It is a text both expected and feared by the automobile sector: the decree setting the new amounts of aid for the purchase of electric vehicles, the famous bonuses, as well as the conditions for being able to benefit from them. It would be about to be published in Official Journal and already constitutes in itself a small revolution, because the new provisions will be applicable the day after the day of publication of the decree. The rules will change, without waiting for the 1is January 2025, and without giving hesitant buyers time to take advantage of the old, more generous provisions before the end of the year.
Taking into account budgetary constraints, the new system will be much less incentive. The bonus of 3,000 euros for the purchase of an electric utility vehicle is thus eliminated. The cost for purchasing an electric car for individuals is significantly reduced. Before this turn of the screw, a motorist could benefit from a bonus of 4,000 euros and even 7,000 euros for households whose reference tax income per share was less than or equal to 14,500 euros.
Following the publication of the decree, the maximum aid will be capped at 4,000 euros and the income conditions to benefit from it will be tightened: from the sixth to the eighth income decile, the bonus will be 3,000 euros and, for both highest deciles, i.e. for the best-paid French people, 2,000 euros.
By deciding on the immediate entry into force of the new rules, the government wants to avoid last minute decisions to take advantage of a system which has already caused “very significant budget overruns” in 2024. The objective for 2025 is to reduce the cost of the bonus for the purchase of an electric car from 1.5 billion to 700 million euros.
Windfall effect
The bonus for converting an old polluting vehicle – 5,000 euros of additional aid for the least well-off taxpayers – has been eliminated. As for “social leasing”, this system allowing low-income households and heavy drivers to access a new electric vehicle for less than 100 euros per month, it will perhaps be renewed, but only in the second half of the year.
It will be recalibrated, because it turned out to be very expensive in its 2024 version: 650 million euros for 50,000 beneficiaries. Some buyers, who were not directly targeted (such as young graduates entering the job market with good incomes, but low incomes when they were students), benefited from a windfall effect. To make it cheaper, manufacturers, led by Stellantis, are asking the State to open it to used vehicles.
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