We have just one car, an elderly diesel. But many of our journeys now are under 50km so we are contemplating going to two cars but having one small electric for most of the journeys and perhaps a petrol for the longer trips.
It seems that we could get 5,000€ as prime à la conversion.
Has anyone done this in France?
Does anyone have a fully electric car here? Views?
And has anyone installed their own charging point (our nearest one is 40km)?
I can answer “yes” to all your questions. I have a 2018 Nissan LEAF & a 2015 e-NV200.
Remember that the prime is related to your RFR i.e. if you earn below the threshold you can get the full 5K€. If you earn over it the prime halves.
The prime can be spent on a new or used EV, or one on lease.
I installed my own 7kW home charger as I’m a pro electrician & I’ve done the training course for installing basic chargers. By regulations even home chargers need to be installed by an approved installer.
However, depending in your needs you may only need to use the basic plug-in mobile charger which will come with the car. These can be plugged into a standard socket. I would recommend that you have a dedicated outside socket for the purpose, & such an item can be fitted by any competant person.
Thanks. We were thinking of a dedicated socket, as have an eco- gîte so this could be a plus should we ever get anyone arriving in an electric car! We would only get half the prime, but that is still probably as much as we could sell an old, slightly beaten RHD diesel for. And less hassle.
The key question is are you happy with it? Presumably so if you have 2!
What about winter? What I read says you just loose a bit of range, but what about starting when -15 and snow?
Have a look at the Citroen Ami.
Looks ok for towns…can’t quite see it here! More tempted by Skoda SUV…but too pricy and not sure any second hand one yet.
Yeah, despite everything electric cars aren’t cheap and battery technology is advancing so quickly it’s hard to know when to plonge (is that a word?). Could a second hand Zoe be a solution?
@JaneJones if you are going for a second hand electric car the prime is lower than with a new one. Typically 1000€ eco bonus and 1500€ prime à la conversion for a Zoe for example. I have the new rates in the office as they came out not long ago so I can check tomorrow for you based on CO2 emissions etc.
When it comes to leasing a battery, if you are low mileage it’s probably the best option but if you are going over 10k a year, you are better off buying it or going for an unlimited mileage contract. This may cost you more in monthly payments but will avoid nasty contract end surprises. I do believe that you said you weren’t doing much mileage though, so the 10000km annual lease would work quite well for you.
Very happy - I’ll never go back to burning stuff in order to drive anywhere.
Yes, cold weather decreases battery capacity a bit but it’s never been an issue for me, but clearly could be for someone commuting to the limit of their range with no options to recharge - but you’d need to be all kinds of stupid not to have done the research before commmiting to that (& newer EVs have much better range generally).
Cold has no effect whatsoever on the ability to “start” - EVs don’t need to start as such. As long as there’s charge in the batteries they’ll be abler to move.
Recent mild winters mean that I’ve not had much ice & snow experience with either the car or the van, but what little I’ve had teaches me that they are better than an ICE vehicle due to the ability to creep without recourse to using a clutch; the high torque of an electric drive means you only need the gentlest of pressure with your right foot to get things moving.
What you’ve said doesn’t agree with the most recent figures found here…
You can combine the prime à la conversion with the (now) 6K€ bonus écologique for buying a new EV. Some regions also have further grants.
As I also said, I will check the latest for Renault tomorrow when I get to the office. After entering 125 files onto the government website to get paid last year’s requests, I left it all well enough alone so that I could recover, (selling the car is the easy part).
Consequently, my figures may well be incorrect as they were based on the used car deals that we did late last year.
There doesn’t seem to be any mention of the bonus being means tested? So that plus half the prime à la casse starts to look much more interesting!
The idea of battery leasing is also something to explore. We’d ruled out leasing the whole car as ours very quickly look like wheelbarrows and we would never be able to return it in a pristine condition!
Lots of great ideas thanks.
ecologique’s gone down to 6k as of a date in July.
The Paris region additional subsidies are so high that the cheapest EV’s are now being given away in boxes of cornflakes.
I have corrected my misleading post. Thank you.
Your RFR is what is important (Edit: for the prime à la conversion). See the barème I linked to. There are also better deals for those on lower RFRs with with longer commutes or who drive more than 12K km per year.
That is correct @JaneJones. Only the prime à la conversion is means tested. You will be required to provide your avis impôts n-2 (2020 on 2019 income) for both, along with a whole slew of other documents. If you need any help, let me know. Between my colleague and I, there’s little we don’t know about the process.
Damn! I was getting all excited as we are poor enough, have an old diesel etc etc that I thought maybe we coudl get a cheap small electric to replace the little punto we have as our run around. Then I read this:
Le montant alloué pourra ainsi changer en fonction du prix du véhicule mais aussi selon la catégorie de demandeur. Dans tous les cas, l’aide attribuée ne pourra excéder 27 % du coût du véhicule
So in order to get the full amount you would have to buy a car inexcess of 35,000 odd€. Not so helpful for those with little money after all 
So if we got a Dacia which is listed as the cheapest ib then we wouldn’t be getting the full 6000€ -
1/28
Dacia Spring Electric à partir de 12 402,70 euros
Prix de base : 16 990 euros – bonus (4587,30 euros car limite à 27%)
Puissance : 33 kW (44 ch)
Batteries : 27,4 kWh lithium-ion
Autonomie : 230 km (WLTP)
AND we’d have to drive a Dacia and find 12,000€ ish
the V is the first that you actually get hte full €6000 - but we’d have to find over 17,000€
Volkswagen e-Up à partir de 17 740 euros
Prix de base : 23 740 euros – bonus (6000)
Puissance : 61 kW (83 ch)
Batteries : 36,8 kWh lithium-ion
Autonomie : 260 km (WLTP)
Not fair - to me this smacks of a hand out to people with a decent amount of money anyway and in no way helps those of us with a bit less to actually make the transition! 
But can you also throw in old car and add on a prime à la casse of €5k, so reduce the cost to you to €7,000?
Yes we would do that, but even 7000€ is too much just now! we tend to have cars we can afford outright and have never had a loan and dont’ fancy it now (if they would even let us!). If we coudl buy a 2nd hand one that left us paying up to maybe a few grand that could be a possibility if not we’ll just stick with our reliable old diesels that dh can do all the work on!
HI .
We have a plug in Niro, most of our journeys are within the range of 58km. But the option to drive as Hybrid removes the need for a second car for occasional long journeys. It works perfectly for us and the batteries are much more eco.
They have finance deals as well. Basically over 4 years I think with you paying about half upfront. Finance very low rates ATM.
Experts here: is it true though that the bonus and/or prime a la casse don’t come back to you for a while and that you have to pay upfront?