A new report, released by Arup Consultants and economist Jim Power, on reducing light fleet carbon emissions to achieve Government targets has found that Ireland will fall dramatically short of its target of almost a million electric vehicles on the road by 2030 without huge investment. 

The report, commissioned by the SIMI concludes that the Government needs to incentivise and support dealing with the oldest polluting cars, while exponentially increasing the charging infrastructure nationwide. 

According to the report, of equal importance is the urgent need to create a second-hand electric vehicle fleet. The age profile of the national fleet has led to the continued use of older vehicles with 31.1% of vehicles being Euro 4 (pre-2011) or older (700,429 cars). Analysis within the report shows that removal of all these cars and replacing them with EVs would reduce carbon emissions by 875,000 tonnes which is the equivalent of planting over 1.1 billion trees which would almost cover the entirety of Co Clare. 

Whilst the Government is leading the way by currently requiring all their fleets to be replaced with electric vehicles, this could be expedited by requiring a turn over every 2 or 3 years. Ireland, which is a right-hand drive market, has a slower and smaller supply chain than most other European markets, with around 120,000 new car sales per annum (pre-Covid-19) and an average car fleet age of 9 years (2021). With the majority of motorists being used vehicle buyers there is currently three times as many used vehicles being sold as new vehicles, with an insignificant second-hand electric vehicle market. The creation of this secondary market can only happen via a vibrant overall new car market.

The report also suggests that based on the European market experience Ireland would need some 100,000 public chargers to service the target EV fleet. Currently there are 1,900 chargers installed at 800 sites across the island of Ireland and with the current number of 47,000 EVs on Irish roads the number of charging points falls far short of the 4,700 realistically needed to serve these.

Gillian Fanning SIMI President said, “The Irish Motor Industry is a key partner of the Irish Government in seeking to reduce carbon emissions from motor vehicles. All stakeholders as outlined in this report have a responsibility to collaborate in delivering charging infrastructure, incentives and education so that consumers who are at the heart of this plan and critical to its success have the confidence to make the change to zero emission vehicles in greater numbers.”  

Terry Lee-Williams, of ARUP commented, “Confidence of buyers that they can charge their car when they want to will largely determine the speed of consumer adoption, so government must stimulate charger availability ahead of people buying vehicles, until the market matures.”