Ireland needs 100,000 fast charging points for electric vehicles but currently only has 1,900 for its fleet.
The extra charging points are needed within the next eight years if the Government’s carbon emissions plan is to be met, according to a new report.
The report was carried out on behalf of the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (Simi).
It shows a huge investment in incentives and charging infrastructure is needed by Government if it hopes to achieve its ambition of almost one million electric vehicles (EVs) on our roads by 2030.
The report says incentives and supports are needed to help motorists trade-in older polluting cars, in conjunction with “exponentially increasing” the public charging infrastructure for EVs, which it says has fallen behind.
The European Commission aims to have 30 million EVs on the road by 2030 and estimates that three million public chargers will be needed to support them. Ireland would need 100,000 public chargers, with all new being fast chargers to serve the proposed one million EVs here by the same date, the report finds.
There are 1,900 chargers installed at 800 sites across the island of Ireland and with the current number of 47,000 EVs on Irish roads the number of charging points falls far short of the 4,700 realistically needed to serve these.
“To achieve this investment in public charging infrastructure, a broader approach is required to include policies on charging at home, as well as diversifying the distribution of fast charge points across the country to ensure charging installations support a complete and robust network across the country.
“There is scope to integrate private market investment into charging infrastructure to speed up the roll-out process and to off-set the capital intensity required to build a widespread charger network.”
The report says that in order to deal with this older legacy fleet, help will be required for those with the least economic capacity to make the biggest change. It also warns there is an urgent need to create a second-hand electric vehicle fleet.
The age profile of the national fleet has led to the continued use of older polluting vehicles, it says, with 31.1% of vehicles being pre-2011 or older.
Simi says the Government is leading the way by currently requiring all their fleets to be replaced with electric vehicles, but this could be expedited by requiring a turn over every two or three years.
“Ireland, which is a right-hand drive market, has a slower and smaller supply chain than most other European markets, with around 120,000 new car sales per annum (pre-Covid-19) and an average car fleet age of nine years.
“With the majority of motorists being used vehicle buyers there is currently three times as many used vehicles being sold as new vehicles, with an insignificant second-hand electric vehicle market. The creation of this secondary market can only happen via a vibrant overall new car market.”