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The country has also modified the tax code that any EV is ~5000 euro cheaper in acquisition costs (through tax punishment for ICE + tax advantage for EV), about

by spwa4 3mo ago

The country has also modified the tax code that any EV is ~5000 euro cheaper in acquisition costs (through tax punishment for ICE + tax advantage for EV), about ~800 euro per year cheaper (there's secondary tax measures making ICE vehicles more expensive on an ongoing basis, depends on the car, and okay, 800 would be for a very nice car), plus guaranteed public charging capacity (and of course due to charging limits these are cheap parking spaces too) That's what it takes in 2026 to make EVs still not quite cheaper than ICE cars. I imagine the free-with-charging-at-guaranteed-low-prices parking spaces make a large difference here. Sadly for obvious capacity reasons the cheap parking space will be only for a few years.

rsynnott 3mo ago
> That's what it takes in 2026 to make EVs still not quite cheaper than ICE cars. That's beginning to change. VW Polo base model in Ireland: 25000 eur (of which about 3000 VRT). VW id.Polo (VW has changed its electric car naming scheme, again): 20000 eur, with 3500 grant and no VRT. So if you exclude incentivisation in both directions, the Polo costs about 22000, the id.Polo costs 23500. _With_ incentives, the electric version is clearly a lot cheaper. Operating costs for the id.Polo are also much lower, of course.
- spwa4 3mo ago
  Ireland can't even switch away from diesel trains in Dublin city ... I doubt they will be a good example.
  - rsynnott 3mo ago
    There you’re seeing the inertia of the planning and procurement system. For an idea of how bad this is, one of the commuter lines will initially be electrified with trains that run on _battery_ for part of their route, because extending overhead lines will take so long. Battery trains have their place on low frequency routes, but the northern commuter line will be every five minutes each way, and battery trains would ordinarily never be economic for that level of service. Diesels will be mostly gone, at least from the city center stations, over the next five to ten years or so, though a couple of intercities will linger on much longer. Ireland has a similar adoption rate of electric cars to France and Germany.

by spwa4 3mo ago

rsynnott 3mo ago

> That's what it takes in 2026 to make EVs still not quite cheaper than ICE cars. That's beginning to change. VW Polo base model in Ireland: 25000 eur (of which about 3000 VRT). VW id.Polo (VW has changed its electric car naming scheme, again): 20000 eur, with 3500 grant and no VRT. So if you exclude incentivisation in both directions, the Polo costs about 22000, the id.Polo costs 23500. _With_ incentives, the electric version is clearly a lot cheaper. Operating costs for the id.Polo are also much lower, of course.

spwa4 3mo ago
Ireland can't even switch away from diesel trains in Dublin city ... I doubt they will be a good example.
- rsynnott 3mo ago
  There you’re seeing the inertia of the planning and procurement system. For an idea of how bad this is, one of the commuter lines will initially be electrified with trains that run on _battery_ for part of their route, because extending overhead lines will take so long. Battery trains have their place on low frequency routes, but the northern commuter line will be every five minutes each way, and battery trains would ordinarily never be economic for that level of service. Diesels will be mostly gone, at least from the city center stations, over the next five to ten years or so, though a couple of intercities will linger on much longer. Ireland has a similar adoption rate of electric cars to France and Germany.