New car registrations for the month of August were down 0.3% to 8,131 in August when compared to the same time last year, new figures from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry show today.
But SIMI said that registrations year to date are up 18.3% to 112,729 on the figure of 95,269 the same time last year.
A total of 1,776 new electric vehicles were registered in August, a jump of 19.7% on the 1,484 registered the same time in 2022.
So far this year, a total of 20,218 new electric cars have been registered in comparison to 12,659 the same time last year - a jump of 59.7%.
Meanwhile, imported used cars saw a 4% decrease in August of this year when compared to August 2022 - falling from 4,769 to 4,578. But so far this year, imports are up 2.8% to 34,012 from 33,084 in 2022.
Today's figures show that the five top selling car brands so far this year are Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Skoda and Kia.
The five top car models sold so far in 2023 are the Hyundai Tucson, the Kia Sportage, the Toyota Corollla, the Toyota Cross and the Volkswagen ID.4.
SIMI said the top selling car in August was the Hyundai Tucson, while the top selling electric car was the Tesla Model 3.
Brian Cooke, SIMI Director General, said this year's new car market has two notable features - the return to pre-pandemic sales levels and the ever increasing share of electric vehicles.
Mr Cooke noted that EVs registered for the first eight months of the year have broken the 20,000 barrier.
But he said this should only be viewed as a start and the country has yet to return to new car sales levels that will reduce the age of the national fleet.
"We need to see an even greater levels of EV sales, both new and used, if we want to get close to the Government's Climate Action ambitions," he stated.
He said that SIMI is calling on the Government in the forthcoming Budget to extend current EV incentives and not to increase VRT.
"For consumers this means continuation of the SEAI grants and VRT relief on EVs, while for businesses an extension of the Benefit-in-Kind reliefs for three more years," Brian Cooke explained.
"In addition, there should be increased funding to support the national charging infrastructure. By doing this, we will see an increase in both the new car market and in EV sales, with the potential to create an active used EV market over the next couple of years," he said.
"These measures would support Government in a number of ways; increase revenue from new car sales, protect employment and reduce emissions from the national fleet," he added.
