2023 Irish EV Sales

The mG4 is doing very well!

great to see an affordable car from a non traditional manufacturer climbing the ranks.

If speaking about Tesla, September of 2022 came after nearly no deliveries in previous 2-4 months, while this year starting with Feb we had deliveries every month.

Some said Y would cannibalize 3 sales, however it seems fairly constant to me.

The next reason for the drop I think is the relaxation of stock. Last year due to shortage people would get the car whenever, while now they can return to their habit of buying for new reg plate. VW is a good example as they are up 6% this year even though last 3 months look really bad for them. We'll see if the prices would hold buyers back.

Seems Hyundai buyers are even more traditional

Anyone buying a car these days is going to be even a tiny bit ‘EV curious’, but they’re probably still too expensive for most buyers - people can’t magic money into their pockets, and interest rate changes make repayments quite a bit more expensive. coupled with the data showing the current depreciation would make a lot of potential buyers adopt a wait-and-see attitude.

sticking just to EV’s for a sec, there’s not many 2nd hand sales happening that aren’t priced to sell.

It’s a circular convo we have here every day :)

Similar story here - i have low mileage Taycan 4S ad’s selling in the sub €90k range now, but there’s a few long term private ad’s still looking for €130k, like it was still a difficult car to find. They just haven’t come to terms with crystallising the loss yet I assume.

Its the same story with almost all private ads of newer EVs (people who bought the dream of a car that mightn’t depreciate) - whereas garages will cut their losses far quicker and get it off the lot

Is that article not a bit misleading? Obviously DoneDeal have the stats and reports showing that EV searches and saved listings on their website has dropped compared to previous months but that doesn't indicate a drop in EV interest in the market as a whole?

New BEVs went from 14% to 18% between 2022 and 2023 and from July to September went from 15.3%, 21.8% to 26%. Is that not a sign of increased interest?

BEV Only Marketshare:

2018: 0.98%

2019: 2.94%

2020: 4.54%

2021: 8.24%

2022: 14.6%

2023: 18.34%

It's the buyer's market. Used EVs not shifting. It's very difficult and slow market. Lot of reluctancy, economic uncertainty and preference to "safe bets" vs going EV (aka Toyota). Experienced it myself.

Firstly, there's a lot of anti-EV propaganda and disinformation on the social media. Mainstream media and the government don't help either. That's certainly something that impacts this. It's real and it has impact on the market. For example, Toyta spends millions in lobbying and PR etc. With divisive narratives spread by various malicious actors, EV/ICE is becoming a cultural war in many countries (USA included), also not good. It should be a pragmatic thing.

Secondly, most Irish car buyers are conservative, in my opinion. The more progressive bunch already has an EV. Again, I experienced it myself. I don't see a myth-busting explanatory PR campaing or pilot project by the gov, so this will continue to be the case.

Thirdly, Irish market is tiny and we're still in the early adopter's phase. EVs are still a thing for the better off or fans and enthusiasts. That market is in my opinion saturated, anyone who could've had an already EV has it. Getting someone less better off into EV through the 2nd hand market is difficult, this market segment in my opinion is very small or doesn't exist at all. To be honest, it's a very niche segment and it's a hard sell for most people (I'm talking Joes).

Fourthly, the government policy is simply not good enough to encourage adoption, for new sales but especially for 2nd hand sales. A big used car market (UK) next doors is inaccessible. There's not enough new-ish cars to trickle down to the 2nd hand market quickly. Think incentives for company fleets to go electric and these cars would trickle down in 3-4 years accounting cycles to the 2nd market (hang on that's exactly what was succefully done in Belgium, Austria and Norway to name a few...). We need both strong new car sales, but equally strong 2nd hand market to accelerate adoption. Also, there isn't enough financial disincentives on ICE to make the weak EV incentives to trump them (see the Netherlands how you do disincentives). It's a disgrace how cheap motor tax on ICE vs EV is here, none of the health and environmental damage is reflected in ICE motor tax - the stick isn't big enough to change behavior.

