The headline of this release was updated at 14.20, 12 June 2024 (day of publish) after an error in the percentage of new private cars licensed in the first five months of 2024 was identified. All other data in this release is correct. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused.
In the first five months of 2024, 13% of all new cars licensed for the first time were electric compared with 18% in the same period in 2023.
Almost a quarter (23%) of new private cars licensed in the first five months of 2024 were diesel compared with 22% in the same period in 2023.
The number of petrol and electric hybrid cars licensed in the first five months of 2024 increased by 49% compared with the same period in 2023 (14,712 versus 9,864).
The number of electric cars licensed in the first five months of 2024 decreased by 20% compared to the same period in 2023 (9,458 vs 11,918).
The number of used cars licensed in the first five months of 2024 increased by 27% compared with the same period in 2023 (25,865 versus 20,345).
There were 6,945 used (imported) diesel private cars licensed in the first five months of 2024, compared with 7,087 in first five months of 2023, a fall of 2%.
Volkswagen (1,885) was the most popular make of new private car licensed in May 2024.
Registration and licensing figures may differ in a given month for a number of reasons, some of which are outlined below:
| Table 1: Number of vehicles licensed for the first time | |||||||||
| May | January - May | ||||||||
| 2023 | 2024 | Change | 2023 | 2024 | Change | ||||
| New private cars | 10,452 | 10,055 | -397 | -4% | 67,582 | 72,220 | 4,638 | 7% | |
| New goods vehicles | 3,087 | 3,296 | 209 | 7% | 13,196 | 16,024 | 2,828 | 21% | |
| New other vehicles | 1,214 | 1,451 | 237 | 20% | 6,586 | 7,121 | 535 | 8% | |
| Total new vehicles | 14,753 | 14,802 | 49 | 0% | 87,364 | 95,365 | 8,001 | 9% | |
| Used private cars | 4,323 | 5,592 | 1,269 | 29% | 20,345 | 25,865 | 5,520 | 27% | |
| Used goods vehicles | 900 | 1,038 | 138 | 15% | 3,862 | 4,538 | 676 | 18% | |
| Used other vehicles | 1,155 | 1,235 | 80 | 7% | 4,823 | 4,954 | 131 | 3% | |
| Total used vehicles | 6,378 | 7,865 | 1,487 | 23% | 29,030 | 35,357 | 6,327 | 22% | |
Figure 1 shows data on the number of new and used (imported) private cars licensed for the first time in May 2020 to May 2024
| Most popular makes of new cars, May 2024 | |
| Volkswagen | 19 |
| Toyota | 11 |
| Skoda | 7 |
| Hyundai | 7 |
| Dacia | 5 |
| Other | 51 |
| Most popular makes of new cars, May 2023 | |
| Volkswagen | 15 |
| Toyota | 13 |
| Skoda | 7 |
| Hyundai | 5 |
| Dacia | 5 |
| Other | 55 |
| X-axis label | Unadjusted data | Adjusted data | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 2019 | 9126 | 9755 | 10019 |
| June 2019 | 3858 | 10174 | 9745 |
| July 2019 | 18741 | 9249 | 9272 |
| August 2019 | 7202 | 8801 | 8730 |
| September 2019 | 4104 | 7543 | 8295 |
| October 2019 | 3214 | 7660 | 8070 |
| November 2019 | 1676 | 8028 | 8034 |
| December 2019 | 729 | 8057 | 8114 |
| January 2020 | 20665 | 8665 | 8219 |
| February 2020 | 13263 | 8497 | 8248 |
| March 2020 | 10239 | 6857 | 8173 |
| April 2020 | 1338 | 1069 | 1097 |
| May 2020 | 1490 | 1704 | 2719 |
| June 2020 | 2189 | 5196 | 5223 |
| July 2020 | 15329 | 7720 | 7804 |
| August 2020 | 7360 | 8803 | 9033 |
| September 2020 | 5747 | 9082 | 9140 |
| October 2020 | 4189 | 9474 | 9157 |
| November 2020 | 1468 | 6383 | 9013 |
| December 2020 | 1032 | 10447 | 8713 |
| January 2021 | 16948 | 8160 | 8314 |
| February 2021 | 11672 | 7785 | 7944 |
| March 2021 | 10672 | 6543 | 7703 |
| April 2021 | 8214 | 7062 | 7643 |
| May 2021 | 7337 | 8194 | 7725 |
| June 2021 | 4980 | 10996 | 7869 |
| July 2021 | 20232 | 10709 | 8002 |
| August 2021 | 8563 | 9306 | 8072 |
| September 2021 | 6354 | 9345 | 8079 |
| October 2021 | 3882 | 8544 | 8036 |
| November 2021 | 2167 | 8668 | 7990 |
| December 2021 | 832 | 8186 | 7969 |
| January 2022 | 15814 | 8021 | 7944 |
| February 2022 | 13643 | 9328 | 7916 |
| March 2022 | 11872 | 7898 | 7879 |
| April 2022 | 10045 | 8280 | 7858 |
