The number of new car registrations rose again in November, according to the Society of the Irish Motor Industry.
More than 1,130 cars were registered in the month – 218 (23.9%) more than in November 2020.
The figure also represented a 48.6% increase on the pre-pandemic month of November 2019.
It means that 104,563 new cars have been registered so far this year, up 16,839 (19.2%) on the same time in 2020.
However the figure remains more than 12,300 (10.5%) lower than the first eleven months of 2019.
According to SIMI, electric car sales continued to grow rapidly, and have more than doubled in the year so far.
It said that 8,533 new electric cars have been registered between January and November 2021 – compared to 3,928 in the same period of last year.
This means that electric cars represented 8.2% of all car sales in the first eleven months of the year, compared to 4.5% in the January-November period of 2020.
Electric cars, plug-in hybrids and hybrids combined represented 31.6% of sales in the first eleven months of the year.
"We are still in the early stages of de-carbonising the national fleet and we have a very long way to go to get close to the targets in the Climate Action Plan," said SIMI director general Brian Cooke. "In this context, we need to continue year on year growth in EV sales, which in turn will kick start an active used EV market.
"In order to achieve this, we must both extend the EV supports until there is a critical mass of these cars to create a viable used car market, and implement a tax strategy that supports a much stronger new car market."
Meanwhile the number of imports continued to fall, with 4,445 registered in November compared to 8,645 a year ago.
So far this year almost 60,000 vehicles have been imported, 10.7% lower than in 2020 and 42.3% lower than in 2019.
