In 2021, the government gave its road map for bonuses and penalties for 2022 and 2023. This will allow manufacturers to predict and give them some visibility in the creation of their assortment. Meanwhile, the government has introduced a weight penalty, a new tax that enters the equation for certain models and which once again increases the final bill for the customer.

In 2024, the scale of bonuses and environmental penalties is still unknown, but the government has already given some clues with its Green Industry Bill announced on 16 May 2023. In this file, which contains a large part of the decarbonization of French industry, there are also new rules for the distribution of environmental bonuses and malus when buying new cars.

Bonus focused on Made in Europe?

Not surprisingly, the protectionist measures taken by the United States in recent times have greatly inspired President Emmanuel Macron. Therefore, in 2024 the size of the environmental premium must be indexed by the place of production of the electric vehicle. Thus, an electric vehicle produced in Europe should always be eligible for an environmental bonus (the amount of which we do not yet know), while the same model produced in China (such as the Dacia Spring or the MG4) will not be eligible. maybe it’s more correct.

Bruno Le Maire, the Economy Minister, clarified this to justify the introduction of this new bonus “The environmental bonus is 1.2 billion euros […] and 40% of this bonus goes to Chinese factories. […] The French taxpayer has no intention of financing the development of Chinese factories.”

In addition to the economic aspect, this measure also has an environmental impact, as China receives more than 60% of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, while 90% of electricity in France is of nuclear or renewable origin. Thus, the government also wishes to maintain the conditionality of its environmental bonus “Ecological footprint of electric vehicles”according to the official conditions.

Revised weight penalty threshold?

Whoever says bonus is obviously saying minus, and weight indexing must evolve. The tax is currently €10/kg above 1800kg and is combined with a CO penalty₂. On the other hand, these two amounts together cannot exceed 50,000 euros or 50% of the price of the vehicle. In 2024, this could become history this cover could be removed and the minimum application weight could be reduced to 1700 or even 1600 kg.

And electric cars, so far exempt from the weight penalty, could be penalized, but with a higher threshold to account for the weight of their batteries. Plug-in hybrids, which even exceed 50 km of WLTP range on electricity, should also be concerned.