Your post got me curious, so I tried to look it up.
Wikipedia claims that the "Newton" model starts at 78k GBP. The Newton has/had a GVWR of 14,000lbs. You can buy a 2014 Ford F-450 with a GVWR of 16,500lbs starting at $51k MSRP. I'll assume that the exchange rate is US $1.50 to 1 GBP. The Smith vehicle would cost well over twice the cost of a new Ford and you could only drive 60 miles or so between charges.
Even with the 71k subsidy, the equivalent Ford (or GM, Volvo, Freightliner, etc.) product would still be a better buy.
you have taken it the direction I would have if I had had more time at lunch...
Wasn’t the old Serpico movie quote, “Follow the money...”
The money often tells the story.
It looks like we were paying the 125% premium for a, so called, green vehicle that cost 225% of the american made product readily available.
The reason they used these vehicles in Britain had nothing to do with Green issues of smog — they use them for noise due to the extreme early morning delivery of dairy products so a gas vehicle doesn’t have to re-start at each house up and down the street at 5:00 am when the deliveries start.
The so-called green issue is something that they have piggy backed on the already in place quiet delivery method introduced for quiet operations by dairy delivery.