Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 30 November 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Electric Vehicles: Discussion

Mr. Brian Cooke:

The supply of used electric vehicles into Ireland from the used import sector is only a trickle. At the moment, it is nothing to do with Brexit. There are so few electric vehicles in the UK national fleet and even fewer in the Japanese national fleet. They do not have that supply even if we had not had Brexit. Further down the line, I think Brexit will impact on that. It will probably be towards the end of the decade. It is not only Brexit that is impacting on the supply of cars to Ireland. It is also the fact there is a shortage of used cars there, so it needs to feed its own market. The only way we will have a significant number of used vehicles is to grow our own, by having cars newly registered in Ireland that will become used in three or four years.