2026 Irish EV Sales

Maybe check the cheapest used EVs on the market today.

ah here. They’re all old Zoe’s fluence, moon mileage taxis and gen 1 leafs.

This may come as a surprise, but poor people need their car to do the same mileage as everyone else 🙄.

So you want new EV range for 10yr prices before cars with that range were even invented.

That's got both nothing to do with being poor and mileage. That's just being daft.

Seriously there needs to be some common sense in these arguments. The old song and dance about no cheap EVs and everyone's too poor to buy an EV but can afford fuel to do 40k a year is just archaic.

They will push the price of older EVs below them also. And ICE cars also.

The market is only improving.

We are in a vastly better place than in 2022-23.

You have to calculate total cost of ownership though.

You can easily save 2k a year with an EV so should factor that into your budget.

You can buy a Tesla model 3 for 20k now. Save 2k a year and sell for 15k in a few years, so you've actually made a profit (kind of).

Like all EV you can recharge them. So it can do 1000k in four stops for example.

On a related note, implement something similar to the Bike-to-Work/UK Salary Sacrifice scheme, where you can buy/lease an EV from your pre-tax salary.
Most of my UK colleagues seem to be doing it as it's a no-brainer from a financial POV.

god it’s really not hard to understand the point we’re trying to make - the overwhelming number of car buying decisions in Ireland are with old cheap cars.

1. Go to donedeal
2. Set the max year to 2016
3. Filter EVs only

At 10+ years old, there are just 75 EVs. Leafs are 55 of those. Zoe’s, eGolf & i3’s seem to be the rest.

So no, there are not ‘sufficient EVs for anyone who wants one to just buy one’.

There is sufficient supply if you can afford it, but that’s true of everything in life.

Even if there were thousands of Zoe's and Leaf's available that still wouldn't be sufficient. Expecting the general population to depend on a car with such limited range is farcical.

Anyway, even if a Leaf or Zoe had 1000km of range I still wouldn't buy one. And neither would most others I imagine. A lot people take pride in their car and view it as more than just A to B transport

No one's expecting the general population to do anything. They can buy a 10yr old 10 Micra and go as far as they like. Or 10yr A6 diesel with 1000km of range. Cheap tax, low depreciation.

Only a tiny % of population need long non stop range and the % who need long non stop range and have a tiny budget even smaller % again.

You can't buy technology before it's invented and not for bargain bucket prices.

You can do long range in a small battery EV. You just stop and charge more often. The vast majority of EV drivers rarely public charge. Which suggests that don't do long journeys very often at all. Petrol drivers also do lower mileage than diesel drivers.

A Zoe with CCS and 22kw AC has a lot of value. But at that age you're into 2nd gen of other EVs which offer more value.

Cheapest is not always the best value.

We've gone from 1st and 2nd and 3rd generation in EVs in a very short period of time.

For me my line in the sand was CCS, and a 150-200km range. And buttons.

On my next EV the charging speed would more important than battery size.

Fully agree. The key point which seems to be difficult for some people to grasp is that even if there were 1,000’s of Leafs available to buy this would be still be inadequate (even if Leafs met the needs of these purchasers) for the vast majority of uses car purchasers in Ireland as this point in time.

This is just common sense fact and not FUD which evangelical EV fans need to argue with. Obviously as time goes by, more and more used EVs will hit the market and the level of insufficiency will reduce which will probably be a huge relief for some.

However it won’t be next year or the year after. Again not peddling negativity but simply looking at the case of Norway who has essentially had 100% new EV passenger car sales for years now can and can still only muster 30% used EV sales in 2025. This must be a cause of huge concern for some overly sensitive souls.

BTW I can only assume that the uncertainty about what insufficient means in this context is driven simply from an insatiable desire to be a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian. Just for the purpose of fostering debate on the topic I’m just throwing in a definition below

Insufficient

 is an adjective meaning 

not enough, inadequate, or lacking in amount, strength, or quality for a specific purpose

. It indicates that something is less than what is needed or required, often used in formal contexts to describe resources, evidence, or preparation.