Car sales are on the rise and for the first time since 2008 sales have exceeded the 100,000 mark. Ten things to know about new car sales so far this year writes Geraldine Herbert
- Volkswagen maintained its position as Ireland’s favourite car manufacturer with a 12.27% market share ahead of Toyota and Ford.
- Hyundai was the best selling brand in July with 3,154 sales.
- To the end of July this year, 109,960 new private cars have been licensed, up from 84,388 in 2014.
- The most popular new car is the Volkswagen Golf followed by the Ford Focus, Nissan’s Qashqai, and the Skoda Octavia.
- Electric cars are also up by 142% with 398 sold in the first seven months of this year compared with only 164 in the same period last year.
- When it comes to colour we are a conservative bunch. Silver has replaced Black as the most common new car colour, followed by grey, white and blue.
- Hatchbacks and saloons are the most common body types accounting for almost 60pc of all new cars.
- While diesel still takes the lion’s share of sales petrol’s share of the market grew slightly – from 25.55% in 2014 to 27.42% in 2015.
- The government has also gained from the new car sales with €761 million collected from Car Sales alone in 2015.
- Motor insurance costs have increased by 15.7% since June 2014.
Geraldine Herbert
4th August, 2015
