CSO figures show the continued growth in the number of electric and hybrid vehicles licensed

Although the number of licensed cars has been low since the start of this year due to the COVID-19 crisis, the number of new cars licensed rose by 40% to 5,747 in September, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). It was 4,104 during the same period last year.

However, the number of licensed new cars in the first nine months of 2020 fell by 27.9% to 77,620 from 107,686 in 2019.

Statistics from the CSO show a steady increase in the number of licensed electric and hybrid vehicles. The number of new hybrid and electric cars licensed exceeded the number licensed for all of 2019. They now account for 25.4% of new private cars licensed compared with 12% the same time in 2019.

The number of new electric cars licensed in the first nine months of 2020 increased by 15.2% from 2,904 to 3,345, according to the CSO report.

CSO figures show that, in the first nine months of 2020, the number of licensed new electric cars rose from 3,345 to 2,340 by 15.90%. Also the number of hybrid cars has grew from 10,520 to 11,871.

The number of used, or imported, cars licensed decreased by 5.8% to 9,300 in September from 9,868 the same time last year, the CSO said.

Recent CSO licensing figures for September show that Volkswagen was the most popular manufacturer of new private car licensed, followed by Ford, Skoda, Toyota and Kia. And all of these makers account for 45.9% of all new private cars licensed in September 2020.

Meanwhile, CSO says that compared to the recently published Society of Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) figures, 53.4% ​​of new cars licensed in September 2020 were registered before September.