The impact of the Covid-19 crisis on car sales continued to be felt last month, new figures from the Central Statistics Office show today.
The CSO said the number of new cars licensed for the first time in May slumped by 83.7% compared to the same time last year with just 1,490 new cars licensed compared to 9,126 in May 2019.
Meanwhile, the number of new cars licensed in the first five months of 2020 stood at 46,995 compared to 73,781 the same time last year - a drop of 36.3%.
Today's figures also show the number of used or imported cars licensed in May decreased by 87.1% compared with the same month in 2019.
Comparing today's figures with the recently published Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) figures, the CSO said it was important to note that over half of new cars licensed in May of this year were registered before May.
The monthly licensing (CSO) figures and the registration figures (SIMI) differ due to the different dates on which a vehicle is registered (number plate) and licensed (tax disc).
A car may be registered by a dealership in advance of a sale, and cars which are registered in a given month may not be licensed until a later month.
In today's figures, the CSO noted that electric and hybrid cars continue to grow in popularity and accounted for 18.9% of new private cars licensed in the first five months of 2020, compared with 11.9% in the same time last year.
Volkswagen was the most popular make of new private car licensed in May followed by BMW, Hyundai, Ford and Skoda.
The CSO also said that 43.8% of all new private cars licensed were diesel in the first five months of the year, compared with 47.5% the same time last year.
