Have Irish Drivers Been Sold an Electric Lie? Episode 842

After more than a decade of grants, tax incentives, subsidised home chargers and investment in public charging infrastructure, has Ireland’s electric vehicle revolution actually delivered?Since 2010, successive governments have spent hundreds of millions of euro encouraging motorists to abandon petrol and diesel. Buyers can currently receive a grant of up to €3,500 towards an eligible new electric car, while a recent €10 million scrappage scheme offered qualifying motorists total support of up to €8,500.

Yet the latest CSO snapshot shows that fully electric cars represented only 3.4% of Ireland’s private car fleet in 2025, up from 2.6% the previous year. That leaves more than 96% of cars on Irish roads still powered by something other than electricity.

There are signs that the market is beginning to accelerate. Almost one in four new private cars licensed during the first five months of 2026 was fully electric, with new EV registrations rising by 52% compared with the same period last year.

But new sales tell only part of the story. For many motorists, electric cars remain too expensive, especially when compared with affordable second-hand petrol and diesel vehicles. Drivers also continue to raise concerns about range, battery deterioration, depreciation, repair costs and the availability and speed of public chargers.

Home charging can make an EV cheaper to run, but that is not an option for everyone. Apartment dwellers, renters and people without a private driveway may be forced to depend on public charging, where prices can substantially reduce the savings compared with petrol or diesel.

There are also growing concerns about whether Ireland’s electricity grid and charging network are ready for hundreds of thousands of additional electric vehicles. Recent reports have highlighted pressure on parts of the grid and delays in delivering the infrastructure required for a much larger electric fleet.

In this episode, Niall opens the phone lines and asks listeners whether they have made the switch.

Do you own an electric car, and has it saved you money, or do you regret buying it? Are high purchase prices, limited range and slow or expensive public charging still putting you off?

Should taxpayers continue subsidising electric vehicles, or are the grants mainly benefiting people who could already afford to buy a new car?

With fully electric vehicles still accounting for such a small proportion of the national fleet, is Ireland’s electric car experiment beginning to work, or has it become an expensive failure that ordinary motorists simply do not trust?