Dr. Aoife O'Grady:

There are a few different elements feeding into demand for electric vehicles. Anecdotally, from talking to people I know, they keep telling me their next car will be an EV because the infrastructure is not there at the moment. They are not yet ready to make the commitment but they will be in a few years. Part of that might be perception and the sense they need to see every forecourt with an EV charger. There may be a need for a mind shift in drivers towards the idea of home charging. People may not yet be able to visualise that.

There are pressures arising from oil costs and fuel demands that will nudge people towards purchasing EVs now there is availability of longer-range batteries. Even without a home charger, a long-range battery might only need to be charged once a week or once a fortnight. The cost of purchasing and running an EV will be weighed up in terms of the cost of electricity. There is an awareness that the resale value of an internal combustion engine, ICE, vehicle will dive in a few years' time. People know the shift is coming. Approximately 22% of all cars sold in Ireland in the first few months of this year were sold with a plug attached. Colleagues in Oslo tell me that was the tipping point for them. Once they hit 20%, they got to 80% in approximately four to five years. I do not whether that will happen in Ireland because we have other issues in terms of costs and we also have supply chain issues at the moment. However, in terms of consumer perception, once we get to one fifth of the fleet being electric, everyone recognises that now is the time to move. I think that will happen regardless of infrastructure.