{"id":620320,"date":"2026-08-04T17:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T17:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/620320\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T17:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T17:46:09","slug":"electric-vehicles-claim-top-spot-in-irish-new-car-market-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/620320\/","title":{"rendered":"Electric vehicles claim top spot in Irish new car market \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/electric-vehicles\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/electric-vehicles\/\">All-electric cars<\/a> are now the best sellers on the Irish new car market, with over double the registrations of diesel models. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">EVs now account for 26 per cent of the new car market, ahead of regular petrol hybrids on 24.6 per cent, petrol cars on 20.4 per cent, plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) on 14.5 per cent and diesels on 12.5 per cent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">New car registrations for July under the new 262 number plate were up 8.63 per cent on the same month last year, with 29,046 new cars sold. Total registrations for the year up to the end of July are up 5.2 per cent at 114,228.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Brian Cooke, director general of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/society-of-the-irish-motor-industry-simi\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/society-of-the-irish-motor-industry-simi\/\">Society of the Irish Motor Industry (Simi)<\/a>, said the highlight of the market is clearly the performance of EVs, with 9,682 registered in July, a 98 per cent increase when compared to July 2025. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThis increase in BEV [battery electric vehicle] sales would not have been achieved without Government supports. In particular, the Government\u2019s pilot scrappage scheme, introduced in July, along with the existing BEV grant supports, has helped build on market momentum,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Government\u2019s ICE2EV scrappage scheme, introduced in July, offered motorists up to \u20ac8,500 (\u20ac5,000 scrappage payment plus the existing \u20ac3,500 EV grant) towards a new electric car if they traded in a petrol or diesel vehicle that was at least 13 years old. It was funded with \u20ac10 million on a first-come, first-served basis and closed within hours after reaching its application limit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">According to Cooke: \u201cThe record increase in EV sales is proof that incentives work, not just in urban areas, but also for rural motorists who received the majority of scrappage grants. The increase in BEV sales is evident in every county.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/toyota\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/toyota\/\">Toyota<\/a> remains the bestselling new car brand in Ireland with 15,823 registrations so far this year, ahead of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/volkswagen-vw\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/volkswagen-vw\/\">Volkswagen<\/a> on 13,388, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/skoda\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/skoda\/\">Skoda<\/a> on 11,138 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/hyundai\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/hyundai\/\">Hyundai<\/a> on 9,957, while the most popular individual model among new car buyers is the Toyota Yaris Cross. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In the EV market, Volkswagen is in the lead, ahead of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kia\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/kia\/\">Kia<\/a>, Hyundai, Skoda and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/tesla\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/tesla\/\">Tesla<\/a>. The bestselling EV remains the VW ID4, followed by Toyota\u2019s BZ4X. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Despite the surge in EV sales, the bestselling new car in July was the Skoda Octavia, with 63 per cent of those sold being diesel and the rest petrol. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All-electric cars are now the best sellers on the Irish new car market, with over double the registrations&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,8888,8299,19,17,55418,55417,31690,1298,72132,44702],"class_list":["post-620320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-electric-vehicles","tag-hyundai","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kia","tag-skoda","tag-society-of-the-irish-motor-industry-simi","tag-tesla","tag-toyota","tag-volkswagen-vw"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117038493590318168","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}