The French government officially announced Monday its plans to temporarily halt the €100-a-month electric vehicle subsidy program after just six weeks of availability, The Guardian reports.
The move is apparently crucial for the government as the program already subsidized more than twofold the number of electric vehicles planned for this year.
Brief background
France’s Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron proclaimed a new “social leasing” program for local low-income electric vehicle customers in late October 2023, enabling them to lease an electric vehicle for €100 ($109) per month with down payments subsidized by the local government.
The French government officially launched the program in December last year, seeking to cut carbon emissions in the transportation sector by promoting electric vehicles.
France to relaunch the EV subsidy program in 2025
France’s initial budget for the program was 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) to subsidize 20,000 leases in 2023. However, an unexpected influx of applicants prompted the government to increase eligible leases to 50,000 EVs.
In a surprising turn of events, interested buyers immediately exhausted the program’s 50,000 EV leases just six weeks after inception. In effect, the French government decided to suspend the subsidy program until 2025.
Qualifications
The social leasing program for electric vehicles in France contains several qualifications, such as follows:
- Must be an adult with a domicile in France
- Applicants’ tax household must have a reference tax income/unit of below €15,400
- Applicants must live over 15 km from the workplace
- Must travel 8,000+ km annually by car
Apart from the leasing scheme, France also provides cash incentives from €5,000-€7,000 to eligible electric vehicle buyers. To qualify for both subsidy programs, the models must meet carbon emission limitations from production to delivery. In that sense, it automatically disqualified China-made electric vehicles. Some eligible EVs include the Tesla Model Y, the Fiat 500e, and the Peugeot E-208. You can learn more about France’s subsidized EV leases here.
