New car sales registered in 2019 are almost 8% down on the same period 12 months ago with the August figures nationally once again showing a decline across the country.
Sales of new cars were down 13.3% in Ireland in August this year according to figures released by SIMI compared to 2018 though the Laois figures bucked that trend and actually showed an increase, albeit on relatively small overall figures.
There were 71 new recorded car sales in Laois in the month just finished, compared to 48 in August 28. That represents a 47.92% increase – significantly at odds with the rest of the counties.
However, the July figures, which generally represent the second best month after January, were down by 25%.
324 new cars were sold in July in 2018 but this was down to 243 this year.
Across the eight months of the year so far, August was the only month to show an increase on the year-on-year figures and all told, the Laois figures for 2019 are down almost 12% on 2018, which is even worse than the national average.
Once again the sales of electric cars in the county showed a significant increase with 11 electric cars sold in Laois in July and 2 in August compared to five across the two months last year. In total so fare in 2019 there have been 29 electric car sales compared to 11 in all of 2018.
“Despite the strong economic growth, the new car market continues to contract this year, with registrations for the month of August following this trend,” said Brian Cooke, SIMI Director General.
“In this business context and with the increasing likelihood of a hard Brexit, SIMI is calling on the Minister for Finance not to increase taxes on new cars in Budget 2020.
“It is important that our new car market is as strong as possible from both an environmental and employment view point.
“Instead the current Brexit and taxation mix only encourages people to hold on to their older higher emitting cars for longer. New car sales need to increase if Ireland is to see the real benefit of improvements in emissions from new technologies, and taxation systems should support not hinder this.”
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