Electric car sales overtake diesel in April as new car market grows 16.2% this year

Michael McAleer

Fully-electric (EV) cars outsold diesels in April, with 1,870 new EVs registered last month compared to 1,748 diesel cars.

Despite ongoing delivery delays, new car sales are up 16 per cent so far this year, with 67,018 new registered cars on our roads up to the end of April.

Fully-electric (EV) cars made up 11,164 registrations - 16.6 per cent of the new car market, nearly matching the sales figure for regular hybrid cars of 11,686. Plug-in hybrid registrations were 5,473.

While petrol cars remain the most popular purchase, accounting for 32.85 per cent of the new car market, the combined sales of fully-electric and plug-in hybrid models now makes up 24.8 per cent, ahead of diesel on 22.3 per cent.

The best-selling new car brand is Toyota, with 9,451 registrations, ahead of Volkswagen with 7,438, Hyundai with 6,480 and Skoda with 5,973. The best-selling car this year is the Hyundai Tucson with 2,805 registrations, ahead of the Kia Sportage with 2,126 and the Toyota Corolla with 1,981.

The best-selling EV is the VW ID.4 with 1,713 registrations, significantly ahead of its nearest rival, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 with 998, with the Tesla Model Y in third place with 711 sales.

There has been a dramatic recovery in the hire drive market this year, with registrations more than double what they were in the first four months of last year. By the end of April 5,698 new cars were registered in the hire drive market, up from 1,845 for the same period last year.

Car rental registrations are led by the Toyota C-HR with 348, followed by the Dacia Sandero with 331, the Nissan Qashqai with 305 and the Dacia Duster with 263. Just 100 of the car rental registrations have been EVs this year.