New gov scrappage grant of 8500

Because the dealer can charge full price and not offer you a discount like they normally do. It's a win win for them , not you

Were they grants available to everyone or to a very specific subset of the general public?

Here it is.

I'd say it's in recognition that somebody might have an NCT failure and decide on that basis to upgrade their car rather than repair it and send it through the NCT, only for it to be scrapped a few weeks later. And also to take account of perhaps having to wait up to 6 months for a new car from a dealer

Sounds like a lot in fairness and we will be looking for just 2,000 of them to be interested which isn't a whole lot

Which is ironic as the guy is anti car no matter the drive train.

You said the car needs a valid NCT. That image clearly disagrees with what you said. The NCT can be expired by 6 months

You'd imagine limiting the grant to €10m will cause issues for dealers when the car is ordered but the buyer doesn't get the grant. What happens to all these new EVs if the buyer reneges on the deal without the grant?

The scrappage grant for EVs actually has a negative impact on overall emmisions, if you are using it to replace a car that is in good condidtion. The carbon cost associated with manufacturing an EV, plus the approx 50% of electricity supplies not coming from renewable sources, puts the overall carbon footprint higher than continuing to use the old vehicle. And in fact, the benefit is completely lost if the old car is sold on, becasue not only do you have the carbon cost associated weith the new EV, you also have the old car still on the road. While the grant says "kk to permenantly dispose of the old vehicle", there is nothing to prevent a scrappage yard from subsequently selling it on I would imagine.

But even ignoring the fact that the old car may remain on the road, spread over 5 years the total carbon emmsionos of a 2l diesal over 5 years, based on 15000km per year is approx 12tons CO2, while for an average EV, factoring in the carbon cost of manufacture, its about 19tons based on 50% renewable electricity. This changes to 10tons at 100% renewable, so really only makes enviromental sense for those who can provide their own source of renwewable energy.

From an enviromental standpoint, the best course of action is to continue using your old, fossil fuel vehicle, which as new manufacturing carbon cost, until it can no longer run, and at that point replace it with an EV

Yes, it’s probably not deserving of all the recent media coverage and trumpet blowing we’re currently seeing. It’ll help to move a few folks that are on the fence already to go for a new EV rather than another ICE, PHEV or even a used EV.
For the majority of drivers running an old large diesel doing high mileage they’ll be little uptake I suspect.

I guess this is why the grant cap is being dropped from 60k down to 50k. So it isn't seen to be rewarding the wealthy. As Wassie correctly says this is to promote small and medium EVs.

It's totally fine for you to keep your motor for many years to come. This isn't compulsory for everyone with a qualifying car, but some other posts not yours are written like it is.