human. That is equivalent to roughly 500 bricks per robot in a typical eight-hour shift, but they can be programmed to work around the clock if required – albeit under human supervision. It represents one potential solution to help ease a chronic shortage of brickies in Britain's construction industry, with experts warning that at least 25,000 more are needed to meet the Government's house-building plans. In the Netherlands, Monumental's machines have already built facades for dozens of houses as well as canal-supporting walls in housing developments. They can construct straight-lined brick walls and some cornering. Now, Monumental is preparing to trial the machines in the UK for the first time with London bricklaying contractor Galostar, a company that has previously worked on residential projects as well as bigger schemes such as the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London, and the capital's Sadler's Wells Theatre. Tony Chapman, Galostar's managing director, said the tests were expected to begin next month. They will initially focus on whether the robots can be successfully adapted to British standards and can handle being deployed on scaffolding. He said: 'We don't think they [the machines] will ever completely replace brickies, but they can certainly help with the skills shortages we are dealing with. 'From our point of view it also helps because the robots don't need breaks, they don't take time off, and so if you have several of them you will know exactly what your output is going to be.' One person can supervise two of the machines at once but the supervisor does not need to be a qualified bricklayer, meaning it should be easier to keep construction sites manned, said Salar al Khafaji, Monumental's co-founder. He said: 'You just contract us to do work, and we will come with our machines to do the work, instead of a bunch of humans. 'Your labour pool will now be much bigger, and you can work multiple shifts.' He expects to charge about the same as the going rate for a human brickie, or around £1 per brick. Monumental says the robots can also be programmed to lay different brick configurations and patterns. It potentially opens the door for a return to the more elaborate styles of brickwork beloved by Victorian and Edwardian builders that are considered too labour-intensive by large-volume housebuilders today. 'Today, if you want to ask for a very nice, patterned facade with two brick colours, you'll get an outrageously expensive quote, because it's quite hard and it will slow the masons down,' Mr al Khafaji added. 'But this is exactly the kind of thing that robots excel at – you just enter it once, and our system allows you to have a mixed supply of coloured bricks and different types of bricks. 'And we won't charge you more, because it's not more expensive. So you'll be able to bring some of those things back into the industry. 'We're doing a canal wall in Amsterdam soon with really elaborate patterns – bricks sticking out, that sort of thing. It's kind of crazy, I'm very excited about it.' Mr al Khafaji is a former executive at Palantir, the US defence tech giant co-founded by PayPal billionaire and Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel. He said he wanted to apply his expertise in software and machine learning to help solve problems in the construction industry, which has long been viewed by economists as a laggard. He co-founded Monumental in 2021 with Sebastiaan Visser. The pair raised $25m (£18.6m) from investors last year. They have long been eyeing the UK – where roughly five times as many bricks are laid per year than in the Netherlands – because of the huge national shortage of bricklayers. A recent report by the Home Builders Federation and the Construction Industry Training Board estimated that 25,000 more brickies are needed to meet the Government's target to build 1.5m homes before the next election.


Daily Mail
29 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Fraudster behind £1.2m VAT con who blew £19,000 on 40th birthday party and lived it up in luxury hotel stays in Dubai and London is jailed
A fraudster who masterminded a £1.2million VAT con and blew £19,000 on his birthday party has been jailed. Nicholas Adams handed in bogus company tax returns to HMRC and then used the VAT repayments to pay for his 49th birthday party, flights to the UAE and luxury hotel stays in London and Dubai. Over a 19-month period between January 2022 and August 2023, Adams posed as the director of a shell company, Greenpoint Technologies, which he claimed specialised in aircraft and spacecraft maintenance. However, this was only a front for the scam, which made him £373,706. In total, Adams tried to claw back over £1.2million in total before raising suspicions of officials at HMRC, who then withheld further payments. He splashed hundreds of thousands of pounds on what prosecutor Martha Smith-Higgins said was 'a very lavish lifestyle'. There were three stays at five-star hotels - two at The Savoy in London and one at the Atlantis in Dubai. Newport Crown Court heard that Adams lived it up on the proceeds, throwing a £19,000 birthday party at The Botanist in Cardiff, and splashing out on luxury trips to Dubai and London, including stays at The Savoy and Atlantis The Palm. He also spent £43,000 on clothes and jewellery and jetted off to the UAE using the stolen money. But the lavish lifestyle came crashing down when HMRC launched a probe and raided his home, uncovering a trove of forged paperwork. Initially when officials queried the tax returns, Adams lied and created fake documents to support his story but these proved to be wrong after the raid. 'He was the controlling mind behind a substantial and sophisticated VAT fraud,' said Ms Smith-Higgins. 'This was fraud from the outset.' The court was told Adams spiralled into debt after losing his job following Brexit and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act in 2021. His defence lawyer, Peter Dennison, said he had since tackled alcohol dependency and was 'ashamed and remorseful'. But Judge Daniel Williams was clear: 'This was a vehicle for fraud. It was sophisticated offending over a prolonged period. The culpability was high.' Adams, of Whitchurch, Shropshire, who had pleaded guilty to knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of VAT at an earlier hearing, was jailed for two years, though he's likely to serve just one behind bars. Following sentencing, an HMRC spokesperson said: 'Tax fraud is not a victimless crime. 'It has real consequences for the public services we all rely on and we are working hard to ensure tax cheats like Nicholas Adams do not gain an unfair advantage over their law-abiding competitors who pay the tax that's due. 'We encourage anyone with information about any type of tax fraud or money laundering to report it online at


BBC News
29 minutes ago
- BBC News
A616 Crow Edge speed limit cut to improve safety
A stretch of road outside Barnsley will have its speed limit reduced and parking restrictions imposed after numerous crashes, some A616 will see the 40mph zone through Crow Edge village extended, with 50mph buffer zones added to slow approaching drivers, Barnsley Council said."No stopping" zones will also be added, following complaints of vehicles parking on measures come after two people were killed at Hazlehead crossroads in the last five years, while the road has seen three major pile-ups between October 2023 and May 2024. Crow Edge residents have raised repeated complaints about vehicles blocking pavements and obstructing views when pulling out onto the main road, according to the Local Democracy Reporting James Higginbottom, cabinet member for environment and highways said: "These measures target the specific problem spots where bad parking causes danger and blockages, and we've planned for where parked vehicles might try to move to."Some people had called for a stricter 30mph limit, but police had concerns about enforcing it, said a council stated the new 40mph/50mph buffer plan was the best achievable also said the parking restrictions for lorries would not affect on-street parking directly in front of measures would cost about £68,500, paid for by the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined council said it would now make the legal orders needed and its highways team would carry out the work. Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North