The level of new car sales is slightly up on last year in Carlow but the figure for Kilkenny has fallen.
The latest figures from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry, SIMI, show Kilkenny is among 11 counties where sales are down on 2021 levels – going from 1,651 units to 1,645. While Carlow went from 1,002 vehicles in 2021 to 1,005 this year.
Nationally July saw a drop of 17.3% in overall car sales but there was a rise of 44.5% in the sale of electric vehicles.
It’s prompted calls for supports aimed at getting more people driving electric to be retained.
Director General of SIMI Brian Cooke says while Government supports have been generous so far, they need to continue to keep up this growing trend; “I think if we look at experiences in some other countries in Europe when supports were removed initially there was a fall-off in electric vehicle sales but we have the momentum, we need to keep up that momentum, so we need to bring customers to the table and the government can do that by keeping the incentives in place, at least for two or three more years”.
