A leading motor industry group has called for incentives to purchase electric vehicles (EVs) to be retained in the upcoming budget as new figures show a large rise in the number of EVs bought so far this year.
Some 1,493 new EVs were registered in August compared with 824 in the same month of 2021, according to the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (Simi). It said 12,665 new electric cars were registered in the first eight months of the year, compared with 7,049 in the same period of 2021, an increase of 80 per cent.
Simi’s director general Brian Cooke said the switchover to EVs was still in the “very early stages”, and there was a “long way to go” to meet the challenging targets in the Government’s Climate Action Plan, of having 1 million vehicles on Irish roads by 2030. Grants of up to €5,000 are currently available for the purchase of new privately-owned vehicles up to a maximum sale price of €60,000.
“It is essential that Government supports both consumers and businesses by extending EV incentives at current levels in the forthcoming budget,” he said. “By doing this we can help secure a greater supply of EVs for the Irish market, increase new EV sales in the short term and create an active used EV market which will make an electric vehicle affordable to a wider constituency of motorists.
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“In addition if we want to speed up the removal of the oldest highest-emitting vehicles from the national fleet Government should refrain from any further taxation increases. This would encourage activity in both the new and used car markets, allowing motorists to trade up to a cleaner new or newer more fuel-efficient car.”
Mr Cooke said supply chain issues were still hampering both the new and used car markets, with EVs one of the few positives in the data.
EVs, plug-in hybrids and hybrids continued to increase their market share with a combined 40.41 per cent. Petrol continues to remain dominant in new car sales, with a 30.1 per cent share, while diesel accounted for 27.2 per cent, hybrid for 20.3 per cent, electric 13.3 per cent and plug-in electric hybrid almost 7 per cent, Simi said.
New car registrations for August were up 36.7 per cent year-on-year to 8,157, but registrations in the year to date were down 1.2 per cent to 95,183, and are still 14 per cent behind pre-Covid levels.
Light commercial vehicles sales were down 28.3 per cent compared to August last year, and by 22.3 per cent for the first eight months of 2022. Registrations for heavy goods vehicles were up 32.4 per cent in August but down 5.5 per cent on the year to date.
Used car imports for August stood at 4,769, a decrease of 6.3 per cent on the same month of 2021. Year to date imports are down 28.4 per cent to 33,084.
