Financing

Car finance options in Ireland — banks, credit unions, independent lenders, and manufacturer finance.

Understand PCP before you sign

Most manufacturer finance offers on EVs are PCP. It can be a good deal, but the terms genuinely matter — this is one of the most common sources of buyer frustration.

• A Personal Contract Plan (PCP) only finances the car's expected depreciation over the term, not its full price — you pay a deposit, then lower monthly instalments than a hire purchase (HP) or personal loan, then choose at the end to pay a final "balloon" payment (the GMFV — Guaranteed Minimum Future Value) and keep the car, hand it back, or trade in.
• Ask what the GMFV is as a percentage of the car's price before you sign — Irish PCP buyers have reported GMFVs as high as 48-50%+ on some EVs, well above a safer ~40%. The higher the GMFV, the smaller the gap it leaves for genuine equity at trade-in time, and used EV values have been sliding, so a high GMFV set a few years ago can leave you with a car worth less than the payoff figure — meaning zero equity to roll into a new deal, even after years of payments.
• EVs currently depreciate faster and less predictably than petrol/diesel cars, which is exactly what breaks this math — a GMFV set optimistically 3 years ago assuming steady used-EV demand can be well above what the car actually fetches today.
• You have a legal right — the "half rule" under the Consumer Credit Act 1995 — to hand the car back once you've paid at least half of the total amount payable under the agreement, clearing the remaining debt (this is not the same as, and usually far cheaper than, voluntary surrender — make sure any paperwork says "statutory termination," not "voluntary surrender," since they're calculated differently). See the CCPC's official PCP guidance for the full rules.
• Before signing: compare the GMFV against what similar 3-year-old examples of that exact model are actually selling for today, check the mileage limit and per-km excess charge, and ask what happens if you want to exit early.

See the CCPC's official PCP guidance for the full consumer-protection rules, or the Used Car Buying Guide for what to check on the car itself.