Ireland’s ICE2EV electric vehicle scrappage pilot reached its full allocation within one hour of opening, with all 2,000 available grants claimed shortly after applications began.
The scheme offers motorists up to €5,000 toward the purchase of a new battery electric vehicle (BEV) when scrapping an eligible petrol or diesel car. Combined with Ireland’s existing €3,500 EV purchase grant, buyers could receive total incentives of €8,500.
Strong Demand for EV Incentives
Applications were submitted through participating dealerships on a first-come, first-served basis.
According to Ireland’s Department of Transport, the pilot reached its capacity within an hour despite a brief website outage caused by heavy demand during the application process.
The initiative is supported by €10 million from the Climate Action Fund under the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment.
To qualify, applicants were required to own their existing vehicle for at least 12 months, with eligible petrol or diesel vehicles registered in 2013 or earlier. Vehicles also had to be taxed, insured, roadworthy, and scrapped through an approved dealer.
The program allocated 65% of available grants to rural households and 35% to urban applicants in an effort to encourage electric vehicle adoption outside major cities.
Government to Review Pilot Results
The Department of Transport said the pilot is expected to remove approximately 2,000 internal combustion engine vehicles from Irish roads and replace them with battery electric vehicles.
Officials from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), which administers the program, will work with the Department of Transport to evaluate the pilot and determine whether similar initiatives should be introduced in the future.
Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien said the government had always intended the initiative to serve as a limited pilot before considering any longer-term policy.
“I’m really pleased that it’s fully subscribed and it’s going to help 2,000 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.”
O’Brien added that the government will review the outcome of the program before deciding its next steps.
“We’ll have a look at it and then assess what we do next.”
Source: newstalk.com, rte.ie, gov.ie, thejournal.ie