| May 2022 | 7120 | 7675 | 7890 |
| June 2022 | 3774 | 7841 | 8037 |
| July 2022 | 15078 | 8268 | 8292 |
| August 2022 | 8942 | 8565 | 8590 |
| September 2022 | 7315 | 10448 | 8834 |
| October 2022 | 4527 | 9572 | 8982 |
| November 2022 | 2353 | 9311 | 9049 |
| December 2022 | 866 | 8621 | 9082 |
| January 2023 | 16787 | 8669 | 9201 |
| February 2023 | 13284 | 9434 | 9442 |
| March 2023 | 15782 | 10208 | 9780 |
| April 2023 | 11277 | 9894 | 10134 |
| May 2023 | 10452 | 10487 | 10392 |
| June 2023 | 5584 | 11022 | 10446 |
| July 2023 | 18106 | 9888 | 10322 |
| August 2023 | 11328 | 10435 | 10137 |
| September 2023 | 6882 | 9883 | 9984 |
| October 2023 | 4587 | 9549 | 9898 |
| November 2023 | 2291 | 9487 | 9897 |
| December 2023 | 1064 | 10584 | 9970 |
| January 2024 | 20861 | 10292 | 10070 |
| February 2024 | 13979 | 9873 | 10154 |
| March 2024 | 14916 | 9999 | |
| April 2024 | 12409 | 10448 | |
| May 2024 | 10055 | 10188 |
| X-axis label | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| <1 year old | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 1-2 years old | 18 | 11 | 7 | 9 | 8 |
| 3-5 years old | 56 | 56 | 36 | 29 | 27 |
| 6-9 years old | 20 | 25 | 42 | 42 | 41 |
| Over 10 years old | 5 | 7 | 14 | 19 | 24 |
Figure 6 shows the share of new private cars licensed by fuel type from December 2023 to May 2024. In May 2024, electric cars were 12% of all new private cars licensed.
The share of electric cars in the total number of new cars licensed grew from 1% in 2018 to 19% in 2023.
At the same time, the share of diesel cars is falling. In 2018, 54% of all new cars licensed were diesel cars compared with 22% in 2023. See figure 7 and figure 8.
| X-axis label | Petrol | Diesel | Electric | PHEV | Hybrid | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 39 | 54 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| 2019 | 40 | 47 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 0 |
| 2020 | 37 | 43 | 5 | 3 | 12 | 0 |
| 2021 | 32 | 34 | 8 | 7 | 18 | 0 |
| 2022 | 30 | 27 | 15 | 7 | 20 | 1 |
| 2023 | 33 | 22 | 19 | 8 | 17 | 1 |
| X-axis label | Number of new electric private cars | Percentage of all new private cars |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 1222 | 1 |
| 2019 | 3443 | 3 |
| 2020 | 3940 | 5 |
| 2021 | 8554 | 8 |
| 2022 | 15462 | 15 |
| 2023 | 22493 | 19 |
Check the rankings of new vehicles for the most recent month as well as year
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (12 June 2024) published Vehicles licensed for the first time for May 2024.
Commenting on the data, Damien Lenihan, Statistician in the Transport Section of the CSO, said: “Today’s figures from the CSO show growth in the licensing of petrol & electric hybrid vehicles. The number of new petrol and electric hybrid cars licensed increased by 49% from 9,864 in the first five months of 2023 to 14,712 in the same period of 2024. In the same two periods, electric cars licensed for the first time decreased by 20% (11,918 vs 9,458). In the first five months of 2024, 24,009 new cars licensed were petrol compared with 23,944 in the same period in 2023, up less than 1%. Comparing the same five-month periods in 2023 and 2024, the number of new diesel cars licensed has risen by 15%.
Used Private Cars
There were 6,945 used (imported) diesel private cars licensed in the first five months of 2024, compared with 7,087 in the same period of 2023, a fall of 2%.
The total number of used vehicles licensed in the first five months of 2024 was up 22% compared with the same period in 2023 (See Table 1).
Most Popular Car Brands
Data also shows that Volkswagen (1,885) was the most popular make of new private car licensed in May 2024, followed by Toyota (1,119), Skoda (697), Hyundai (669), and Dacia (543). Together, these five makes represented almost half (49%) of all new private cars licensed in May 2024 (See Table 4).
The most popular brand of new electric car licensed in May 2024 was Volkswagen ID.4 (256), followed by Tesla Model Y (172), and BMW iX (69) (See TEM28 for further information).”