Ireland’s EV scrappage pilot fully subscribed ‘within one hour’ of launch
As the name suggests, the ICE2EV pilot scheme offered motorists an additional €5000 grant towards purchasing a new BEV in exchange for scrapping an eligible petrol or diesel car. It was billed as ‘additional’, in that the grant stacked with Ireland’s existing €3,500 EV purchase grant – offering applicants the tantalising prospect of €8,500 worth of grants towards a new EV.
It’s no surprise, then, that the pilot scheme proved popular – but the speed at which it reached full capacity was nevertheless impressive. Applications were submitted by participating dealerships on behalf of customers and processed on a first-come, first-serve basis. Despite announcing the scheme only last month, the Department of Transport confirmed that it reached its 2000-applicant limit within an hour of launch – even including a 10 minute period where the website went down due to high demand.
Eligibility required applicants to have owned their vehicles for at least 12 months, and for the vehicles to have been registered in 2013 or earlier. The cars had to be taxed, insured and roadworthy before being scrapped by an approved dealer. The scheme also featured a geographical split, with 65 per cent of grants reserved for rural households and 35 per cent for urban applicants in order to encourage adoption outside Ireland’s cities.
In a statement, the Department of Transport said: “The initiative was backed by €10 million in funding from the Climate Action Fund under the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, meaning that 2,000 ICE vehicles will be removed from our roads and replaced by EVs. […] Officials from the SEAI, as scheme administrators, will work closely with Department of Transport officials to review and evaluate the pilot. Findings will inform potential future policy or programme design.”
Regarding the future of the scheme, Minister O’Brien told NewsTalk that it was “really clear” that this was only ever a time limited pilot scheme. “I’m really pleased that it’s fully subscribed and it’s going to help 2000 households to change out of older cars into new EVs. So, I said we would run a pilot scheme; we’d assess its success afterwards and look at where the sales were.” He also hinted towards a permanent scheme: “We’ll have a look at it and then assess what we do next.”
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