KGM Joins the Grant List: A Torres EVX Cheaper Than Its Petrol Twin

£37,000 is now the number to watch in the affordable electric market, and the latest addition to the grant list sits just under it. The KGM Torres EVX, the electric version of the Korean brand's family SUV, now qualifies for the £1,500 Electric Car Grant, Motor Trader reported on 6 October. That brings its starting price to £35,495, down from £36,995, enough to make the electric model marginally cheaper than the combustion Torres.

What the grant does

The Electric Car Grant is a discount applied at the point of sale by the retailer. Eligibility tops out at cars priced at £37,000 or below, with band one paying £3,750 and band two paying £1,500. The band a car lands in depends on the carbon footprint of its production, from battery manufacture through assembly to the carbon intensity of the grid where it is built, and the Torres EVX sits in band two. That means £1,500 comes off a list price that was already £5 under the cap, which is why the electric version now undercuts the petrol one. It is a small reversal in cash terms and a telling one in principle: the two cars have swapped places at the till.

The car itself

electrive reports that the Torres EVX uses a 73.4kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery supplied by BYD, with a WLTP range of up to 287 miles. A single front-mounted motor produces 152kW and 399Nm, DC charging takes the battery from 10% to 80% in 28 minutes at a maximum 120kW, and the car supports vehicle to load, which lets it run appliances from its battery. Auto Express notes the battery warranty goes beyond the scheme's minimum of eight years or 100,000 miles, covering up to 10 years or one million kilometres. Two trims are offered, and the higher-spec K40 starts at £39,295 before the grant, above the £37,000 eligibility line. Auto Express puts the cheapest Skoda Enyaq at £38,470 once the grant is applied, so the KGM undercuts that comparison as well.

The same week, a bigger grant

The Torres EVX is not the only addition. Hyundai's IONIQ 3 opened for UK orders with the full £3,750 band one grant on every version, bringing it to £18,495 at the entry point, as we covered in our piece on the IONIQ 3 order book. The two arrivals sit at opposite ends of the same scheme: a large SUV taking a modest £1,500, and a supermini taking the full £3,750.

The van and the fleet case

KGM's other model in the news is the Musso EV pick up, which qualifies for the separate £5,000 Plug-in Van Grant, taking its entry price to £39,995 including VAT. For businesses and company car drivers, Motor Trader notes that the Musso EV attracts a 4% Benefit in Kind (BIK) rate for the 2026/27 tax year, which the outlet puts at personal tax costs of around £30 a month for a 20% taxpayer. That fleet angle matters more than it looks, because company car tax is one of the levers still doing heavy lifting on electric uptake while the consumer grant itself stays modest.

The reasoning from KGM

Kevin Griffin, managing director of KGM Motors UK, put the change in terms of the total cost of switching. He said: "Making the move to electric needs to work for customers financially as well as practically. With Torres EVX now benefiting from the £1,500 Electric Car Grant and Musso EV qualifying for the £5,000 Plug-in Van Grant, there is additional support available to help reduce that initial cost of switching."

Why the timing matters

The additions land in the middle of a busier stretch for the scheme. The grant now covers more than 35 models, and the list has kept growing through the autumn as makers submit cars for the production carbon assessment that decides a band, as we set out in our autumn grant guide. For KGM the calculation is simple: the Torres EVX was priced to sit under the £37,000 eligibility line already, so a band two approval converts almost the whole £1,500 into a lower showroom price rather than a bigger margin. That is the pattern across the affordable end of the market, where manufacturers price to the cap and let the grant close the final gap.

Nothing about the car changed to earn the discount. The grant is a property of the scheme, not the vehicle, and a model that was ineligible last month can qualify this month without a single mechanical difference. That is worth remembering for anyone comparing a KGM against a rival, because the band a car sits in, and whether it sits in one at all, can now swing a deal by more than a typical dealer discount.

The honest read

A £1,500 discount on a £36,995 car is a real saving, and it is a small one next to the gap that still separates the affordable shelf from the premium end. The cheapest IONIQ 3 now sits at £18,495 after its grant, around £17,000 below the Torres EVX. The more revealing detail is where the money lands. A car priced £5 under the £37,000 cap shows how closely manufacturers now price to the line, and why the £2,250 gap between the two grant bands, which we set out in our autumn grant guide, can decide a value comparison that looks close on the sticker. The full list of eligible models is in our guide to the grant shelf. The Torres EVX is a more affordable electric SUV this week than it was last week, and it was the scheme that did the work rather than the car.