Acceleration in registration of new cars in Cork

THERE has been a rise in new car registrations in Cork and nationally.

According to new data from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI), 11,389 new car registrations were recorded in Cork from January to August this year. In the same period last year, 10,076 registrations were recorded, a difference of around 13%.

According to the SIMI figures, there were 6,013 new cars registrations nationally for August compared to 4,808 in August 2020 (+25.1%) and 5,088 in August 2019 (+18.2%). A total of 96,309 new cars were registered year to date compared to 78,864 for the same period in 2020 (22.1%) and 110,527 in 2019 (-12.9%).

Light commercials vehicles saw an increase of 2,972 registrations compared to August last year. For heavy goods vehicles, there were 188 registrations in August compared to 186 in August 2020 and 155 in August 2019.

A total of 5,088 used cars were imported in August this year, compared with 8,141 imports in August 2020, a decrease on the 9,706 imports in August 2019.

A total of 831 new electric vehicles were registered in August compared to 294 in August 2020. So far this year, 7,057 new electric cars have been registered in comparison to 2,954 in the same period in 2020.

Brian Cooke, SIMI director general, said the appetite among consumers for new cars, boosted by pent-up demand and strong consumer savings, that was in evidence in July has continued into August.

“New car sales are up 25% on the same month last year and by 22% year to date,” he said.

“However, these numbers must be viewed in the context of the pre-Covid market, and registrations are still lagging 18% behind 2019. The new car market has in recent years been hampered not only by the pandemic, but also by Brexit-related issues, and this has seen several years of a weakened new car market.

“What is positive is that those businesses and consumers who have been buying new cars are choosing lower-emitting vehicles across all fuel types. In particular. there has been a significant uplift in the sale of new electric cars since the start of this year.”