The number of new cars being bought in Laois is down for the first half of this year.
Official statistics released by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry show that the number of 181 cars registered in Laois are down by 1.65 percent compared to the same period in 2017.
There was a total of 1075 new cars bought between January and June of this year, which is eighteen short of the 1093 sold in the first six months of 2017.
The number of cars in Laois contributes to just 1.23 percent of the overall number of cars sold so far in 2018, which is currently up 0.03 percent from last year.
Kia is the most popular car brand, selling 140 cars in the period, up from 131 the previous year (+4.48%).
Ford remains the second most popular car brand with 139 cars sold, representing a -9.15% drop, down from 153.
Toyota is the next most popular model, with 105 units sold, a -7.08% drop from 113 to 105.
Nissan comes in fourth place for popularity and enjoyed a 25.61% increase, from 82 to 103.
In 5th place for popularity is Volkswagen, selling 97 cars, a 12.97% increase on the 86 sold the previous year.
The switch to petrol is up 45.54% in the county, jumping from 224 to 326.
There was also a noticeable increase in sales of petrol/electric with cars up from 34 to 52 – 52.94%.Diesel remains by far the most popular engine choice, but there was a significant drop of 17.41 with sales dropping from 833 in 2017 to 688 in 2018.
Electric cars also jumped by 200%, although this was coming from a low base of 2, up to 6.
In Laois, there was also a noticeable switch to automatic cars which saw a 25.9% increase from 139 to 175. Manual car sales fell from 954 to 900.
Grey is the most popular colour for a car in the county, with 381 units sold, up from 375. It is followed by black (195) and red/maroon (165).
The least popular colour for a car in Laois is purple, with one car in the hue favoured by singer Prince in each year.
Nationally, the number of 181 cars registered in the country is down by 4.5 percent, with 87,151 new cars registered so far, down by almost four thousand cars.
Interestingly, the number of used car imports are up in the first half of the year, with an increase of 12.8 percent on the 2017 figure.
The most popular car brand so far this year has been a Volkswagen, while the top two car models bought were a Nissan Qashqai and a Hyundai Tucson.
Another interesting statistic was the number of electric vehicles sold so far in 2018, with over 529 sold nationally, an increase of 41.44% on last years 374.
SIMI Director General, Alan Nolan stated “While June has seen a decline in new car registrations of 10.4%, registrations in this month are relatively small numbers as many consumers will have waited for a 182 registration number. The more relevant measure is the Year to Date figure which shows a decline of 4.5% compared to the same period in 2017.
“This is somewhat at odds with the growth in economic activity in the country but has to be seen in the context of the volume of used car imports which impact negatively on new car sales. Commercial vehicle registrations both light and heavy vehicles have seen some increase for the month of June, reflecting investment for businesses.”
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