Electric vehicles accounted for almost a fifth of all new cars registered in the State in the first seven months of the year, new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show.
Motorists registered some 3,065 new EVs in July, bringing to 16,766 the total for the first seven months of the year, an increase of 66 per cent on the same period in 2022.
This means that about 18 per cent of new cars registered in the year to date have been electric, up from 13 per cent between January and July last year.
The jump in EV sales over recent months may be due to motorists wanting to avail of the full SEAI grant of €5,000, which the Government reduced from July 1st.
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Meanwhile, 1,409 plug-in hybrid electric cars were licensed in the month of July, bringing the total for the year so far to 7,339, a 23 per cent increase on the same period last year.
The figures “show the continued growth in the number of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles licensed in Ireland”, said Dr Nele van der Wielen, statistician in the transport section of the CSO.
Dr van der Wielen said there has also been a corresponding decrease in the number of diesel cars registered in the State, with this falling by 5 per cent from 8,667 to 8,258 in the same period.
Overall, 22,541 new and 6,104 used vehicles were licensed for the first time in the State last month, a jump of 22 per cent and 9 per cent respectively on July 2023. New vehicle registrations over the first seven months were 19 per cent ahead of the same period last year and 6 per cent ahead of last year.
However, while the number of new car registrations has recovered to near pre-Covid levels, used car licences have fallen by more than one half from 9,203 in July 2019 to just 4,348 last month.
Amid a shortage of used cars being imported into the market, due to factors including Brexit and Covid-related trade disruption, car prices increased by a sizeable 77.5 per cent from the start of the pandemic to the end of March this year, according to data published by DoneDeal in April.
