Pilot EV grant scheme fully subscribed within one hour

A pilot scrappage scheme, to encourage motorists with older petrol and diesel cars to switch to electric vehicles (EVs), was fully subscribed an hour after opening this morning.

The rural allocation for the grant exhausted within 30 minutes.

The Department of Transport has welcomed the high level of interest, which it said reflected a growing demand for transitioning to electric vehicles.

The pilot scheme was limited to 2,000 vehicles.

The scheme made a €5,000 grant available to replace internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles aged over 13 years with new battery electric vehicles (EVs), in addition to the existing €3,500 SEAI grant.

The initiative was backed by €10m in funding from the Climate Action Fund under the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment.

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.

The existing SEAI EV purchase grant of €3,500 remains available to all private customers and continues to see strong growth.

An additional €37m was allocated from the Climate Action Fund to support the high level of demand in 2026, including vehicles purchased through the scrappage scheme.

Early figures indicate a strong spread across all counties, a predominance of older vehicles - with most scrapped cars aged 16 years or more - and an uptake among lower-cost models.

Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Director General of the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) Brian Cooke said that the scheme had been "hugely successful".

"The minister only announced it a matter of weeks ago, so I think it's been a success for the industry," he said.

"There's 2,000 extra EVs that are going to be on the road in the next few days. The two-thirds rural allocation has actually worked really, really well. So, I think all around, overall, it has been very positive."

Mr Cooke said that the scheme highlights the importance of incentives.

"Most people buying a new car will have an equity in a trade-in to actually buy a new car, whereas if you have a car that's over 13 years old, you just don't have that equity," he said.

"Effectively, this €8,500 support created that equity, along with the lower value cars, it actually allowed people who otherwise might have been three or four car changes away from going electric to actually go electric today," he added.

Mr Cooke said that he would be in favour of the Government keeping the supports in place.

"Undoubtedly, I think we need the support to remain in place," he said.

"While electric vehicle sales were 24% of the market for the first six months of this year, we expect they'll be 30% of the market, maybe even a little more with this scrappage scheme in the second half of the year," he said.

"We have very ambitious climate change targets and to get closer to those targets, we need to see EV sales accelerate. If you look at when grants were drawn both in Ireland and in other countries, it has led to a drop in EV sales," he stated.

"I think it's important that all incentives are retained, but this scrappage scheme, I have to say, has worked really well," he added.