France set an ambitious goal: mostly-electric new car sales by 2030. It's not going to happen on schedule, and the reasons are worth understanding if you're deciding when to make the switch.

Three things are actually slowing this down:

1. The subsidy math keeps shifting. The bonus écologique has been trimmed and re-targeted multiple times in the last two years. Buyers who timed a purchase around last year's subsidy rules got a different deal than buyers today. This isn't going to stabilize soon — it moves with the budget cycle.

2. Charging infrastructure is uneven, not absent. Highway corridors and major cities are in decent shape. Rural departments and older apartment buildings (no home charging) are years behind. If you live somewhere without easy home or workplace charging, the "just buy an EV" advice doesn't map cleanly to your situation yet.

3. Resale values are still finding their floor. Early EV adopters in France are seeing more depreciation uncertainty than ICE buyers are used to, partly because battery health and model turnover are new variables in the used market.

None of this means "don't buy an EV." It means timing and location-specific homework actually matters right now — more than the headline 2030 target suggests.

I track all three of these — subsidy changes, charging rollout by region, and resale trends — every week in ÉlectroFrance Brief. If you're weighing when to switch, it's built exactly for that decision.