The grant needs to go!

Kramer

It's pretty obvious now that many of the more affordable BEVs are all heading towards the SEAI grant limit of €60k. ID4s, Ioniq5, EV6 etc. Manufacturers will maximise their profits, now that demand is so high & supply so constrained. There's an artificial ceiling now at the €55k mark, net, to avail of the grant.

It's obvious it'll go anyway, now that demand is so high, but for now, it's an artificial distortion & arguably, just being creamed off by the manufacturers.

If Tesla for example, increase the entry Model 3 by just €1k more, all non whites will increase by €6k. Who'd pay €6k for a colour? Kia have withdrawn the higher spec EV6 as it was at the grant limit. They'll drive up the entry spec now towards the grant limit. There'll be no competition at/near the €55k limit. Either spec will be reduced to bring it in under or they'll have to blow right by it with higher spec models hitting well into €65k+ territory.

It's time for it to go IMO.

the_amazing_raisin

Ah jaysis, where have you been? Been missing my dose of Kramer controversy for a while now 😂

I kind of agree, they need to start rethinking the grant. If the game is affordability then they should cut the price cap down so only the base spec models are covered

But where do you set the limit? There's an argument that cars over €25k are for rich people, but look for a family car around that mark and it's basically Dacia or bust

So then you're punishing people for having children, which the government wants to avoid (I'm theory at least)

IMO the grant should be dropped down to €35k gradually over the next 3 years and dropped completely by 2030

Ubbquittious

In this country any sort of a grant is just an excuse for suppliers to charge more. Grants only make sense if you're able to bypass the parasitic Irish middleman

the_amazing_raisin

I'm not sure it's an Irish thing or even an EV thing at this point

VW were recently saying they're aiming to become a luxury brand. So much for the people's car 🙄

Kia/Hyundai have been doing the same for a while as well

Seems all the brands are moving in the same direction, abandoning the budget segments in favour of higher profit markets

IMO the budget cars will be coming from China and India soon

PaulJoseph22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119146359#Comment_119146359

agreed, pretty much every car made in China is a budget brand.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119147111#Comment_119147111

VW, BMW, TESLA, Mercedes…

Redfox25

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119147146#Comment_119147146

Budget brand for some perhaps...........................

slave1

Just follow the Norway model.

We are not at penetrative stage yet, incentives need to remain, remember today's grant aided new EVs are tomorrow used car market.

We need to keep incentives as long as possible

Wanderer78

incentives to change over must remain, its the only way to help the transition, but i wonder can other polices be also implemented, to try prevent gouging?

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119148036#Comment_119148036

Looking at Germany, they have the automaker pay part of the grant, I think it's a 50/50 split. And also there's a bonus grant for cars under €30k

Ireland doesn't have the same clout with the car sales industry, but maybe something could be done here along those lines

For example cars over ~€35k, the grant is partly funded by the dealership? The cynic in me says that the dealerships will just pas that cost along to the customer however

slave1

Looking at prices here and UK it does not look like the grant is causing upset to any price discrepancies that were in existence before the EV grant

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119148625#Comment_119148625

supply constraints maybe?

eagerv

I don't know if the grant going would make cars any cheaper here. What we need are more open pricing such as on the Tesla configurator so you can clearly see the VAT and VRT we are being charged compared to other countries. If incentives for EVs finish on a worldwide basis then that is a different matter.

If the grant does go, it will be advantageous to any of us lucky enough to presently own an EV or two

whippet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119148964#Comment_119148964

It's not just Tesla making it transparent - I've a quote from a BMW dealer on an i4 and it clearly lists the price for the car and each option with the individual VAT and VRT costs on each line.

eagerv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119149073#Comment_119149073

Good to see BMW showing transparency as well👍️

unkel

Grant should have been gone years ago. It's a very poor efficiency spending of tax payers money. I reckon waiving the €120 motor tax to make an EV motor tax free, while upping all other motor tax by a bit, so at a net zero cost to the tax payer, would have more of an impact at changing people's buying behaviour. Irish people just love da chape tax!

brownej

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119149209#Comment_119149209

BMW will show you the total VAT and VRT as well as the percentage in the online configurator.

Once you finish configuring you press the summary button down the bottom. Then click on pricing and it tells you.

If you want to see huge tax numbers, config up a large engine ICE.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119149358#Comment_119149358

you ll actually find humans love 'da chape tax'!

eagerv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119149369#Comment_119149369

We are in a strange situation here in Ireland, where we have a high VAT and a fairly high VRT. Plus a grant of 5K, which reduces the price on lower priced EVs, totally understandable from the Governments pov. Only problem is that manufacturers aren't producing lower priced cars atm for various reasons.

