The Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI ) issued the new vehicle registrations statistics for April.
New car registrations for the month of April were up 10.8 percent (8,923 ) when compared to April 2018 (8,053 ), while new cars registrations year to date remain 8.5 percent (73,044 ) down on the same period last year (79,813 ).
New light commercial vehicle (LCV ) registrations were slightly up 1.12 percent (1,812 ) on April 2018 (1,792 ) and year to date are down 9.95 percent (12,892 ).
Meanwhile, new heavy commercial vehicles (HGV ) have increased by 27.27 percent for the month of April (308 ) compared to the same month last year (242 ) and are up 3.11 percent (1,194 ) year to date.
Imported Used Cars increased by 2.8 percent for April 2019 (8,886 ) when compared to April 2018 (8,644 ) and year to date are 2.75 percent (35,717 ) ahead of 2018 (34,761 ).
Some other April stats that have been released includes electric vehicle (EV ) sales year to date up 308.3 percent, and the EV car total for the month with an increase of 108.5 per cent.
The five top selling car brands for the year to date are Volkswagen, Hyundai, Toyota, Ford and Skoda, while the top five car model salesyear to date are the Nissan Qashqai, Hyundai Tucson, Toyota Corolla, Skoda Octavia and Volkswagen Tiguan. Meanwhile, the top selling car in April was the Toyota Corolla.
The SIMI’s quarterly report was also just published and it shows that while the Irish economy is still positive, both new cars and commercial registrations, declined in the first quarter of the year with the exception of both electric cars and used car imports.
External threats such as Brexit uncertainty, greater consumer caution and the ongoing growth of used imports continue to undermining new car sales. Another contributing factor is the increase in the VRT on new cars, arising from the fact that no allowance was made by the Irish authorities for the first step in the move to the new WLTP testing regime.
