Until now, when it came to tightening the ecological bonus for the purchase of an electric vehicle, the government had mainly focused on its place of production, in particular to prevent this aid from benefiting model sales. manufactured at low costs in Asia. From now on, it would also be a question of taking into account the income of buyers. For the wealthiest French people, this aid could increase from 5,000 euros to 4,000 euros from January 1, according to information from the daily Les Échos. The 50% of households with the highest incomes (deciles 6 to 10) would be affected.
More modest households below this level would continue to be able to claim a bonus of 7,000 euros, maintained at this level although it had been envisaged to increase it. As for the aid of 1000 euros for the acquisition of a used electric car, it would be simply eliminated. If the introduction of new environmental criteria was intended in particular to exclude certain low-cost Asian models from the bonus, this new move would rather be aimed at limiting the budgetary excesses of this aid. The Ministry of the Budget has recently had to grant an additional 400 million euros for 2023 to cope with the increase in sales of electric cars.
The amount of the bonus will be officially published, as every year, by a decree to be published on December 31 at the latest. A government source specifies that the aid envelope for electric transport will continue to increase in 2024, going from 1.3 to 1.5 billion euros. But at a time when electric already accounts for 20% of automobile sales (compared to 17% in November 2022), the authorities argue that the priming period for the market seems to have been reached, which would justify a start to reduce the amount of aid . Across the Rhine, these subsidies were suddenly stopped last week.
