Sir, –While a grant is available to buy an electric car, and such a car is taxed at a lower rate than a petrol-fuelled car, people who need a car for work and can only afford a small second hand petrol-engined car are heavily penalised by having to pay higher car tax than those who can afford a more expensive car with lower CO2 emissions. This penalising of low-income motorists was introduced by the Green Party while in government.
While an electric car has lower CO2 emissions than a petrol-fuelled car, its manufacture, like the manufacture of hybrid cars, causes more CO2 emissions than the manufacture of small petrol-powered cars. Unless the electricity powering the car is generated using renewable energy, the car merely displaces CO2 emissions from one place to another.
Wind energy is only viable in Ireland because a huge subsidy is paid to the wind companies funded by a levy on all electricity consumption, a measure which makes our electricity among the most expensive in the world and again hits low-income earners hardest.
Electric cars and wind energy as means of reducing CO2 emissions are similar to the selling of indulgences by the pope to fund the construction of St Peter’s Basilica in the 15th century. – Yours, etc,
SEAN BYRNE,
Dublin 13.