2024 Irish EV Sales

I regularly drive all over mainland Europe and I can assure you, there ain’t the volume of EVs that you’re implying.

Using France as an example, April sales were 60%+ petrol or petrol hybrid of some sort. What is noticeable is how low diesel sales are.

The German BEV fleet is considerably larger than France. Must be close to three the times the size by now. Was over twice the size two years ago.

Also cheaper public charging. There was a post here a few days ago about IECharge (French network that tends to install in suburbs but generally accessible from motorways) dropping their price from 30c to 25c/kWh from now until the end of August. And their chargers are generally in the 160kW+ range.

most EU countries have EV market share similar to our 13%, with Italy at just 3%(!).

https://www.electromaps.com/en/blog/sales-of-electric-vehicles-in-europe-in-the-first-quarter-of-2024

Just back from the south of Spain, as I’m sure lots of us do, and its surprising how rare an EV is; esp compared to my Dublin commuter area, where they are literally a few on every street.

i would consider those numbers to be pretty decent, they are certainly in a much better place than we are and going in the right direction…and what i mean by right direction is france's yoy 45.2% increase in ev sales compared our -41.6%.

saying that, randomly picking out one country is hardly the best way to counter what i'm saying. now just look at our contemporaries. the netherlands, BEV's made up 31% of new registrations last year. they alone have 58000+ public or semi public ev charging points in a country the size of munster. ok… the population is triple irelands but do we have 20,000 public or semi public chargers? i think we both know the answer. belgium has seen a similar increase in ev sales as france, in denmark 1 in 3 new cars bought are ev, sweden is smashing it out of the park as is finland and norway even more so. of all of our contemporaries only germany & austria recorded disappointing ev figures.

what all these countries have in common are governments who are backing the transition to ev with free road tax or no sales tax as is the case in the netherlands. we on the other hand withdrew incentives when in fact we should have been expanding them.

car companies are transitioning fast. the issue is in a country like ours with no car industry the international car companies call the shots. ev's are coming, the irish need to get used to the idea and the government needs to make it an urgent priority to ramp up support (more than they already do).

I agree that “EVs are coming and Irish people need to get used to it”, but in reality things are far more nuanced.

the majority of people will never buy a new car in their lifetime. Indeed almost all new cars are bought by the same small fraction of the population - Manufacturers selling to the same individuals every 3-5 years.

Also we’ve a national fleet of 2.5m vehicles. The tipping point is many many years away still, with most transactions in the car market happening in the €5-15k price point.

so yes, EVs are inevitable, however the rollout period is far more protracted than people think - and it has nothing to do with some ‘anti EV agenda’ 😀

I think in 5 years time there will be plenty of 2nd hand EVs for sale at 15k and under.

In theory, once 100% of new vehicles are EVs, then it should take 20 years to completely replace almost all ICEs with EVs (obviously a small % will remain forever). Also a significant % will be hybrid.

The elephant in the room is self driving cars. Will people bother buying a car if you can just subscribe to a service that's cheaper than running a car.

I think car sales will begin to drop when this happens. It might only be 5 years away.

there isn’t a self driving car at the moment - so it won’t be something you’ll be subscribing to in 5 years time for sure.

The whole industry has slowed the rate of acceleration recently, pardon the pun. Level 3 and 4 self driving trials are being pared back, Cruise, Wayne etc. Tesla can’t get there with cameras, and FSD is too expensive. Maybe maybe in cities you’ll have driver less taxis like in China.

As for Irish EV rollout, realistically we’re 8-10 years from a tipping point for EVs in new car sales (80%+ market share), and then obviously 15-20 years for those sales to replace the national fleet of ICE cars.

Self-driving cars are already operating in 4 cities in the US and some cities in China.

We don't know Waymo's plan for scaling and it only takes one bad accident to set them back, but I think in 5 years Waymo will be in every major city in the US.

We'll have to see but 5 years isn't unrealistic that they'll be operating a taxi service in Ireland.

It will probably be over 10 years before it'll affect car sales though but it is inevitable.

I'm not sure about Tesla. It's impossible to predict.

In 2023 18.7% new cars in Ireland were EV.

I think in 5 years it'll have crossed the 50% barrier definitely which is the tipping point as you'll still have 20% hybrid, so only 30% will be petrol and diesel. I think this is when you'll start to notice petrol stations closing.

One tipping point which is only a year or two away is petrol and diesel being less than 50%.

went shopping for a new EV for the OH this week.

ID3, BYD Dolphin, MG4, Nissan Leaf were on the radar.

To say all the dealers were nervous about EV sales would be an understatement.

They relaxed a bit when we said we weren’t trading in an EV. Two of them outright said they wouldn’t be able to take an EV as trade in. (We were trading in a 2021 petrol SUV)

I have never got such good trade in values and CoC as what i got this week. Even got follow on phone calls from three of the dealers bettering their first offer and offering to pay tax, service plans etc. (weird experience with Nissan dealer).

They all seemed desperate to move their EV’s.

Me and my OH are converted to EV’s (I’m on my second EVE) and couldn't wait to change the petrol car to EV. My OH was happy with Three of the cars on offer and the BYD dolphin won the day. It was close with the MG4 which is an excellent car . Got a great deal in the end

In summary the dealers seemed nervous about EV sales and there are some great deals to be had at the moment.

It’s sad to witness how much media and influencers have influenced EV sales in Ireland. My wife and I are trading in her EV for a hybrid partly due to the misinformation she’s encountered from friends and social media. Despite the fact that she rarely leaves the county, she now insists on having an engine in her next car. From my perspective, this decision lacks logic but I have an EV I like so I won't get involved in her decision. However, I hope that as new EV prices continue to fall, more people will be tempted to consider them rationally. Ultimately, it all comes down to long-term savings.