Gavin Mc Stay discusses the increase in the number of cars licensed in Ireland over the last 2 years.
* A vehicle is licensed when the annual car tax due on the vehicle is paid for the first time.*
The Central Statistics Office has published its Vehicle Licensing Figures for the month of November 2021. The publication shows that the number of new cars licensed in November of this year was up from the last two years. This November saw 2,167 cars licensed for the first time in contrast to 1,468 in November 2020 and 1,676 in November 2019.
| 2020 | 2021 | Change | |
| New private cars | 1,468 | 2,167 | 699 |
| New goods vehicles | 1,509 | 1,701 | 192 |
| New other vehicles | 444 | 569 | 125 |
| Total new vehicles | 3,421 | 4,437 | 1,016 |
Nele van der Wielen, a statistician for the CSO, had this to say about the figures. “In the first 11 months of 2021, a total of 101,021 new private cars were licensed, an increase of 21% compared with the same period last year. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic over the first 11 months of 2021 is still visible as figures remain 10% lower than the same 11 months in 2019.
Unlike new cars licensed, the number of used (imported) private cars licensed decreased in the first 11 months of 2021 compared with the same period in 2020. A total of 64,657 used private cars were licensed, a decrease of 7% compared with the same period last year and a decrease of 36% compared with 2019.
Electric cars continue to grow in popularity as 8% of all new cars licensed in the first 11 months of 2021 were electric cars (8,414), compared with 5% of new cars licensed in the first 11 months of 2020. A further 8% of new car sales were plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.”
In November 2021, Volkswagen (276) was the most popular make of new private car licensed followed by Toyota (233), Skoda (166), Peugeot (128) and Seat (127). Together these five makes represent 42.9% of all new private cars licensed in October 2021.
Diesel cars proved to be the most popular fuel type. With the price of petrol and diesel not too far apart and rising at a rapid pace, the figures from next year might read differently with the electric and hybrid cars slowly rising year on year.
