Figures of European car sales for 2013 has shown that Ireland is last in terms of the take up of electric vehicles. A survey that has been carried out on car sales across 17 of Europes biggest economies has revealed that only 58 electric cars were sold in Ireland during 2013.

This figure appears to be relatively low considering the tax incentives and multiple charging points that have been offered to customers by companies like the ESB when it comes to electric vehicles. The total sales figure for Ireland looks even more meek when compared to the massive 23,149 environmentally friendly cars that were sold during the same period in the Netherlands.

The use aof these type of vehicles has been heavily endored by the Dutch government which may suggest that the Irish government could do more to improve the country’s carbon footprint. Other countries who had a low up take of these type of vehicles included Finland(181), Iceland(72) and Estonia (132) however all of them sold more than Ireland in this regard.

The ESB has stated that it has huge plans for the rollout of electric cars in the country and has maintained that it expects to see one in every ten cars in Ireland to be electrically powered by the year 2020. It would appear that more needs to be done to bring its estimates to anywhere near that particular target and they only have six years in which to do it.