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You don’t need a degree in semiotics or a master’s in marketing to recognise the importance of symbols in society. And there is no better symbol of status and wealth than the car. You might not know your Ferrari from your Fiat, but you can see Mary is doing well, thanks to the “242″ displayed prominently at either end of her car. Now, to add some eco smugness comes green flash.
The beauty of the green flash is its simplicity. Post Celtic Tiger, society demands more subtlety about financial success. So, status comes from high-minded claims to be saving the planet. It shows you’re forward thinking, embracing new tech, and wealthy enough to do it. There is no point getting indignant about the green flash; we’re all aware that consumers are marionettes with the strings of logos and labels held by the unseen marketing wizards behind the curtain. From the Nike swoosh to the forest of eco-friendly symbols, we are lured by the siren songs of status in whatever social tribe to which we ascribe.
In short, the green flash will help sell more electric cars. And in a country where EV sales are down 25 per cent this year, every little helps.
If you fear a green flash will unwittingly force you to spend thousands on a new EV, then you had better consider life as an offline recluse. Society is awash with far more divisive status markers, from the watch on your arm to your morning coffee order, and even your Eircode. In the grand pantheon of human vanity, the green flash on a number plate barely deserves a footnote.
Hopefully, it will pave the way for the smooth application of non-financial incentives for EV owners, like access to dedicated traffic lanes. It will certainly assist emergency works in identifying EVs in the case of crashes, as they often require a different approach than petrol or diesel vehicles. There’s a simple beauty to the green flash. It sits cosily into the passenger seat of the current status-driven registration system.
And little changes clearly matter to motorists. Take the change to emissions-based tax back in 2008 – coincidentally with Eamon Ryan at the wheel. A new graduated motor tax regime was introduced that led motorists to move from petrol to diesel.
The financial incentive? The chance to save a few hundred euro every year on motor tax. In return, they often paid a price premium on their new diesel cars over a petrol equivalent that meant the benefits of lower annual tax wouldn’t start to accrue for eight years or so. Yet motorists still made the move.
The ultimate beauty of the green flash comes down to cost. Every corner of society is crying out for grants and supports. Car dealers are looking for taxpayers’ help to sell electric cars. EV owners are looking for taxpayers’ help to charge their cars. Almost €116 million has been allocated in 2024 to ensure the continued transition to electric vehicles which includes funding for EV grants and EV charging infrastructure. Anything that keeps that bill in check is to be welcomed.
The current number plate format clearly created behavioural shifts and helped sell new cars. For the price of a sticker on a number plate, this could arguably do as much to shift EVs as another round of funding for grants or rebates. Surely that’s a benefit for all taxpayers, regardless of what – or even if – they drive. So, if you get a little irked by the smug green flash, just remember the money the little symbol could be saving the State.
Michael McAleer is Irish Times motoring editor
At first glance, the outgoing Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan’s plan for green number plates seems harmless enough. It is irritating, of course, like a lot of other green initiatives that appear more performative than persuasive.
The mistake that environmentalists often make is to assume that just because they enjoy parading their green credentials for all to see, so do the rest of us. Not everybody gets quite the same feeling of moral superiority that the more evangelical type of green seems to derive from wearing carbon neutral Birkenstocks and ordering a tofu spice bag.
Anyway, it would appear that Ryan has looked into his heart and decided that the Irish people want this. The brief statement from his department announcing the measure offers no evidence that green number plates have, or will produce, any sort of measurable environmental benefit here or anywhere else.
For a Government supposedly committed to evidence-based policymaking, the plan falls at the first hurdle. It also lacks even the patina of legitimacy conveyed by having a public consultation, as was the case in the UK when they introduced green plates in 2020.
On the flip side, the amount of Government time and taxpayer money that is being potentially squandered is probably very small. We don’t know how much because nobody would appear to have done a cost-benefit analysis.
The green number plate plan is in essence a political gimmick in search of a serious rationale for being Government policy. It is worth going back over the short and not very eventful history of green number plates.
One of the first and most referenced schemes was introduced in Ontario in Canada in 2009. Green plates were linked to a number of tangible benefits for car owners, such as being able to use carpool lanes when only one person is in the car and free access to toll roads.
The Ontario scheme came up when the UK announced plans for its own scheme in 2020. Then-transport minister Grant Shapps made reference to how “green number plates could unlock a number of incentives for drivers and increase awareness of cleaner vehicles on our roads”. The green plates – according to Shapps – would help local authorities visually identify electric vehicles “for the purposes of locally led policies and incentives, and local communication and awareness campaigns”.
In reality, bodies such as the Greater London Authority opted for straightforward optical number plate recognition technology – which has become widely available since 2009 – to enforce measures such as congestion charges and low-emission zones. There are, as of yet, no such zones in Ireland, but they are almost inevitable if we are truly committed to reducing emissions to meet the targets set in the Climate Action Plan and improve urban life.
But the primary rationale for green number plates – to facilitate the introduction of such zones and other measures encouraging people to switch to electric vehicles – no longer applies.
We are left with the argument that the plates alone will promote the purchase of green vehicles. Your car is, to a great or lesser extent, one of the ways we project the image of yourself that you want others to see. For some it is very important and for others less so, but the connection between registration plates and car sales is undeniable. Whether green plates will have the same effect as year of sale numbering is an open question. A bigger one is whether the Government should be engaged in this sort of manipulation at all.
John McManus is an Irish Times columnist and duty editor
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