Automobile: the conversion bonus scrapped in the 2025 budget – 11/14/2024 at 6:51 p.m.

The Ministry of the Economy confirmed on Wednesday the removal of the conversion bonus, granted when purchasing a low-polluting vehicle in exchange for an old car, in the 2025 draft budget.

“The government confirms that it is putting an end to the conversion bonus system, which is based on a condition of removing a polluting vehicle, to focus on the ecological bonus,” a Bercy spokesperson told AFP, confirming information from BFM Business and Le Figaro.

All that will remain for motorists who wish to buy a new electric vehicle are purchase bonus schemes and “social leasing”, reserved for the most modest households.

The ecological bonus, currently 4,000 to 7,000 euros depending on income, “is maintained, a choice that some of our neighbors like Germany for example have not made”, justified the spokesperson for Bercy, describing this bonus as “main tool to support households in the decarbonization of their lifestyle and the development of the electric vehicle market”.

Bercy claims to be working “at the same time” on the use of energy saving certificates “in order to continue to support households, particularly low-income households, in the rental of clean vehicles.”

The bonus for the conversion of vehicles (registered before 2011 for diesel or before 2006 for gasoline engines) was distributed in exchange for the purchase of a low-polluting vehicle.

The maximum amount of this bonus, already reserved for half of the least well-off households, had also fallen in 2024 to settle between 1,500 and 5,000 euros, depending on the income of the tax household.

The system was successful: more than a million bonuses were distributed between 2018 and 2022, particularly to rural households, according to the Ministry of Ecology.

The vehicles scrapped were 75% diesel and were 19 years old on average. The vehicles purchased were 70% new, and 66% “zero emission” (electric or hydrogen).