New car sales rise 5.75% in first quarter

NEW CAR sales for the first three months of the year were 47,996, up 14 per cent on the first quarter last year. New registrations in March were up 5.75 per cent at 14,426, according to figures from the Society for the Irish Motor Industry.

There were 4,360 new cars registered on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, representing 30 per cent of last month’s total sales.

Toyota is the top-selling brand, with 14.5 per cent of the market so far this year, while its Avensis model is the best-selling car with 2,211 registrations, leading the Volkswagen Golf by 170 sales.

VW are the second most popular car brand with a 11.8 per cent market share, followed by Ford on 11 per cent, Renault on 9.4 per cent and Nissan with 7.8 per cent.

The move towards low-emission cars continues with 90 per cent of new cars sold this year having emissions of less than 141g per km, thereby falling into the two lowest tax bands where road tax is either €104 or €156. Of the 47,996 new cars registered this year, just 4,678 fell into the higher tax bands. Diesel models accounted for 70.8 per cent of all sales. This is in contrast to 2007, the year before the change to the emissions-based tax regime, when petrol sales made up 72.5 per cent of registrations.

Despite the publicity surrounding electric cars, none have been registered this year, while hybrid sales have fallen 31 per cent to just 242 new cars sold in the first three months of this year.

Eddie Murphy, managing director of Ford Ireland, said the figures suggested his prediction of 110,000 new car registrations for the year was possible. However, he said this may be adversely affected by the tragic events in Japan, which has severely restricted the supply of important component parts for most car firms.

Despite the continued growth, Shane Teskey, managing director of Motorcheck.ie, says a lack of car finance is having a knock-on effect in the industry.

“It has been a very difficult year for the leasing industry in particular. A lack of finance facilities for contract hire has meant that smaller leasing companies are unable to fulfil actual orders on their books,” he said.