New gov scrappage grant of 8500

This is what is meant by the rural/urban divide. I don't see an issue myself being honest.

In the city I can walk to visit the market, the shops or the pub and walk on a footpath the whole way in and the whole way home. I paid more for a smaller house than somebody living in the countryside and my property tax is slightly higher as a result. The flip side is I pay less for my electricity standing charge, my broadband is cheaper, faster and more reliable, I rarely get power cuts. my water supply and waste is controlled publicly and my mobile phone signal almost never drops out.

As a city dweller I feel I get a lot of benefits over a rural dweller and I think it makes sense to prioritise rural Ireland for this grant as they need a car much more than I do

Id would agree with this with a caveat - this pilot scheme probably wont create this impact as its limited to roughly 2000 cars, but a bigger scheme could well do that.

Alternative opinion, a lot of these cars 2008-2016 will be diesel and/or high emission old petrols. It's likely to replace them with small EVs.

Many of these perfectly good cars are end of life and owners are struggling to keep them on the road with high motor tax and emissions issues with the NCT and constant repairs.

Likely it will raise the cost of used ICE cars as there will be fewer of them kicking around. But it could slightly lower the cost of used EVs as more people will be looking at new ones instead of pre-owned ones. The fact that the scheme is limited to 2,000 sales suggests it is only a small change either way

Most of them are though. Most urban dwellers have a local pub/shop/community-centre they can walk to. Most rural dwellers don't have that same luxury

There is no 7 seater ICE you can get for 20k and yes most modern EVs can now do 350km without stopping.

Fair enough, my last 350km was done for €5, my last service cost me €10 (windscreen washer) and my last repair was €20 for wipers. How does that compare to your "shopping around" values?

Yes because 7 years ago, 2019, there were no 7-seat EVs other than maybe the Tesla Model X (which may have been a 6-seater but I can't remember and not bothered enough to google as I'm sure somebody on here will correct me) so it would stand to reason that there are very few 2019 model year 7-seat cars available

In the example I gave above the fuel savings were on a 32k car and was €59 a month savings. Personally speaking I actually paid €40,332 for my car and am paying €640 each month (5k deposit) on the loan. I'd usually spend €300 a month on a car loan so it's a difference of €340. I'm paying €8.50 a week driving 500km whereas in my old car I'd have been paying about €70 for the fuel per week plus I used to put €20 away for servicing and repairs. So that's a saving of €326 a month.

So my net cost for driving the Tesla over the last car is €14 a month, and instead of an old banger I bought brand new so had the benefit of a warranty etc. In 2 years time, June 2028 to be exact, that loan will be €0 and my savings will be much higher. It will almost be like being paid to drive

And those reasons should get weaker - one would hope.

We should hope to see over more EVs registered next month between the year-on-year increase we've seen so far this year and the potential extra 2,000 sales arising from this scheme

Its not being done for global emissions, or car lifetime emissions.

Reducing the number of old (diesel especially) cars on the road immediately reduces yearly Irish emissions, so reduces the fines we pay in 2030.

And it also improves air quality significantly locally for all the residents of the country.

And it also reduces our dependence on foreign oil.

Its win/win/win for Irish people, who are who our government is responsible to/for.

This is only a very limited initial pilot scheme.

The state committed to having 850,000 electric cars on the road by 2030, and we're at about 150,000 as of Q1 of this year.

So its very very likely this scheme gets expanded massively as we get closer to that date and the government gets increasingly desperate.

And if we want to get large numbers of the older cars off the road it will have to expand to take in plenty of people who don't have the ability to spend €20k on a new car.

I'd imagine the easiest way they'll do this is to expand it to used cars - and greatly encourage the importation of used EVs from the UK.

FWIW I don't think we will get anywhere near the 850,000 EVs by 2030. The govt dropped the ball EVs when Eamon Ryan took over as transport minister and slashed all incentives effectively promoting the Internal Combustion Engine for the years he was in power

The catch with expanding it to used cars is that it's open to abuse, I could sell you my car and then buy it back off you and we both get a grant for it. Applying a grant to imports of EVs I think is the way forward set it at the equivalent of duty and VAT and then the market for importing from GB opens up again

Don't think I've queued for a charge since 2021 such is the availability of chargers these days. As more EVs get bought that situation will only improve

Of course they do. Govt has all kinds of policy levers it can and does pull to ramp up charging infrastructure if it wanted. Just seach "National EV Charging Infrastructure Strategy".

Not saying they have it right though.

Don't think I've queued for a charge since 2021 such is the availability of chargers these days. As more EVs get bought that situation will only improve

You obviously arent public charging much. Yes it has improved, but there are sites that are congested at peak times which I use but avoid during peak times. Bank holiday weekends in summertime can be a sh!tshow all over the country.

In my opinion the sooner the eCars is sold the better. It's the same as if the government were responsible for running grocery stores. The ecars' and ESB Networks' incompetence stiffle the market for the real players like Applegreen, Ionity and Tesla (in alphabetical order) that have a business case of providing reliable charging for masses.