French entry-level EV conversion with government subsidies

So the SEAI grant and a scrappage scheme? I am sure the automakers would be all for it.

Where does the money come from to fund all this?

Those things aren't directly comparable.

I am sure dealerships and automakers would be delighted. That subsidy would go straight to the automakers who would in turn ensure that the dealerships are looked after. How can government subsidies not be good for them?

Those who want a more expensive EV will buy one as they are already being subsidised by the taxpayer.

That is pretty flawed logic though. VRT goes to the exchequer so even if you were to look at it that way (which wasn't what was being proposed), the loss of it would be a loss to the taxpayer who would effectively be absorbing that loss.

25% of the car price is VAT/VRT

do you think that that is not enough

you would prefer or be happier with an effective 33.33% in taxes of one form or another being applied??

I don't really get what your original point was. If you don't like taxpayers money going to private companies then I guess you're not happy with the HSE buying medicines from pharmaceutical companies, or councils buying social housing, or farmers receiving subsidies?

I get that EV subsidies end up just paying the automakers to build cars, but since it's already happening then we might as well make it more useful. The main argument against EV adoption at the moment is price, which is valid because there aren't really any affordable EVs out there.

Automakers say they can't produce an EV with decent range for under €25k without incurring a loss, but that's kind of where the affordability segment is lacking, so that's where subsidies should be focused IMO. In Germany for example the EV subsidy increases for cars under €30k list price, which encourages automakers to focus on that segment

Talking about converting old petrol vehicles to electric isn't really worthwhile since those cars won't be optimised for electric, and are using older safety technology, and have also had 20 years or so of rust loving Irish weather

Since cars are fairly easy to recycle, it seems to me that a scrappage scheme would make more sense in this case

One asshole's toy becomes a second hand car after some number of years. Would you prefer they were forced to buy an used diesel in 5 years time instead of incentivising more new cars to become electric today?

I applaud the idea of anyone converting their car to EV. I was planning to have my own Porsche Boxster done one day. Fact is that it is still very expensive to do unless you can DIY, even with a generous subsidy like the French one, it makes no financial sense when you can buy a second hand Leaf for about €6-7k

It's a bit like a deep retrofit of houses with a heavy subsidy. 50% of the money will go towards labour, 30% will go towards the profit for the installer company, and 20% will actually go into the materials used for the deep retrofit (figures made up, but you get the idea). Houses are with us a long time. Cars aren't. Agree with @the_amazing_raisin that it is better to slowly replace the car fleet by natural change. In the meantime let's use any spare tax money to nudge the building of a few big atlantic wind farms so we can produce 200-300% of our current electricity needs with wind and let's incentivise people and companies to plaster their buildings with PV panels. These are far more efficient use of tax payers money

Well there's a bit of a conundrum there because if the car is worth €5k, and you spend €5k converting to electric, you still have a car worth €5k

Okay, maybe €6-7k given current interest in EVs. But it's not exactly going to pay for the cost of the modifications

It could go the other way as well, a lot of folks will see a modified car and walk away. So your pool of potential buyers isn't gonna be great, which favours the buyer as they can bid low

I mean, 100 miles is 30kWh Nissan Leaf territory, and the cost difference between a conversion and a used Leaf isn't much. So it seems like a better deal to buy the Leaf and get a newer car in the process

I know a lot of people talk about throwing out perfectly good cars, but the annoying truth is that those cars are 10 years old or more and have wear and tear to match. On top of that, cars are very easy and valuable to recycle, so any cars going to scrap aren't exactly going into landfill

There's plenty of cases where it makes sense to convert old vehicles, like I mentioned classic cars with engines that aren't worth repairing can be given a second life. But it's a hobby, not a business case

I don't think anyone is going to claim a 2012 Clio is an icon of motoring that should be preserved