Electric is in the fast lane when it comes to car sales

Ireland is going electric. That is the consistent message from monthly data on car sales and licensing over the first eight months of the year. And it is a bit of a puzzle.

When electric car sales were going through the floor last year, we were told by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry and others that it was down to range anxiety and cost, not helped, it said, by reductions in grant support available to customers.

Yet sales of EVs last month were 64 per cent ahead of the same time last year. So far this year, registrations are a third up on last year.

With five months of the year to go, the Central Statistics Office says the number of EVs licensed for the first time in 2025 is just over 100 short of the full-year figure for 2024.

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There has been no restoration of grants to their original level of €5,000 despite intensive lobbying and Ireland remains poorly served by a charging network. Unless you are fortunate enough to have off-street parking, EVs are not really an option.

There has been no real political will to address the need for kerbside charging for hundreds of thousands of people living in apartments or without gardens.

The other key issues were price and value onward. The wider choice of EVs at different price points in the market has certainly gone some way to addressing the cost issue.

Improving driving range will also have reassured some people though anyone who has watched a car’s charge drop precipitously with the use of air conditioning in our unseasonably warm summer will still have reservations.

And there remains significant uncertainty about the resale value of cars in a sector where technological innovation remains a priority, not least in battery life.

Regardless, the people have spoken. And after the gloom of last year when EV registrations were down by almost a quarter, the revival has been, if anything, even more dramatic. Electric vehicles currently account for one in five of all new car sales and there is no sign of that momentum stalling as the year progresses. If anything, it is strengthening.

Ireland will miss its 2030 target for electric vehicles because it failed to move early enough to address key concerns. But it appears that technological advances and wider choice will get us there eventually. Better late than never.