New car sales to the end of July this year has already surpassed the total number of new cars registered for the whole of 2015.

A total of 29,931 new cars were registered in the first month of the 162 numberplate, bringing the total so far this year to 131,264, a rise of 19.4 per cent on the same seven-month period last year. It also exceeded the total registered in 2015 (124,947).

Sales rose 8.5 per cent in July compared to the same month last year.

Hyundai is back as the best-selling brand with 14,460 registrations, ahead of Toyota on 13,952 and Ford on 13,426. Volkswagen has slipped back to fourth place with 13,419.

Volkswagen sales are down slightly on last year, one of the few brands to record a slip in sales compared to 2015. However, for Volkswagen the drop is just 0.59 per cent, compared to a fall-off of 18 per cent at Citroen, 10 per cent at Subaru and 11.8 per cent at Porsche.

Not all the VW Group brands are recording a fall-off, with Skoda reporting a healthy 24.2 per cent increase, while Audi sales are up 18.8 per cent.

Audi has the lead in the premium segment with 5,211 sales to date, ahead of BMW on 4,529 and Mercedes Benz on 3,251.

Tucson success

The success of the Korean brand is largely down to the popularity of its Hyundai Tucson model, the best-selling new car in Ireland so far this year with 6,922 registrations, well ahead of its nearest rival the Ford Focus, which recorded 4,495 sales.

The popularity of the family crossover format is evident from the sales figures, with small standard family hatchbacks still the overall favourite with 35,194 sales, but the standard SUV format - such as the Hyundai Tucson and Nissan Qashqai - recording 34,709 sales.

Diesel remains the favoured engine option for Irish buyers, representing 70.01 per cent of sales, compared with petrol at 27.86 per cent. Electric car sales continued to slide, with just 341 registered so far this year, down form 398 this time last year. There has been significant growth in petrol-electric hybrid sales, up 90.14 per cent to 2,238, while plug-in hybrid variants added a further 219 sales.

Brexit

According to Alan Nolan, director general of the Society of the Irish Motor Industry new car sales growth has growth has continued into July, although at a noticeably slower rate than the first two quarters, “perhaps due to a combination of external factors such as Brexit and the fact that the extremely high growth rates of recent years must naturally slow”.

“It is important however for both the industry and the economy that, new vehicle sales continue to be at sustainable levels, which for new cars is in the region of 150,000 to 160,000, based on the current population and the age of the national car fleet.

“A new car market in the region of 150,000 delivers over €1 billion in tax revenues, supports the employment of more than 40,000 in the sector, and assists in reducing our CO2 emissions from transport by tens of thousands of tonnes. In this context, we would encourage a Budget strategy focused on building consumer confidence and improving the business environment, particularly with all recent economic forecasts for Ireland anticipating lower growth rates than had been previously expected for the remainder of this year and for 2017.”