Brian Cooke, the Director General for the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (Simi), has expressed disappointment at the weakened performance of electric vehicle (EV) sales within the UK. Whilst acknowledging the constraints of vehicle costs and potential driving range limits, he pointed out the sharp decrease in new EV registrations from last year.
In August 2023, new EV registrations were at 1,782, but they fell by 29.3% to just 1,259 in the same period this year. The drop has been continuous, causing a 25.3% reduction year-to-date, with current numbers at 15,129 registrations compared to the previous 20,266, as per data from Simi.
This trend isn’t isolated to EVs, as overall car registrations have also seen a decline of 8.4% in August compared to the same period last year. From 8,261 registrations last year, the number plummeted to 7,567 this year. Cooke highlighted this as the sixth successive month of falling car registrations.
As we head towards the next budget session, Cooke asserted the need for extension of benefit-in-kind incentives around EV products, returning EV purchase grants to their 2022 levels, and enlarging the network of charging stations for EVs until market conditions turn around.
Simi revealed that EV sales have dwindled in every county with the most significant drop in Cavan at 52.38%. Over half of this year’s EV registrations originated from Dublin, while remote counties like Leitrim and Longford accounted for as little as 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively.
Despite the drop in EVs, other engine types fared better with petrol leading the way at 31.37%, followed by diesel at 23.06%, hybrid engines at 20.94%. Plug-in hybrids and EVs made up smaller shares of the market at 13.49% and 9.57% respectively.
Sales of heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) experienced a decline of 41.5 per cent, having made only 172 sales in the month of August this year. However, when looking at the trajectory of sales for the year till now, the category witnesses an increase of 11.2 per cent, tallying to a total of 2,466 sales.