Mr. Alan Nolan:

SIMI and the motor industry it represents strongly support the development of considered and balanced environmental strategies that can help deliver lower CO2, better air quality and more sustainable transport. It is worth underlining that this is a crucial project for our industry because, for us, a sustainable future is the only future for transport. As the potential deliverers of technological solutions and, beyond the technological aspect of our role, our understanding of consumer behaviour and the potential impact of fiscal and other measures on vehicle purchase or usage decisions should be of assistance in the development of strategies that can deliver the desired results while reducing the potential for damaging or unhelpful unintended consequences of strategies developed.

Sometimes we beat ourselves up that we are bad at things. However, the 2008 VRTN road tax changes focused solely on CO2. In many ways, we should see that as a success in its prompting successfully engaged consumers to make very much better environmental choices in buying their cars, thus delivering a huge reduction in the average CO2 per car on the road from 167 grammes per kilometre in 2007 to 112 grammes per kilometre in 2016. We have made a great start and, rather than seeing it as a failure because the only focus was CO2 rather than NOx and particulates, we should consider building on that achievement and learning from and tweaking it to deliver in the future in other areas. That has been more successful than similar schemes in many other countries in Europe.

Much of the focus going forward will be on alternative fuels and the SIMI has always proposed supporting the widest range of technology. It is good to hear of different technologies because we do not know which options will deliver the best solutions in the various areas. We need to keep a wide view of the technologies that could serve us well. Electric vehicles and hybrids are an important stepping stone to full electric vehicles while hydrogen fuel cell and compressed and liquid natural gas, leading to compressed biogas, have made huge progress in Italy in the area of passenger cars as well as goods vehicles. They may be worth looking at. They are based on proven diesel technology and we have a lot of diesel cars in Ireland so there would not be any great change.

The roll-out of fully electric cars has been slow, though the State and other stakeholders have put a huge amount into it in the form of advertising, setting up dealerships and technology, etc. Some 2,200 fully electric cars have been registered, including this year's cars, and there are 17,500 hybrid cars, close to 1% of the fleet. We have a huge amount of work to do to deliver our objective. So far this year, 559 fully electric cars have been registered, which is a tiny number but represents some progress compared to 454 for the whole of last year, though some are used, imported electric cars. We are significantly ahead of last year but the numbers are still very poor.

We are at a particularly important point where we need to push this a big step forward. We are very close and we can take advantage of the CO2 taxation provisions, which show that consumers react when there are incentives to go in a certain direction. Consumers are far more accepting of the electric car as a solution to their normal driving needs than in the past and we should look at the experience of countries which have had success in adding significant numbers of electric cars to their fleets. One message we get is that no one single measure works in isolation.

Norway has been the most successful country, delivering 23.5% of new car sales in 2016, and we would love to see such numbers. It delivered 37% in the month of January 2017 and is making huge strides. Although Norway is a very wealthy country with significant oil revenues to invest in this strategy, nobody in Ireland would say the incentives from Government were the problem. We need to understand consumers and why they make choices. It is clearly about identifying both the strengths of electric cars, which are that they are environmental, have cost benefits and are an enjoyable driving experience. There are, however, potential resistance factors such as anxieties on range, future value, replacement battery cost and potential obsolescence. These may not all be real but they have to looked at as resistors. We should seek to increase the perceived value proposition for the consumer relative to the cost of the car through a mix of fiscal and softer incentives from urban authorities to make the offering very attractive.

The role of supportive local authorities cannot be overstated for without their support in relation to free parking, free tolls, access to restricted traffic areas and the use of bus lanes, where possible and appropriate, electric vehicles, EVs, would not have seen the rate of growth that they have experienced in Norway, where they are seen as a smart choice. In our more detailed submission we have outlined a range of measures, some fiscal but many soft incentives which are not too costly. We agree with the support measures outlined by the ESB as we do the carsharing scheme for EVs. It is important to have landmark or marquee projects to give a bit of excitement and interest, such as zero benefit-in-kind for an electric company car, similar to the provision for the carsharing scheme. This would get people really interested and would help normalise the electric car in the marketplace.

We are very excited about his project but this is about decarbonisation of the fleet. We also need to keep an eye on the day job, so to speak, of the rest of the fleet, which comprises 2 million cars. This year we will register some 130,000 new cars, 6% of the fleet. It would take approximately 16 years to replace the whole fleet and some of the cars would be 16 years old at that time. If we increase the current level of electric vehicle registrations 100-fold, it would take 38 years to replace all the cars in the fleet. We should not give up on this just because it is difficult but we need to see the size of the problem. We need to watch the rest of the vehicle fleet while we are moving. It will go faster but decarbonising means continuing to replace the worst offending vehicles on the road while we carry on with our project.