5 easy to steps to go green Steps on how to go electric

Electric vehicles are perfectly suited to customers that drive up to 30,000 km per year. If you do more driving than that, an electric vehicle may not be the most suitable solution for you. However, as 95% of Irish drivers drive less than 120KM a day, LEAF is a very viable option for a huge cohort of the Irish motoring public. Based on the new European WLTP testing cycle the 40 kWh LEAF has a real-life range of 270 KM, for most EV owners this would mean charging just once or twice a week. Nissan sales teams have been fully trained to sell electric vehicles – and will always run through a series of qualifying questions with a potential EV customer, such as access to charging, driving requirements etc. in advance of proposing an EV solution for a customer to ensure that the car will meet their driving requirements.

On the purchase of a new EV there is currently
a rebate on VRT and other government grants up to €10,000 available to the customer.

The VRT rebate on electric vehicles is up to €5,000 which is applied to the price of the car prior to purchase.

In addition to the VRT rebate, once the order of the car has been confirmed, the customer is entitled to a grant of €5,000. Dealerships apply for this grant on behalf the customer upon confirmation of their order for the car and the dealership deducts the grant from the purchase price of the car for the customer at point of sale.

A new government funded support scheme has been introduced to assist homeowners install an electric vehicle charge point on their property. This scheme provides a grant up to the value of €600 towards the purchase and installation of a home charger unit. The applicant must be the owner of an eligible new or second hand electric vehicle.

It is up to the individual to apply for this grant directly from the SEAI. To apply for the grant, customers need to visit www.seai.ie and fill out the online application form. Once the letter of offer is received, the customer has 6 months to complete the installation of the charge point.

There is a list of approved registered Charge Point installers on the SEAI website for customers to select from.

Customers need to pay the installer directly for the installation.  Once the charge point is installed customers submit an invoice along with their letter of offer to the SEAI and payment of the €600 grant is released to the customers bank account directly upon submission.

Customers need to apply directly to ESB e-cars in order to receive their free Charge Point Access Card. To apply customers go online to www.esb.ie and complete the online charge point access application form. Charge Point Access cards are supplied directly to the customer and can be used at 1,200 public charge points nation-wide (All 32 counties) 

• Cleaner, greener, zero emissions driving
• On average an EV costs approx. 1.3c per km (Night rate) to run. Therefore running costs for a customer driving 20,000km in a year would amount to approximately €260 per annum. A standard 1.5 diesel hatchback would cost approximately 8c per km to run – which would amount to €1,600 per annum.  Therefore the average customer driving an electric vehicle can save approximately €1,400 per annum in running costs
• Electric vehicle drivers avail of up to €500 a year annual reduction in tolling costs on selected Irish toll roads
• Road tax is capped at €120
• EV owners switching from an ICE vehicle will notice a reduction in their servicing costs as an EV has no oil, engine, clutch, timing belt or gearbox
• Business owners, companies, and farmers can avail of further tax savings on electric cars through the Accelerated Capital Allowance (ACA) scheme which enables them to write off up to €24,000 in one year, rather than writing it off over a period of 8 years normally.
• Battery electric vehicles used as company cars are fully exempt from Benefit in Kind tax – average BIK charges for a standard C-Segment ICE vehicle are approximately €400 per month – so that amounts to average BIK annual savings of €4,800 per year  
• For Taxi Drivers, up to €7,000 grant available for battery electric vehicles used as Taxis, Hackneys and Limousines.