Official figures show that the number of new cars licensed in September 2022 increased by 15% compared with the same month last year, while electric and hybrid vehicles continued to take a bigger share of the market.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) said that 7,315 new cars were licensed in September. This brought the total for the first nine months of this year to 93,603 – a drop of 1% compared with the same period last year.

Sales of used cars showed bigger declines, however, with the September figure down 13% to 4,378, and the nine-month total 35% lower at 36,140.

Diesel decline

The number of new electric cars licensed has increased by 81% − from 7,470 in the first nine months of 2021 to 13,506 in 2022.

In the first nine months of this year, 22% of all new cars licensed for the first time were electric or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), compared with 15% in the same period in 2021.

Over the same period, the number of new diesel cars dropped by 22% to 25,113.