New figures from the Central Statistics Office show a 25% decrease in the number of electric cars licensed for the first time in the first 10 months of 2024 when compared with the same time last year.
The CSO said that 16,211 electric vehicles were licensed in the months from January to October compared to 21,667 the same time last year.
But the CSO noted growth in the licensing of petrol and electric hybrid vehicles.
The number of new petrol and electric hybrid cars licensed increased by 32% from 17,680 in the first 10 months of 2023 to 23,408 over the same period in 2024.
In the period under review, the CSO said that 35,737 new cars licensed were petrol compared with 37,714 in the same period of 2023, a fall of 5%.
Comparing the same ten-month period in 2023 and 2024, the number of new diesel cars licensed rose by 4% to 26,176 from 25,162.
Overall, the total number of new private cars licensed in the first 10 months of 2024 fell slightly compared to the same time in 2023 to 113,615 from 114,069.
But the number of used (imported) cars licensed increased by 27% to 53,008 from 41,898 over the same 10 month period.
On a monthly basis, today's figures show that the total of new private cars licensed in October slowed by 13% to 3,994 from 4,587 in October of last year.
Toyota was the most popular make of new private car licensed in October, followed by Volkswagen, Skoda, Kia and Hyundai.
Together, these five makes represented exactly half of all new private cars licensed in October, the CSO noted.
Meanwhile, the most popular brand of new electric car licensed in October was the Volkswagen ID.4, followed by the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model Y.
