Ethos Asset Finance is responding to the rising demand for electric vehicles (EVs) with the launch of The Electric Broker.

The new specialist funding arm has announced that it will focus solely in the green vehicle funding market after staging an electric and hybrid vehicle showcase event for businesses in the North of England, which was attended by more than 200 interested parties.

Guests were given an opportunity to test drive a range of green vehicles from manufacturers including Tesla, Audi, Kia, Mercedes, Jaguar and BMW.

Chris Brown, founder of Ethos Asset Finance, said: “In the last four months, Ethos has staged two events showcasing electric and hybrid cars and vans, which were both incredibly well attended.

“On the back of the success of these events, and an ongoing rise in calls from clients across the country looking at purchasing electric vehicles, we have launched this specialist division.”

The Electric Broker is essentially powered by Ethos Asset Finance, which has more than two decades of experience in the vehicle finance sector.

Brown added: “With the Government backing the switch to green vehicles, now is the perfect time for businesses to look seriously at changing their vehicles to a greener solution, and we are the experts who can help facilitate this.”

The Electric Broker can also help fund green charging point solutions.

Startline Motor Finance said in February that industry-wide discussions on used electric vehicle (EV) finance are needed as used electric cars pose a problem for the motor finance industry, which may not be ready in time for the Government's 2035 ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars.

The company’s CEO Paul Burgess said: “It’s fair to say that the used car motor finance sector has been aware of the structural problems around used EV funding for a while but we believed that more time was available to work our way through them. The new announcement moves the point of action much closer.

“Like most other motor finance providers, we have been looking at the challenges around constructing EV funding products. These range from the fact that predicting RVs remains much more difficult than for petrol and diesel cars through to the question of the battery as an asset.

“The current situation, where there are very few companies currently willing to provide finance for used EVs – and that even some of those are having the business underwritten by manufacturers – illustrates the difficulty of solving these problems.”