Given all that, I'm actually suprised we're not experiencing reduction in % of total fleet and that new sales are 20% (comparable to the UK).

To put that number in perspective, it’s a little more than the number of M3’s in the whole country.

I think you can guess what happens to prices. It’s simple supply and demand - if you want to sell an EV at the moment, you need to be at the bottom end of the pricing, end of story.

There’s a big issue is that people aren’t willing to pay big money for a private sale. Especially an EV, they fear that they have no warranty on the battery

And look at this one for sale from Porsche themselves. They're making a holy show of themselves, that car has been for sale for 197 days 😂

You'd think they would at least have renewed the ad for a few quid, like all other dealers do, even smalltime ones. I wonder what they started this off at early in the year, probably €120k or something silly

Car values always reduce down? Not sure what you're expecting.

Agreed we had a couple of very silly years for second hand car pricing, for all the quite well understood reasons. Those days are well and truly over, I guess they came down very rapidly for EVs when Tesla revised down the price of the popular Model Y here twice.

ICE are still overpriced imho, they have a bit more falling to do

Still as in my above example, even the cheapest Taycans for sale on DD, take off 10% for negotiation in private sales, they still have had only minimal depreciation really for luxury cars.

Not many EVs were really badly hurt, mostly the ones that were just brutal value for money to buy new in the first place. Like the Tesla Model Y when it first came out was €73k on the road in white. Silly money for what is an SUV that sits half way between an econobox and premium. There is a very nice LR AWD 221 for sale at the moment with several extras like white interior, performance upgrade, blue colour and tow hitch for €48k and I'd say you'll be able to negotiate that down a good bit

Part of the hesitancy is due to pricing, secondhand supply is bad because we can't tap into the UK market as you said, lack of fast charging infrastructure on busy routes, lack of council planning vision for on-street charging for those with no driveways. Does anybody know if the councils are making any progress re on-street parking charging?

One of the few great ideas the government had was introducing the generous EV taxi grant, it has generated a lot of positive EV talk and inquisitiveness across all generations I know that drive ICE. They should continue this scheme. Taxi EV adoption is rather poor though outside of the big cities.

I agree on the issue of ICE car tax, but sadly it's always turned into "tax cuts for the rich and more tax to the poor".

The landlord tax credit should have been appropriated to increased Grants for lower priced EVs. Something like cars under €35k get €7.5k grants. But this would adversely favour Chinese brands and displease our German suppliers.

Instead we got a help everyone budget which improves nothing.

HV batteries failing, massive electrical / software issues, not fixable over the air, etc. I know personally of a nearly new one that was off the road for nearly 3 months within a year. And then it had another electrical problem that would take it off the road for another 2 months. Of course it is in the interest of owners and Porsche alike to keep this quiet and to offer generous compensation / trade ins if the owner understandably wants to get rid

And it is one thing if the car is under warranty and you get a loaner - happened to me several times with my first Tesla Model S. But it's another issue altogether if the car is out of warranty, you face massive bills and you are without your car for months on end

Love the Taycan myself and it would be a typical car for me to buy after maybe 5-6 years, but dunno. Wouldn't be that much to look forward too. Drives great and it's a Porsche (That would make it Porsche 3- Tesla 2 to for me 😀) but software / (self driving) tech is still far behind the likes of Tesla

As a 222 M3 RWD owner I currently owe approx 40k on the standard finance term. I'd say that's pushing people with those asking prices. Anyone who bought last year before the price cuts likely is 5-15k in the hole.

I've gotten trade offers between 32 and 35k, and Tesla offered 28k (LOL) trade in. So theres a bit for those 221 owners to drop. Why would anyone buy a used M3 RWD when theres a new one with financing for 42k

You can order the Highland in the UK now. The price is lower than the old model was a few days ago 😶