The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) has confirmed that - at last - Irish company car buyers and user-choosers can benefit from the €600 grant towards the fitting of a home electric car charging point.
Zero rate BIK
That grant has been available for private buyers for some time, but while company car users have long enjoyed a zero-rate Benefit In Kind (BIK) tax rate on electric car purchases, the home charger grant had up till now been denied to them.
Faster charging times
A home charging point is pretty crucial to making an electric car purchase make sense. With newer long-range electric models coming out thick and fast, most drivers could theoretically get through a week's motoring with maybe only one full charge of the battery. However, these new big-battery models take far too long to charge from a domestic outlet, so a home charging point, preferably of 7.4kW capacity, makes the most sense. This allows most electric models to be fully charged overnight, or if you're driving a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) it can cut the charging time from more than four hours to less than two.
Ambitious EV plans
Commenting on this development Minister for Transport, Eamon Ryan TD said: "We have set a very ambitious target of almost a million electric vehicles on the road by 2030 to help us meet our climate goals and reduce air pollution at the same time. It's very encouraging to see the rapid increase in EV sales. We particularly want to encourage companies to switch to electric and make their businesses more sustainable. We are making it easier and more attractive to do that by extending the home charger grant to employees who need to use a company car for business purposes."
Declan Meally, Director Business, Public Sector and Transport at SEAI said: "This development will further facilitate those who drive company cars and those businesses who are working towards reducing their carbon footprint by switching their company passenger vehicles to EVs. Home charging is convenient, cost effective and environmentally friendly. Today it accounts for 80 per cent of EV charging sessions and we see that continuing into the future."
However, while it's welcome, the move is not all-encompassing. Business users who pick commercial electric vehicles, such as the commercialised versions of the Renault Zoe and Hyundai Kona, or larger vans such as Opel's Vivaro-e, won't qualify for the home-charger grant.