Car sales down in January, but so are emissions

Toyota Corolla is best selling car in January.

New cars registrations were down 3.5pc in January compared to the same month last year, writes Brian Byrne.

In all there were 31,251 passenger car registrations for the month, along with 5,666 Light Commercial vehicles registered. The LCV performance was 2.1pc up on January 2019.

A 26.4pc decline in used car imports to 6,623 units is in part attributable to the imposition of new Nitrogen Oxide taxation which typically adds €2,700 to an imported car's price.

Describing the result as 'disappointing', the Society of the Irish Motor Industry nevertheless saw a positive in the average CO2 emissions of a new car sold this year by 5.8pc on the previous year.

Though down again as a share of fuel, diesels remain the most popular engines at 42.1pc of all powertrains, with petrol engines at 39.6pc.

Hybrid engines showed a significant increase at 13.6pc, while battery-electric represented 2.9pc of the market and PHEVs 1.8pc. Electric cars at 898 units represented a 12pc increase.

The top selling car in January was Toyota's Corolla, followed by Hyundai's Tucson, Ford's Focus, Hyundai's Kona and the new Renault Clio.

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