2030 Petrol & Diesel Car Ban: All you need to know

Here’s what we know about Ireland’s proposed 2030 ban on petrol and diesel cars.

In 2019, as part of its Climate Action Bill, the government announced that it intends to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 in order to help Ireland meet its carbon emissions targets. The commitment was repeated in the National Development Plan and, following the last general election, in the latest Programme for Government.

The plans drew some criticism, not least from the car industry. Brian Cooke, the Director General of the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI), said:

“Other European markets are thinking more about 2040. We feel that would be a more realistic target. In the past, we’ve set targets and deadlines without having a plan. This is putting the cart before the horse.”

Since then, however, the government appears to have gone quiet on the target, with no mention of it in the most recent Climate Action Plan.

A unilateral move such as the banning of petrol or diesel cars by a member state may actually be contrary to EU law as partial or total bans on the sale of products fall under the category of “technical regulation” and must clear a range of legal hurdles.

While the EU has mooted proposals that the bloc may ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035, at this stage they remain just that — proposals with, as yet no legal basis. At the COP26 summit in Glasgow last November, the Minister for Transport and the Environment, Eamon Ryan, was one of the signatories of a declaration that committed Ireland to banning the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2040.

In short, while the EU may force some action before 2040, Ireland is not currently on track to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030.

What could such a ban look like?

The UK had also been due to ban new petrol and diesel cars by 2040, but, after criticism that the plan was unambitious, in 2019, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the UK government would bring the plan forward to 2035 and, in 2020, announced a further acceleration, banning the sale of all new petrol and diesel cars in the UK by 2030.

Hybrid cars will be banned in the UK from 2035, but according to Johnson, only those “that can drive a significant distance when no carbon is coming out of the tailpipe” (i.e., plug-in hybrids) will be permitted for sale between 2030 and 2035, meaning that the sale of new mild hybrids and hybrid-electric vehicles may be outlawed from 2030.

Petrol or diesel cars sold before 2030 will not be affected and the hope is that through natural attrition they’ll eventually become a minority.

The UK does still have some way to go to achieve its targets such as increasing the number of public charging points tenfold by the end of the decade. News of the ban as well as an improved selection of new and used electric cars on the market has seen sales of electric vehicles accelerate rapidly in the UK.

In response to their increasing popularity, the British government has rolled back buyer incentives for electric cars with grants of up to £1,500 (€1,810) available on electric cars up to a value of £32,000 (€38,637), essentially betting that the ban on the sale of petrol cars and an improved ownership experience is enough to justify the sale of the vehicles without grants.

What this could mean for the Irish used car market is, as yet, unclear. It could mean that as the decade goes on the supply of used petrol and diesel cars dries up as more UK motorists are more intent on holding onto their internal combustion models for longer. The declining popularity of combustion engine cars could mean that there just aren’t as many to import. Another scenario could see a glut of internal-combustion cars on the used car market towards the end of the decade as buyers make the switchover.

Whatever the case, it seems likely that once Ireland and the EU introduces its own ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars (which almost certainly won’t be in 2030), it’ll at least have the UK’s experience as an example to learn from.