Ecological Bonus 2025: What Will Its Amount Be?

It is now almost certain that the ecological bonus granted for the purchase of an electric car will decrease in 2025.

Slowing down allows for savings, and not just on the highway. The French State, tasked with finding 10 billion euros in cuts to its budget for 2025, is therefore looking for sources of “waste” everywhere. All ministries are concerned, almost without exception. Thus, the Ministry of the Economy, known as Bercy, is also being asked to make efforts.

The first target has a name: the car. And particularly its electric variant, whose ecological bonus is currently considered too costly. Mobiwisy recently sparked a public debate on this very ecological bonus to assess its relevance, especially regarding providing funds to customers for purchasing a large SUV costing 47,000 euros, which is far from the current urgency.

As a reminder, the ecological bonus cost the French state approximately 1.3 billion euros in 2021 before a first reduction at the end of 2023. Over two years, the bonus decreased from 6,000 to 5,000 euros, then to 4,000 euros for all customers. For low-income households, the bonus remains set at 7,000 euros. Currently, the cost of the bonus in the state’s finances is estimated at 1 billion euros.

The idea would therefore be, starting in 2025, to further reduce it according to early leaks from the ministries. Impossible to feign surprise…

French manufacturers in turmoil?

In fact, the motivation for reducing the ecological bonus lies in the underperformance of French manufacturers. The financial assistance was primarily meant to help them, but in reality, it has mostly benefited foreign manufacturers such as Tesla, BMW, or Hyundai. This degrades France’s trade balance. In July, no French firm managed to place a car in the European Top 10. One of the first decisions made and welcomed at the end of 2023 was to exclude vehicles with distant production, particularly Chinese, from the ecological bonus. But also North American or Japanese.

Of course, this forthcoming announcement will inevitably provoke mixed reactions from both car manufacturers and consumers as well as environmental associations. In Germany, the purchase assistance for electric vehicles disappeared in 2024, resulting in a collapse of sales. The lack of incentives, even reduced ones, could kill the energy transition.

This is why France should retain the idea of the bonus, but with a reduced scope and amount. All indications suggest that the 2025 bonus will be capped for vehicles costing less than 40,000 euros, with an amount of 3,000 euros.

Answers will come in the next few hours. If that’s the case, sales of so-called “expensive” electric cars will explode before the end of the year.

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