The conversion bonus is over!
Michel Barnier's government is looking for savings on all fronts and the automobile sector has just suffered a blow, but it could have been worse… while potentially waiting for new announcements.
Criticized by some, praised by others, the scrappage bonus, which has become a conversion bonus to green the idea, has just been abolished in order to keep a few million additional euros in the State coffers.
Goodbye, little bonus
The conversion bonus had its detractors, and they will not mourn its end. Indeed, if it has made it possible to send cars in poor condition to the scrapyard, it has also sent many cars quite capable of lasting for many more years. A financial and ecological waste to throw away something functional to produce, with tons of CO2, a vehicle to replace it.
But we cannot deny that it was also a help for certain households who were able to afford a new vehicle by getting rid of a vehicle that was running out of steam. In 2024, 45,000 households will have benefited from this help from the State to buy a less polluting car. For public finances, this was 150 million euros of expenditure, out of the billion and a half dedicated to greening the French automobile fleet.
This deletion, already recorded, as a spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance confirmed to our colleagues in Le Figaro, should be followed by other reductions.
What to expect?
From 1.5 billion euros this year, the budget allocated to aid for the acquisition of so-called clean vehicles should fall below the one billion euro mark in 2025. However, according to MP Claire Lejeune, the envelope could be reduced by an additional 300 million euros in order to compensate for social leasing for 2024, more expensive than expected since the government had decided to finance twice as many models as first announced.
This social leasing could therefore be revised downwards, this time with higher monthly payments, so that the government no longer pays up to €13,000 per car. Likewise, the number of files could be reduced.
Without much surprise, the ecological bonus, currently €4,000 per car, or even €7,000 for the most precarious, should be revised downwards and could rise to €3,000 and €6,000 respectively. At the same time, the ecological penalty and the weight penalty will increase for all thermal vehicles.
