LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN Dublin are to install 200 new electric vehicle (EV) charging points at 50 sites inside of council-owned car parks.

Councils Dublin City, Fingal, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and South Dublin are working with ePower, an EV firm, to install the new charging points by the first quarter of next year.

While there is an expected boom in EV sales in Ireland, as there are plans in place to begin disincentivising and phasing out combustion engines, the latest figures of new electric car registrations have fallen dramatically.

The Irish Electric Vehicle Association said in September that a 25% slump in the sale of EVs this year were as a result of the reduced government grants for owners. 

As part of measures included in Budget 2025, benefit in kind (BIK) reliefs will remain in place for EV owners, while an exemption from BIK tax for installing an electric vehicle charger will also be introduced from next year.

Padraic Deane, Publisher of the AutoTrade.ie, told The Journal that more investment needs to be put into charging networks for electric vehicles before work begins to phase out current engines.

The Government plans to install charging points at every 60km of motorway in the country and include reliefs for home and apartment chargers, though plans have been slow to get off the grounds.

The councils hope that the scheme will help to incentivise more people to choose an EV and will also assist those who currently must only rely on a charger at home. They claim the scheme is the largest EV charger rollout project in the country to date.

ePower’s CEO, John O’Keefe, said his company is looking forward to delivering the project. The full list of locations had yet to be decided but will appear on the company’s app once completed.

The first of the 200 charging points, which will include contactless payment options for credit or debit cards, will be rolled out within the first three months of 2025.