New car registrations through February were down by nearly 8% year-on-year, according to the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI). Registrations year to date (45,100) are down by c.5%.

“Political and economic uncertainty is depressing consumer confidence and we now have the added problem of the coronavirus, which may disrupt new hire drive registrations for the tourist season in March and April,” said Brian Cooke (pictured), director general of SIMI.

Other figures published by SIMI show that Light Commercials vehicles (LCV) are down 6.9% compared with February 2019 -- year to date, they are down 0.8%. Heavy Goods Vehicle registrations are up 14.5% in comparison with February 2019 and are up by 11% year to date.

Used car imports for February have seen a decrease of 30% on February 2019. Year to date, imports (12,818) are down 28% on 2019. “The introduction of the new NOx charge in January has led to a fall in the demand for older used imports, with a fall of over 40% in used imports over five years old,” Cooke added.

For the month of February, 401 new electric vehicles were registered, compared with 325 on the same month last year. Some 1,294 new electric cars were registered so far this year, which compares with 1,124 on the same period last year. Both hybrid and plug-in hybrid continue to increase their market share.

In Association with

“While private consumer purchases of EVs, which still attract the SEAI grant, are up over 30%, there has been a reduction in company electric car purchases where this support no longer applies,” said Cooke.

Additional statistics from SIMI show that

• The top five selling car brands in 2020 were (in order): Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Skoda and Nissan;
• The top five car models for 2020 so far are (in order): Toyota Corolla, Hyundai Tucson, Volkswagen Tiguan, Ford Focus and Nissan Qashqai;
• The top selling car for February 2020 was the Volkswagen Tiguan.