A total of 7,166 new cars were registered during April 2021, compared to 343 in the same month last year and 8,904 in April 2019.
The figures released by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry show 55,207 new cars registered year to date compared to 50,138 for the same period in 2020 (+10.11 ) and 73,030 in 2019 (-24.41% ).
The SIMI says in order to present a more accurate picture of the new vehicle registrations, it is important to compare registration totals with the same period in 2019 (pre-Covid ) when businesses were fully operational.
Light commercial vehicles have seen an increase of 2,385 registrations compared to April last year 231 and 1,798 for the same month in 2019. For the year to date, 13,722 new LCVs were registered, an increase on last year’s 9,500 (+44.4% ) and 12,853 on 2019 (+6.67% ).
Heavy goods vehicles have seen 325 registrations in April when compared to 96 in April 2020 and 305 April 2019. Year to date HGV registrations total 1,223 compared with 1,004 in 2020 (+21.81% ) and 1,189 in 2019 (+2.86% ).
Some 5,676 used cars were imported in April 2021, compared with 200 imports in April 2020, a decrease on the 8,887 imports in April 2019. For the year to date, used imports are up 36.4 per cent (24,095 ) on 2020 (17,666 ) and down 32.54 per cent on 2019 (35,719 ).
For the month of April 596 new electric vehicles were registered compared to 50 in April 2020. So far this year 3,414 new electric cars have been registered in comparison to 1,700 on the same period 2020.
Diesel still leads the market, now accounting for 36.86 per cent, followed by petrol with 32.06 per cent. However, e-vehicles - electric vehicle, plug-in hybrids and hybrids continue to increase their market share, and now have a combined market share 28.79 per cent (hybrid 16.66%, plug-in electric hybrid 5.95%, and electric 6.18% ).
The top selling car last month was the Hyundai Tucson, while Toyota was the top selling brand, followed by Volkswagen, Hyundai, Skoda, and Ford making up the top five best selling car brands for April 2021.
