Cutting the grant for EV home chargers sends “the wrong signal” to drivers, Ger Herbert has said. 

In the 2021 Climate Action Plan, the State set a target of one million electric vehicles on Irish roads by 2030 and a range of financial incentives were introduced to encourage people to switch. 

Last year, there were only 70,000 EVs in Ireland but the grant to install an EV charging point in your home will be cut next month. 

“Anybody can apply for it and it is €600 but it is being reduced to €300 from January 1st,” Ms Herbert told Newstalk Breakfast.

“It’s a bit of a strange one, to be honest. 

“They keep rolling back on all of these incentives and one of the things they rolled back on was the grant towards purchasing an EV. 

“There’s all sorts of arguments that only the rich are buying them anyway, so why are we funding the benefit of those?”

One reason frequently cited as a roadblock to reaching the one million EV target is a lack of high-quality charging infrastructure. 

Home chargers are an integral part of the charging network and Ms Herbert said she thought encouraging people to install one was a “really good idea”. 

Despite this, the cost can deter people and the €600 grant does not cover the full price of installation. 

“It depends how complex the installation is but now you’re going to be adding an awful lot more to it,” Ms Herbert said.

Not just home chargers

Other grants for EV drivers have also been cut; it all means a smaller bill for the State, but Ms Herbert is concerned it will make it harder to encourage people to switch. 

“The early adopters have adopted but now it’s a much more difficult task to convince… committed petrol and diesel buyers to make that switch,” she said. 

“The incentives like the reduction in tolls is going at the end of the year, the purchase price grant is being reduced and now on top of that, the home chargers. 

“All of these send out the wrong signal to these buyers that the Government is not that serious.” 

According to the CSO, 40% of people would consider purchasing an EV, with 55% citing the environment as a reason to buy one.

Better value was cited as a influencing factor by 46% of respondents.

Main image: An electric car charging on rural driveway. Picture by: Alamy.com