A few years ago things looked quite rosy, not so much now..

liamog

I think you'd do more for EV adoption by providing an infrastructure grant of €5,000 per car sold that can be used by any business to install public DC charging instead of subsiding the single vehicle purchase. Can you imaging the network we'd have if €40,000,000 had been made available to operators this year instead of subsiding the 8000+ cars that were sold.

RoadRunner

After VW upped their prices recently their salesman are now recommending id4's to be purchased without heatpumps. Surely there's something wrong there.

eagerv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119149936#Comment_119149936

Does the heatpump push the nett price above €55K?

Kramer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119146209#Comment_119146209

IMO the grant should be dropped down to €35k gradually over the next 3 years and dropped completely by 2030

That's a better solution. Reduce the cap & taper it by value & over time.

I'd favour a €40k cap with the grant reducing to zero over say a max. of 4 years.

eagerv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119150038#Comment_119150038

I'd favour a €40k cap with the grant reducing to zero over say a max. of 4 years.

Would there be many cars for sale atm to avail of the grant? ie €35K or less.

cruizer101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119149358#Comment_119149358

You want to increase tax on non-electric cars at a time when many are feeling the pinch of increased costs across the board and couldn't afford to change to a suitable electric vehicle?

Kramer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119149936#Comment_119149936

Yeah, that's the result a grant with no taper/a hard cap. Manufacturers will drop spec to meet the figure on cars just over & bring up the price of cheaper cars to just under the limit. Kia just dropped the EV6 GT & the entry level Earth model will now creep up towards the limit, to maximise profit.

Who's benefiting here? The customer will get lower spec cars for the same price.

Dropping heatpumps to meet the grant limit is farcical. A Sustainable Energy grant which results in the dropping of more efficient heatpumps. It's an artificial & damaging distortion of the market the way it currently is IMO & much of the mainstream market is in this €50/55k area. Others will head there too, given the current demands/supply constraints.

€5k off was great back in the day of Ioniqs, Leafs & later, Konas & eNiros, ID.3s etc.

Now, it needs to either be reformed or scrapped. Given the anti car sentiment that pervades these days, including BEVs, I reckon sleepy eamo will scrap it & tell us we'll ultimately save money, by not buying a new car.

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119150092#Comment_119150092

Yes. Well on diesels anyway. What do you mean many people can't afford an electric car? I bought one for a bit over €2k last summer. It will have negative depreciation and the total cost of ownership is lower than a petrol / diesel banger that someone will give you for free.

kanuseeme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119150117#Comment_119150117

It has 60 kms range, fine if you never drive it outside the M50.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119150088#Comment_119150088

True enough, the current pricing structure for EVs is "charge whatever you want". Demand is constantly outstripping supply and frankly there's an argument that Ireland doesn't have enough clout to influence the car industry

I mean if Ireland turns around and says they'll only give the grant to city hatchbacks costing under €20k, it's not like VW or Hyundai or Tesla are going to suddenly roll one out for us

cruizer101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119150117#Comment_119150117

I did say suitable vehicle.

Cheapest leaf on dd now is 5700 and only has 8 bars, what's that about 100km range. That's just not enough for a lot of people.

I'm a fan of electric cars but now is not the time to be increasing tax on ice cars, the rise in fuel costs is enough of a cost increase to encourage those who can over to ev's.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119150314#Comment_119150314

He just really likes that Fluence 🤣

In fairness, if you were commuting into Dublin every day from suburbia, a €2k Fluence would almost be cheaper than bus fares for a year

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119149676#Comment_119149676

The cynic in me says that those AC chargers would suddenly cost €50k to install, and 50kW units would be €1 million each 😬

It's a good thought in principle, and it's basically what Tesla do with the SuC network. The problem is that it's in Tesla's interest to have a high quality network, but whoever would be issuing the grant doesn't depend on any decent number of chargers being installed

Just look at the latest "plan" published around public charging. They can fulfill all the objectives of the plan and not install a single charger

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119150314#Comment_119150314

The majority of cars in the whole of Ireland never or rarely do more than 60km in one journey...

And yeah, I'd like 1000km range too, but if you're poor, you have to make do with what you can afford. And not come onto a forum to whinge that you are poor and that you need your cancer fuel subsidised.

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119151346#Comment_119151346

Does the Fluence have a bumber sticker saying my other EV is a Model S with over 400km range. A lot of poor people would like to be in that position.

Again as I have said many times before even if everyone wanted and could afford an EV it would be years before they could all get their hands on one given current serious supply constraints. Letss wait until that is resolved before further penalising ICE drivers

JohnC.

How many €2k Fluence are out there for people to buy?

