With decreasing aid and increasing financial penalties in the finance bill presented this Thursday, October 10, buying a car could cost more next year. The sector should contribute to the budgetary effort to the tune of at least 1.1 billion euros.
Higher ecological penalty, lower ecological bonus, increase in weight penalty… The government will be able to turn the matter in the direction it wishes: in the finance bill (PLF) for 2025, presented this Thursday, October 10 , motorists will overall receive less help than last year, and will often have to pay more for their new vehicles. Overall, the sector should see 800 million euros less in spending and 300 million more in revenue, or 1.1 billion euros in participation in the effort trumpeted by Bercy. But even if ministers pride themselves on sanctioning less virtuous vehicles, it is rather an overall reduction in State action for thermal, hybrid and electric cars. Enough to question the real consideration of the “ecological debt” castigated by Michel Barnier during his general policy declaration on October 1.
The PLF has decided to increase the ecological penalty on purchases, which increases the cost of vehicles depending on their carbon emissions. “To encourage the energy transition of the automobile fleet, penalties on CO2 emissions applicable to passenger vehicles will be reinforced,” explains the executive in the PLF press kit. In fact, almost all thermal vehicles will be affected, with some seeing the penalty increase when others are affected for the first time. Long spared, hybrid vehicles will also go to the cash register, due to the revision of criteria on the weight penalty and the real emissions of this engine.
Less aid while sales are down
Mobilians, a professional union which represents several thousand traditional service stations, and the Dataneo firm have made their calculations: “While around 40% of vehicles were subject to the penalty (CO2 and/or weight) in 2023, this share will increase to 80% of registered vehicles in 2027.” Saccording to them, while the average amount of the penalty is 754 euros in 2024, it could be 1,543 euros in 2025 and even 2,524 euros in 2027. In 2025, this should bring in 300 million more for the State, the same amount as the reduction in benefits in kind for thermal company vehicles.
If the government presents this decision as a way of promoting the energy transition, 100% electric vehicles, supposed to replace thermal ones for France to meet its decarbonization commitments, will be severely affected. In the PLF 2025, an envelope of one billion euros is dedicated to the purchase of clean vehicles. This is a drop of a third compared to that of 1.5 billion recorded in the PLF 2024. “Thanks to economies of scale and progress on batteries, the cost of electric vehicles is falling, and their share of sales is increasing dynamically (nearly 20% in 2024 compared to 10% in 2021), thus reducing the need for grant”, the government justifies itself. An argument which leaves one skeptical, since this share fell over the first seven months of the year compared to the same period of 2023.
Laurent Saint-Martin, Minister of the Budget, assured this Thursday that the breakdown of these 500 million euros less between the two main systems, the ecological bonus for the purchase of a 100% electric car and social leasing intended to the lower middle and working classes, was not yet arbitrated. New reduction in the ecological bonus to 3,000 euros, aid from which the wealthiest would be excluded, number of social leasing files stagnating or even declining… Pending the debate in the Assembly and the decrees which will specify these clear cuts, it remains obvious: the State will help less the transition to electricity.
