EV grant question - Wrong Pricing, Mistake or Everything is fine?

White car worth 59k is grant eligible. Change the colour for 2k and it is not eligible.

Back when I was ordering my EV, I could choose only 1 extra on the base model, or I wouldn't get the grant.

I'd let the dealer deal with the grant. All that matters to you is the price you pay. You're not making any declaration, the dealer is.

Wouldn't it be true that you can't actually pay any amount between 56500 and 60000 for a full EV?

If you pay 56500 it means car was 60000 and you got the grant applied

If you pay 57000 the car was 60500 and is grant ineligible so you can't actually ever be charged 57000?

Same for 58, 59k and the next price up for a full EV from paying 56.5k is actually 60,001 ?

if there were extras…..they applied a discount…surely the price you paid is the important thing not the perceived value of extras that were thrown in?

Is this ethical issue over 2 years in the making at this stage?

There's a key point here that is important, when buying a car from a dealership your contract of sale is with the dealership

While the manufacturer sets a guide price, the final price is up to the dealership. They effectively buy the car from the manufacturer and sell it on, their franchise agreement guarantees them a certain wholesale price and the rest is up to them

There really isn't anything stopping a dealership from offering a €20k discount except that this will come from their profits. Similarly nothing stops the dealership from raising the price if they want to and unfortunately we've seen instances of this

The threshold for the grant is based on the final sale price and not the guide price from the manufacturer. If the dealership decides to apply a discount to get under the threshold and get an easier sale then that's on them and not the customer

As the OP mentioned, they're basically choosing to sell something with a list price of €62k for €60k and avail of the grant which they passed onto the customer. This has potentially cost the dealership €2k of their own profits, which they probably were fine doing for the easier sale

As for not showing the extras on the invoice, this is something annoying but I'm not at all surprised by it. It's probably a way to ensure the paperwork wasn't flagged by SEAI and the grant application delayed. It would probably still have been paid out in the end but the dealership wanted to avoid any delays

There's an argument there whether an item given as a freebie should be on the invoice or not, personally I think it should but others may have different perspectives