Getting a one-off good deal is not the same as it being readily available for the masses to buy. And if the masses were buying them, you would not have got that for €2k.

unkel

People were too slow, the boat with cheap EVs has sailed. That said, plenty of cheap €6-7k Leafs out there, these can fast charge, people have easily done 500km in them in a day with a handful of fast charges. Still cheaper to own than a banger petrol or diesel car for anyone doing a good bit of mileage. Whinging won't get you 1km range.

UID0

The purpose of the grant (as with any incentive) is to increase demand. There are no demand side issues at the moment. It's all supply side issues. Given that the issues are on the supply side, the manufacturers are doing their best to maximise their profit. The grant system we have doesn't incentivise the supply of cheaper cars. It is incentivising supplying cars at just under 60k to get the grant and the highest profit. This is resulting in heavier cars with larger batteries than required being imported, reducing the environmental benefit of buying an EV. The grant should be restructured and the maximum value of the car should be dropped significantly. It also should have a phased reduction (same as the VRT relief has), possibly a full grant up to €30,000 reducing to 0 at €40,000 with the VRT relief continuing as is at the full relief up to €40,000 reducing to 0 at €50,000

There could also be some changes to corporation tax on the profit from importing lower priced cars.

Keeping the grant as is is going to result in a market with a very small number of reasonably priced second hand EVs available for quite a long time. There are a very limited number of lower priced second hand EVs in the country, and the new cars being registered are, for the most part, not in the same price category. Out of the ~8200 new EVs registered this year, there probably isn't 1500 that were less than €40k. It will take a long time for the price of those cars to reduce to the levels that a lot of second hand car buyers are willing to spend.

Without some sort of change to the grant, we're going to see a lot of smaller ICE cars being kept for longer, as there aren't sufficient numbers of small EVs to replace them.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119150092#Comment_119150092

Well, Unkel going by another thread heats their house with a couple of Crypto Mining rigs!!!!!! So hardly a regular punter :) They seem to despise the use of oil or gas but happy to burn vast quantities of electricity!

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119152998#Comment_119152998

Crypto mining rigs are a 100% efficient way of heating your house. Also done from the grid which is up to 75% renewable and from my 11kwp solar array which is 100% renewable. Before that I heated my house with gas, which is less than 100% efficient and 0% renewable

I produce 11MWh of electricity per year from solar PV. An average Irish house uses 3MWh per year of electricity, an average EV also uses about 3MWh per year.

Please educate yourself a bit more before making any insinuating comments that I burn vast quantities of electricity, with that not so hidden false accusation of using fossil fuels to create that electricity that I use.

🤔



HBC08

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119150117#Comment_119150117

Th whole idea of taxing ICE cars out of existence was possibly a reality up until as recently as a year year ago.Then sh1t got real in the world and people have bigger things to worry about than their carbon emissions.

The vast majority of vehicles in this country are ICE and there's no way any government is going to push up the costs significantly of owning one in the near to medium term.

The 20c and 15c reduction in costs of petrol and diesel respectively is due to be expire in August,they're not even going to be able to do that.

slave1

I think uncontrollable world events have put a question over the transition to EV, the post COVID surge, the Chinese zero tolerance approach to COVID cases "post" COVID and Russian dopes.

We just gotta hold off for the time being as best we can and make what inroads we see wherever they arise, if you see an EV that works for you then go for it, if you have a property that will take solar panels then go for it etc etc etc

2023 is not going to be any better IMHO

unkel

I don't agree. Sure, things have happened that are out of our control. But now is not the time to sit back, stick our heads into the sand "lalala it's nothing to do with me" and look back up in 2 years time to see if things are a bit better

Now is the time to take action. Fast track the installation of massive wind and solar parks, improve charging infrastructure, provide (tax) incentives for people to stop using fossil fuels and move to electricity instead, stimulate start up companies in the renewables sphere, particularly those with international ambitions. Even without any of the above external factors, this was always going to be an exponential growth industry. Because of those external factors, this will be even more rapidly so. And at individual level, can I use less fossil fuels, can I install some solar PV, etc. A small example: for €200 you can buy a solar panel and a grid inverter. This panel will produce 380kWh per year in electricity in the better parts of Ireland when south facing. It will take the base load from your house, you will use all that it produces. At 23c cost per kWh, that will save you €88 per year, every year. And not only that, but the depreciation on that hardware is near zero too.

slave1

As this is an EV forum I disagree on the EV move, there's just no supply worth talking about.

Holding the door open on renewables but we are lucky with our own house and garden, lots not as fortunate, apartment dwellers, renters etc.

