The numbers themselves aren’t big, but 330 electric cars were registered in Ireland in February — an almost fivefold increase on the 72 registered in February 2018.

Total EV registrations for the first two months 2019 came to 1,129, not far short of the 1,233 total sales of electric cars in the whole of 2018.

The rest of the car market told a different story, with new car registrations for the month of February down 11.1% (15,128) compared with  February 2018 (17,011). Registrations year to date have declined 12.2% year-on-year, accoding to SIMI.

Light commercial vehicles were also down 5.6% in February, and year to date are down 13.4%. However, HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) registrations rose 9.5% yoy through February , though year to date the total has declined 3.7%.

Imported used cars (8,860) showed a slight decrease of 0.4% on a year ago and for the year to date are down 0.5%.

In Association with

SIMI director general Brian Cooke commented: “With Brexit looming, new vehicle registrations continue to be negatively affected across nearly all of our industry. The one exception is the sales of electric vehicles, the result of a concerted effort by all stakeholders.

“Ireland’s transition to a zero emitting fleet will take a number of years to happen, but the cooperative approach by the industry and the state thus far bodes well for the future.”

There are full details of vehicle sales on the SIMI website here.