Electric car sales are on the up in Ireland, of that there is no doubt. In fact, according to data compiled by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI), registrations of new electric cars (not quite the same as actual sales, but close enough) have risen by 38.19 per cent to the end of September. A grand total of 22,382 fully electric cars received number plates for the first time in the year so far.
It means that – astonishingly, when you remember that before the 2015 ‘dieselgate’ emissions scandal, fully three-quarters of all newly-sold Irish cars came with a diesel engine – electric vehicles (EVs) have overtaken diesel cars in popularity. Battery powered cars now hold an 18.39 per cent share of the total new car market, while diesel cars account for a mere 17.15 per cent.
Just before those end-of-September figures were announced, the Irish Government said that it had hit one of its major electric motoring milestones, with almost 200,000 – 196,000 to be precise – EVs now operating on Irish roads (that number includes commercial vehicles as well as cars, if you’re just looking at cars the figure is around 103,000). That meets and indeed slightly exceeds the Government’s Climate Action Plan expectation that by the end of 2025, there would be 195,000 EVs on our roads.
Sounds good, right? Well, yes on the surface it does, but it doesn’t quite tell the full story. For a start, that 38 per cent growth in sales comes after 2024 saw a 24 per cent reduction in electric car sales. This was largely down to two reasons – a still-evolving charging network, and the Government’s decision, in the summer of 2023, to reduce the amount of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) grant for buying an EV. A lack of certainty, at the time, over company car benefit in kind (BIK) tax plans didn’t help matters.
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Equally, we can say pretty much without question now that we won’t hit the Government’s original target of putting 945,000 electric vehicles onto Irish roads by 2030. That number, dreamed up in 2022 when EV sales were spiking, and car makers were announcing grand – grandiose, even – plans to make only electric cars by the end of this decade always looked aspirational, and it was pretty quickly and quietly downgraded to more like 600,000-odd.
Even that number might be hard to hit. Irish new car sales run at around 120,000 in a good year, with another 30,000 vans. Multiply that by five years and you get 750,000 new cars and vans due to be sold between now and the end of 2030. But with fully electric vehicles only making up less than 20 per cent of that number currently, then surely even in the best-case scenario, we’ll only see around another 200,000 EVs on our roads in that time period?
Derarca Dennis, EY Ireland’s assurance partner and sustainability services lead is sceptical of how high EV sales might go in that time, but still hopeful of improvements. “Achieving this ambitious target won’t be easy,” she says. “Considering Ireland places just over 120,000 new vehicles onto roads every year, it would require a significant percentage of these to be electric vehicles to achieve the adjusted figure of 600,000. The higher cost of electric vehicles still makes this a difficult task, particularly for middle income households who will require substantial subsidies in addition to existing grants and tax reliefs to make adoption a viable financial option. There has also been an increase in the number of new hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles on our roads; hybrid technologies are playing an increasingly important role in bridging the gap to full electrification in the short- to medium-term.”
It is true that EVs are getting cheaper — indeed, some of the most affordable new cars on the market right now are electric, including the Dacia Spring, which is actually the cheapest new car of all on sale. However, the continuing doubts over public charging, and the apparent indifference of authorities such as Dublin City Council when it comes to enabling kerbside charging for those without access to a home driveway, still seem like significant barriers.
“To accelerate EV uptake in Ireland, a multifaceted approach is essential” says Dennis. “This includes increasing financial incentives for EV purchases and charging infrastructure, expanding the charging network with fast chargers, and ensuring the grid can support the additional demand through assessments and upgrades. We are already seeing this being put into action with grant schemes administered by Transport Infrastructure Ireland.”
So that’s a note of hope, as is the increasing number of truly impressive electric cars coming to the market at much more affordable prices – and not just from Chinese brands, either. Many Irish car buyers still remain to be convinced that electric cars can be as flexible and useable as their familiar petrol, diesel, and hybrid models though, and that will be the biggest hurdle to jump in the coming years.