Maybe 100% allowances for Landlords but going OT on an EV forum

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119152389#Comment_119152389

Ah cmon seriously you would head out on a 500km journey in a €5k Leaf? How long would that journey take? A couple of years back it took me 7.5 hours to do 350kms in my 161 L30. I tried it a 2nd time and it took me over 6.5 hours. Anyone attempting such a journey now would want more time than sense.

Again a 60km range EV would only allow you do a 30km journey without requiring charging, which isn't very useful for too many people, other than as a second car for pootling around near home or as a cheap option for their kids to learn to drive in. Which is why older ICEs (or bangers) will continue to be driven for a while yet.

unkel

I don't disagree with any of that, fact is though that the majority of cars in Ireland (not just in Dublin) rarely do more than 60-80km per day. Obviously if you are a sales rep doing 500km per day very often, then a 10 year old Leaf is not the best choice of car for you 😂

(not that any sales rep ever wanted to be seen dead in a €5k, 10 year old car anyway)

kanuseeme

60 km only is meh! and trying to do 500 km with a handful of charges meh also ! Most people have things to do, places to go other than a leisurely trip down the country or drive 15 kms from the sea to the m50 on nearly level ground at a snails pace.

Try driving across a county and then half in to the next after doing all the usual school runs and what not, then look forward to hoping a charger is available.

Even if people did buy the half used up cars, what do they know about battery chemistry and if the range will be 25% less again in 2 years time, with a fossil fuel car you can have some certainty.

The grant was taking away from phev's, and they are still selling, only trailing EVS by 4% so no harm I think reducing the grant or eliminating it and sticking the funds into charging, at home and everywhere else.

UID0

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119154394#Comment_119154394

The grant is taxpayer's money, and at the moment is not providing good value to the taxpayer. It is important that the money is used to get the best benefit for the country as a whole. There are no issues with getting buyers for any of the EVs on the market at the moment, and it is unlikely that there would be issues if the grant was removed. The money would be better used in 1. expanding public charging and 2. reducing the carbon intensity of the electrical grid.

The grant was necessary when EVs were in their infancy, as was the free chare point at home and free public charging. It was there to offset the extra cost of buying an EV and the uncertainty on residual values. The market is sufficiently mature that a lot of the incentives are not necessary. What is necessary is greater certainty on the availability of en-route charge points for longer distances and charge points for those without their own driveway/dedicated parking.

Reducing the carbon intensity of the electrical grid has benefits for all electricity users in the country as it helps to reduce the overall cost of electricity, and particularly benefits higher usage customers (which includes those with EVs). Given the price trajectory for oil, reducing the price of electricity effectively works as an incentive for EV ownership.

Montage of Feck

It should be gotten rid due to the blatant unfairness of it. Drive an old car and you penalised by punitive tax; buy a new one and you'll get a grant and chape tax.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119154002#Comment_119154002

Tbh, I get really annoyed at when the EU commission and governments of Europe talk about transitioning to renewables but then sandbagging the whole process

Let's be honest, the governments of the EU, and wider Europe, could transition to 100% renewables within a year if enough government money was thrown at the problem.

They could just throw money at manufacturers to scale up production of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries. They could throw grants at homeowners and businesses to install as much renewables as possible and make it as easy as possible to bring new wind and solar farms up and running

There's no shortage of money floating around, so it's hardly like they can't afford it.

Yes, it's bad economics in a free market sense. But at some point people are going to have to acknowledge that this is a real emergency, and in emergencies the normal rules of spending need to be set aside for a while

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119153714#Comment_119153714

Im alright jack .......

Your off your head , earlier on you were saying people should just make the switch I got a car for 2 grand.. there isn't enough 2 grand cars let alone 10 grand cars for people to move to.

Equally you took advantage of the grant yourself with your ioniq...

This I'm alright jack stuff is hilarious. People shouldnt be penalised when we are walking into historical inflation. Cop on .

unkel

I've always been opposed to all grants. Period. If there is one going, I will take it though. And so should everyone else.

You'll make a good populist politician. People shouldn't be penalised when things get tough. Shure give them a few hundred quid towards their electricity use. Shure give them a few hundred towards their diesel bill. Cancel the water charges. Keeps them voting for us. My bollix. We need to reduce our use of fossil fuels now more than ever. This is going to be painful for everyone, it's going to hurt, we'll just have to take our medicine. We'll get out of it better. And you guessed it, I have zero ambition (nor talent) to become a politician myself ;-)

The head in the sand approach, shure it'll pass is pathetic though. Our children and grandchildren will speak with disgust about most people of our generation doing nothing when it was needed the most. That's what I call the I'm alright jack stuff. Everyone knows if we don't do a lot more soon, we might be ok for our lives, but our children and grandchildren will have an awful time. Because of us.