The Corte dei Conti is asking the question: from 2019 to the present day, all the data released has concerned sales and incentives, but not the environmental results achieved.
The ecobonus scheme for purchasing electric and hybrid vehicles, introduced with the 2019 budget law, remains a pillar of the transition towards cleaner mobility. But according to the Corte dei Conti, which has just published a report on the management of the measure, there is a fundamental problem: we know how much money has been spent and how many cars have been sold, but we don't really know how much of this has actually contributed to reducing emissions to date.
The ecobonus allows people to purchase low-CO₂ emission cars and motorcycles with a direct discount at the dealership, often tied to scrapping the old vehicle. Born as a temporary measure in 2019, over the years it has become a structural instrument of Italian industrial policy, so much so that in 2022 it led to the creation of the Fondo automotive, designed to support the decarbonisation of the sector, research and investment in the supply chain. From March 2025, support for four-wheeled vehicles has largely been replaced by new instruments based on development contracts, while the incentive for electric two-wheelers remains in force.
In the period analysed by the Corte, nearly 1.4 million bookings mobilised incentives worth 3 billion euros, through 4,800 accredited dealerships. A monitoring system exists and has functioned, but – the accounting court notes – it has focused almost exclusively on administrative aspects: how many applications, how much funding, which vehicle models. What is missing, however, is a serious assessment of how much these incentives have actually contributed to reducing emissions and improving air quality. This is a significant knowledge gap, especially considering that the last in-depth study on the environmental effects of the measure dates back to 2021, commissioned from the Politecnico di Milano and used primarily to justify the stabilisation of the Fondo Automotive. Since then, no new analysis has verified whether the trajectory is consistent with the European targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 55 per cent by 2030.
The June 2026 figures released by Unrae, the association representing foreign car manufacturers in Italy, help to explain what is happening now that the direct incentives for private electric vehicles have been exhausted. During the month, zero-emission vehicles (BEV) reached 10.1 per cent of new registrations, almost double the 6 per cent recorded in June 2025. But this is largely a "deadline" effect: many purchases were concentrated in the final weeks of June, the last month in which dealerships could still take advantage of the remaining active incentive reimbursements. Looking at the entire first half of 2026, the picture is less encouraging: the BEV share in Italy stands at 8.2 per cent, compared with 23.5 per cent for the rest of the European market. A wide gap which, according to Unrae, reflects above all the absence of purchase incentives for private buyers — making Italy the only major European market in this situation.
Hybrids remain the driving segment of the transition: in June they accounted for 46.1 per cent of new registrations, while plug-in hybrids rose to 10.6 per cent. Adding all rechargeable vehicles together, the market share reaches 20.7 per cent, the highest value ever recorded. The overall result is also reflected in the average emissions of cars sold, which fell to 104.7 g/km in June and to 107.1 g/km for the half-year average, a decline of more than 6 per cent compared with 2025.
One critical point concerns public resources: 251 million euros originally earmarked for the Fondo automotive were redirected, ironically, towards measures to tackle high fuel prices. The president of Unrae, Roberto Pietrantonio, has called for those funds to be returned to the sector, and has also flagged the urgency of targeted measures for private electric vehicles, so as not to fall behind on binding decarbonisation targets. Another critical point raised by the Corte dei Conti concerns governance: despite being involved in similar measures funded by the Pnrr, the Ministry of the Environment played no direct role in managing the ecobonus scheme and did not participate in working groups with the other bodies involved (the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy, the Agenzia delle Entrate and the Ministry of Transport). This institutional fragmentation, according to the Corte, made it harder to assess the overall environmental impact of the measure. A separate chapter concerns electric retrofit — that is, the possibility of converting internal combustion engine vehicles to electric: the incentive designed to support it has essentially never worked, due to technical difficulties and extremely low take-up among citizens — a sign of just how impractical the conversion route remains, for now, on a large scale.
The Court's recommendations point in one clear direction: less red tape and a greater capacity to measure real-world results. What is needed are simpler access procedures, faster implementation timelines and, above all, a monitoring system that does not simply count how many cars have been sold, but that tells us how much CO₂ has actually been saved. The most recent market data seem to confirm exactly this: when incentives are in place, as the end-of-June rush demonstrates, consumers respond. The problem is that, without a stable strategy and without structured environmental monitoring, it remains difficult to tell whether Italy is truly accelerating towards its 2030 climate targets, or whether it is lurching forward in fits and starts, dependent on the presence or absence of short-term financial incentives.
