Q: Do you think there will be any new Government or EU initiatives on the horizon to encourage the uptake in EVs again? The reduction in the grant seems to have made people think twice about moving to an EV… – G O’Brien, Co Cork
A: The short answer is “probably not”, but there is a faint glimmer of hope…
As you point out, there was a reduction in the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland grant given to purchasers of electric cars, which in the summer of 2023 dropped from €5,000 to €3,500.
Now, you might think that the loss of a €1,500 grant on a car which was, most likely, costing north of €40,000 might not count for all that much, but you could almost have set your watch by the subsequent drop in Irish EV sales after that point.
Sales tailed off quickly in 2023, which could potentially have been ascribed to people having rushed to buy before the grant was trimmed, but then in 2024 we saw a massive 24 per cent drop in the sales of new electric cars, even if there was a brief rally at the end of the year.
So, does that mean that Irish car buyers are allergic to EVs? And if so does the Government need to dramatically pump up the incentives given to buying and owning one?
Again, probably not. Much of the fall-off in EV sales can be attributed to areas other than just the price tag.
Many people might think that electric cars are too expensive, and that was probably true in 2023, but it’s not true any more. All cars are now arguably too expensive, but the cheapest new car you can buy in Ireland right now – Dacia’ €16,990 Spring – is a fully-electric model.
The newly-launched Renault 5 E-Tech has not only groovy 1970s styling on its side, but also a price tag that starts at €25,990.
Hyundai’s brilliant Inster, also fully-electric, starts at €18,995.
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Further up the scale, we see price parity between electric cars and their petrol and hybrid equivalents. A Peugeot E-3008 electric SUV is fractionally cheaper than the petrol-hybrid model that sits alongside it in the showroom.
So would incentivising the prices further, in the form of bigger grants, really make that much of a difference? Arguably no, at least not if the Government simply reinstated the missing €1,500.
It’s also true that while they’re expensive upfront, EVs cost a tiny fraction of a petrol or diesel car to run, even with the relatively low petrol and diesel prices at present.
As someone pointed out recently, €10 worth of petrol might get you an extra 100km, but €10 worth of cheap overnight charging at home can, potentially, get you 500km.
Equally, it’s worth pointing out that there’s still the Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) rebate for all EVs costing less than €60,000, which can be worth up to €5,000 depending on the model.
So combined, there are €8,500 worth of potential EV incentives out there. That’s €8,500 more than any German EV buyer is getting right now.
So, the Government would be better off spending the money on charging infrastructure.
Right behind price in the list of things holding most buyers back from going electric is that they’re worried about charging up. The problem is that, so far, we’ve been living with a system that deals in averages and statistics…
An average Irish driver covers less than 20km per day, it would seem. Equally, statistically speaking, most electric car owners will do most of their charging at home. So we don’t need a big network of charging points scattered around the country, right?
Wrong. No one has an average life, and statistics are meaningless without context. Sure, you might only cover a small mileage each day and charge up at home, but what about the day when you don’t do that?
When you need to make a quick dash to the other side of the country, and you just need your car to work properly? That’s where the Irish charging network falls down – when you fall outside of the average.
And that’s something that the Government could easily fix, in theory. Perhaps some of the money that could be spent on incentives could also be spent on dealing with the misinformation that still surrounds battery reliability and longevity.
However, I mentioned a glimmer of possibility, and that’s the recent news that Ireland is, as a nation, way behind on trimming our national CO2 emissions.
That’s not all down to cars – there are lots of other emitters in this mix – but transport still represents a big chunk of national emissions, and there has been talk – quiet talk, but talk nonetheless – that the Government might spend a few billion on new EV incentives, to hasten the switch away from combustion power, to avoid paying many multiples of billions in EU fines for missing our CO2 targets.
Would that actually work? It might, but then again it might not if the cost of an EV isn’t strictly what’s holding people back. Either way, don’t hold your breath – we’ll probably get much closer to 2030 before anyone in Government starts to take serious notice.
