Irish sales of electric cars have been tumbling since the middle of 2023, when the grant paid by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) for buying an EV was cut from €5,000 to €3,500.
The loss of €1,500 worth of a grant should hardly have been a big brake on the sales of cars costing, at that time, a bare minimum of €30,000 but, whether it was causation or correlation, from July 2023, sales of electric cars here started to dip. That decline continued right through 2024, with sales falling by as much as 25 per cent compared to the previous year until November when, at last, sales ticked up again.
That month, sales of electric cars in Ireland rose by 59.3 per cent – a huge-sounding number but we are talking about a mere 516 registrations, rather than 324 in November 2023. For 2024 as a whole, EV sales will finish at about 24 per cent lower than they were in 2023.
It is a bit hard to read the runes of that November increase, largely because the annual arrival of a big shipment of Tesla vehicles often skews the figures. That said, there were also significant increases in the sales of other electric cars, including the Nissan Leaf, Polestar 2 and Toyota bz4X, so perhaps it wasn’t all down to one company.
[ Want to get more people to buy EVs? Support the second-hand marketOpens in new window ]
Nevertheless, we enter 2025 – a mere half-decade from the purported 2030 cut-off in the sales of new petrol and diesel cars – with trepidation when it comes to EVs. Will a car-buying public seemingly unconvinced by the lure of electric motoring continue to shun battery power in the coming year?
Possibly not. There seems to be some confidence that Irish electric car sales could be about to turn a corner.
“With a line-up that includes 16 fully electric models across the BMW and Mini brands in Ireland, we anticipate a significant increase in our sales of electric and plug-hybrid cars. These will remain our biggest growth drivers,” Helen Westby, managing director of BMW Ireland, told The Irish Times.
“There has been a lot of negativity and misinformation surrounding the electric vehicle discussion in 2024,” she says. “Coming out of the pandemic, there was pent-up demand for new cars and over the past two years, when coupled with supply chain challenges, it has created a distorted view of the market.
“It’s also important to recognise that the benefits of driving electric far outweigh perceived negatives. As we strive to achieve our climate objectives, changing our driving behaviour and embracing electric cars will become the new normal.”
Westby adds that “crucial factors” in the rapid adoption of EVs are the development of customer-friendly charging infrastructure and incentivising EV purchases.
[ Tesla faces billions in charges if it scraps Elon Musk’s pay packageOpens in new window ]
“Over the past 12 months, significant progress has been made by the Zero Emissions Vehicles Ireland [initiative] in government (Zevi) and private operators such as Ionity installing high-powered charging infrastructure across Irish road networks and this will continue. The decline in EV sales emphasises the need for continued government supports and initiatives to boost sales in this market segment,” she says.
That issue of charging infrastructure is definitely still a brake on electric car ardour, no matter what the EV experts and proponents say about most people charging at home most of the time.
While that is true, it seems to wilfully ignore the fact that people want and need their cars to be more flexible and usable than the “most people only driving 16km a day” statistic. People are not statistics and few lives conform to averages. According to a recent survey of Irish attitudes to electric cars, carried out by Volkswagen Ireland, the charging network still represents a considerable hurdle.
Six in 10 non-EV drivers said they were worried about running out of charge (a concern shared by 25 per cent of actual electric car drivers). And a whopping 53 per cent of EV drivers said they have “struggled with or still have reservations about” public charging facilities. If that continues to be the case, expect sales to remain flat at best.
However, there is a bright spot on the horizon, and the very near horizon at that, which could significantly stimulate electric car sales – cheaper cars.
[ Tesla’s board learns the cost of worshipping MuskOpens in new window ]
Skoda and Kia have just launched new medium-sized SUV models – the Elroq and the EV3 respectively – which are more reasonably priced, with prices starting at about the €35,000 mark, and yet which still offer useful ranges on one charge.
Perhaps more significantly, there is now a glut of EV models arriving into the Irish market priced at less than €30,000, and quite a lot less in some cases. The Dacia Spring and Hyundai Inster are both compact crossover models which have starting prices of €16,990 and €18,995 respectively, while the incoming Citroen e-C3 and the hopelessly gorgeous 1980s-look Renault R5 E-Tech will be priced at less than or close to €25,000 each.
The electric Fiat Grande Panda will follow suit, and the new Opel Frontera EV should have a similar price tag. With Nissan continuing to offer exceptionally sharp pricing for the – admittedly aged and short-range – Leaf, there is now at long last no shortage of affordable electric cars available.
Will that be enough to stimulate demand? The SEAI certainly thinks so.
“With several new lower-cost models launched recently or soon to be available, we expect that this section of the market will respond positively,” says Emer Barry, programme manager for electric vehicles and demand generation at the SEAI. “The wider offering will enable more households to consider an EV as their next car.
“Up to now, the smaller car has been missing from the EV market with many manufacturers opting to make larger SUV-type vehicles. There is now more choice than ever with 85 grant-eligible EV models on the market with battery size and vehicle size to suit all driving needs. This can only bode well for 2025 EV sales.”
Barry also hopes to see an increase in the number of used EVs available on the market.
[ China’s EV sales set to overtake traditional cars years ahead of WestOpens in new window ]
“Between 2020 and 2021, over 12,500 EVs were registered for the first time. If even half of these are traded in, this will add significantly to the used car market. This year saw an increase in the number of new fast-charging points around the country with more to come in 2025. This should give confidence to current and potential EV drivers that they will have charging options when they make that longer journey.”
Amid this positivity, there is of course a “but” coming. In this case, it refers to the global outlook for electric car sales. With Donald Trump likely to slash and burn purchase incentives for electric cars in the US – despite the fawning political support for him shown by Tesla’s Elon Musk – demand for electric cars in that key market is likely to fall.
In other global markets, China’s especially, EV demand should rise again next year. Worldwide electric car sales actually grew by 35 per cent in 2024 for all the doom and gloom but a new analysis from S&P Global seems to show that the market share for electric cars in Europe is expected to fall from 27 per cent to as low as 21 per cent, as buyers – especially those in Germany – stay away.
If that comes to pass, it may well be that Ireland’s spluttering EV performance in 2024 may be less of a blip, and more of a prediction.
- Sign up for Business push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Our Inside Business podcast is published weekly – Find the latest episode here
