Electric car sales surge nearly 50% as EVs overtake petrol and diesel
The top selling electric car was the Volkswagen ID.4, followed by the Hyundai Inster 3 and the Kia EV3 with Tesla absent from the top 10 list.
A near 50% increase in electric car sales during January pushed their market share ahead of both petrol and diesel and only behind hybrid options, new data from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) shows.
During last month, there were 34,604 new cars registered across Ireland which is a 3.3% increase compared to 33,499 during January last year. Of these new registrations, new electric cars accounted for 7.319 which is an increase of 48.7% year-on-year.
Hyundai was the top selling car brand in January followed by Volkswagen, and Kia. However, the best selling individual car model was the Toyota Yaris Cross. The top selling electric car was the Volkswagen ID.4, followed by the Hyundai Inster 3 and the Kia EV3.
Tesla vehicles, usually ranking highly among most popular electric cars, were absent from the top 10 best selling new electric cars.
Tesla only sold 143 new cars during January — on par with the number sold in January last year — of which 93 were Model 3 cars and 48 were Model Y cars.
Tesla’s new car sales showed signs of recovery in some European markets in January rising in Spain, Sweden, Denmark and Italy although they fell in France, Norway, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands.
However, despite an overall pick-up in electric car sales across Europe, the US EV-maker has struggled to recover market share across the bloc following on from a number of political controversies involving its chief executive Elon Musk.
Meanwhile, BYD, the Chinese company which took the crown as the world’s largest electric car manufacturer from Tesla, was the fourth best selling electric car brand in January with 716 new registrations.
SIMI director general Brian Cooke said the year has started off “promisingly” for the new car market with electric cars, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids all seeing “significant growth”.
“Their market share accounted for nearly two-thirds of new car sales in January, with the combined market share of traditional petrol and diesel cars falling to 33%. Hybrid-electric vehicles are the most popular engine choice, taking the position as market leader for the first time.”
Petrol-electric hybrid vehicles accounted for 28.28% of new car registrations with electric cars at 21.15% the next highest. Petrol accounted for 20.94% of the market while plug-in hybrid held 14.56%, and diesel had 12.48%.
Automatic transmissions account for 78.74% of market share, while manual transmissions continue to see a decline at 21.21%.
“Over one in five new cars registered in January were fully electric vehicles. Private consumers accounted for 75% of battery electric vehicle sales, an 11% increase on last year,” Mr Cooke said, adding that Government incentives, expanding EV model choices, and a greater range of price points are all helping consumers make the switch.
Other vehicle segments also saw increases.
Registrations of light commercial vehicles increased by 21.6% during the month to 7,579 while imported used car registrations increased by 43.5% to 8,041.
However, heavy goods vehicle registrations declined by 16.6% to 392.
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