Rome seeks to boost sale of electric cars ‘made in Italy’

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The Italian government plans to spend up to €930mn this year to spur consumers to replace their petrol and diesel cars with electric vehicles, with a preference for models manufactured in Italy.

Rome will offer as much as €13,750 to low-income families that exchange Euro 2 cars — which are more than 20 years old — for EVs, according to a concept note seen by the Financial Times. 

The right-wing government of Giorgia Meloni is seeking to boost sales of EVs made in Italy, after nearly 80 per cent spent in a first phase of the scheme set up in 2022 was allocated to foreign-made cars. Among the goals of the incentive scheme, the concept note said, is, “to stimulate the purchase of cars actually produced in Italy”.

The programme will be financed by an €8.7bn automotive fund set up by the previous government led by Mario Draghi, which earmarks up to €1bn per year up until 2030 to finance the greening of Italy’s automotive fleet.

The scheme, developed by the Italian industry ministry in consultation with global carmaker Stellantis, will offer calibrated incentives that depend on the age of the car being scrapped, and whether the new car purchased is hybrid or fully electric. 

Italy has one of Europe’s oldest — and most polluting — car fleets, with an estimated 11mn vehicles at or below the Euro 3 standard, which ceased production 19 years ago.  

The country also has one of the lowest uptakes of electric vehicles in Europe, in part because of its poor charging networks outside of major cities. Only 3 per cent of the cars sold in Italy between January and October last year were fully electric, compared to an average in western Europe of 16 per cent, according to data from Schmidt Automotive.

While EV sales have risen strongly across almost all other markets — up by more than 30 per cent in Spain, the UK, Germany and France — sales of battery cars in Italy rose by just 1 per cent.

The country’s poor charging network means that Italy is also one of only four markets in Europe — including Spain and Greece — where sales of hybrid cars that can plug-in to charge outpace battery-only cars, as consumers are unwilling to make the move to full electric models because of fears of running out of charge.

The development of the scheme comes as Meloni’s government has been in talks with Stellantis — the only large car producer in Italy — to encourage the company to boost its production in Italy to 1mn vehicles of all types each year — an output level last reached in 2017.

Stellantis Italy sold just under 600,000 vehicles in Italy last year, accounting for about 38 per cent of the estimated 1.57mn new cars purchased in the country.