New car sales rise almost 18% to highest in a decade

New car sales rose by almost 18% last year to more than 142,000 — the highest figure in almost a decade.

Figures from the CSO show 142,688 new private cars were licensed for the first time in 2016 — an increase of 17.8% compared with the previous year.

Despite the increase, this figure remains some way short of the peak of 2007 when 180,754 new private cars were licensed.

The number of used (imported) private cars licensed rose by 46.9% to 69,381 in 2016 compared with 47,217 in 2015. This is the highest annual number of used (imported) cars licensed on record.

The number of new private cars licensed in December 2016 fell by 18.3% to 692 when compared with the same month in 2015, while the number of used (imported) private cars licensed in December more than doubled to 6,357.

Every county showed an increase in the number of new cars licensed last year, with 14 counties having more than 3,000.

Almost half (47.9%) of all new private cars licensed in the country last year were licensed in Dublin (35.2%) and Cork (12.7%) combined.

Volkswagen (15,163) was the most popular make of new private cars licensed in 2016. It was followed by Toyota (14,772), Hyundai (14,682), Ford (14,208), and Nissan (11,561). Together these five makes represent half of all new private cars licensed across the country.

The most popular colour by individual make shows that silver (22.3%) was the most popular choice for Volkswagen buyers.

The colour of choice for most new Toyota and Ford buyers was grey, while white was the most popular choice for newly licensed Hyundai cars in 2016. Black was the preferred colour for the Nissan buyers in 2016.

The total number of all new vehicles licensed during 2016 was 182,137 compared with 153,850 in 2015, an increase of 18.4%.

There was an increase of 22.6% in the number of new goods vehicles licensed in 2016 (28,117) — the highest since 2008 (31,459).

Diesel cars continue to dominate in popularity making up seven out of every 10 cars licensed last year and almost eight out of 10 new private cars licensed were in the lowest CO2 emissions band.

The move towards electric cars remains slow, with just 3,182 (2.2%) electric/hybrid cars licensed last year — a slight increase on the figure for 2015.

The most popular month for licensing new cars in 2016 was January (19%) followed by July (15.7%). In 2015, July was the most popular month for licensing new private cars.

In November, the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) warned that despite the strong performance in terms of sales in 2016, Brexit had led to significant uncertainty in the sector.

Despite this, it expects car sales for 2017 to be largely in line with those of 2016.

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