New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the number of new electric cars licensed jumped by 82% from 8,089 in the first 10 months of 2021 to 14,707 in 2022.
At the same time, the CSO said the number of new diesel cars continues to decrease. For the first 10 months of 2022, 26,309 new cars licensed were diesel cars compared with 33,538 during the same time last year.
It noted that in the first 10 months of 2022, 22% of all new cars licensed for the first time were electric or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) compared with 16% in the same period in 2021.
Overall, today's CSO figures show that the number of new cars licensed rose by 17% from 3,882 in October of last year to 4,527 this year.
But there was a fall of 16% in the number of used private cars licensed with such sales down to 3,802 from 4,506 in October of this year compared to the same month last year.
Volkswagen was the most popular make of new private cars licensed in October, followed by Skoda, Hyundai, Kia and Renault.
Together, these five makes represent almost half (46%) of all new private cars licensed last month, the CSO said.
