New figures from the Central Statistics Office show the continued growth in the number of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles licensed here.
The CSO said the number of new electric cars licensed jumped by 81% from 7,470 in the first nine months of 2021 to 13,506 in the first nine months of this year.
22% of all new cars licensed for the first time in the first nine months of the year were electric or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, compared with 15% the same time last year, the CSO said.
At the same time, the number of new diesel cars is decreasing.
The CSO said that 25,113 new cars licensed were diesel cars in the first nine months of this year compared with 32,341 the same time last year.
Overall, today's figures show that the number of new cars licensed in September rose by 15% to 7,315 from 6,354 the same month last year.
But there was a fall of 13% in the number of used private cars licensed in September compared with the same time last year with the numbers falling from 5,056 to 4,378.
The number of used cars licensed in the first nine months of 2022 decreased by 35% compared with the same time in 2021, the CSO added.
Today's figures also show that Volkswagen (1,244) was the most popular make of new private car licensed in September, followed by Kia (573), Hyundai (526), Skoda (504), and Tesla (502).
The CSO noted that taken together, these five makes represent 46% of all new private cars licensed in September this year.
