Buyers put the brakes on as new car sales in Kilkenny slow by 7%
New car sales in Kilkenny fell by a hefty 6.97% in January when compared to the same month last year, new figures from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) show.
Just 667 new cars were purchased in the county last month while 717 where sold during the same period in 2019.
According to SIMI, 201 new vehicle registration figures for January are down 3.5% (31,251) nationally when compared to January 2019 (32,370).
The biggest selling cars were Toyota Corolla, Hyundai Tucson, Ford Focus, Renault Clio and Hyundai Kona respectively.
Light Commercial vehicles (LCV) are up 2.1% (5,666) compared to January last year (5,548). HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) registrations are showing an increase of 8.8% (385) in comparison to January 2019 (354).
Used car imports saw a 26.4% (6,623) decline in January when compared with January 2019 (9,003).
Despite a decline in new car registration an important stat of note was the reduction in CO2 emissions.The average CO2 emissions (108.33g/km) relating to a new car sold in January 2020 reduced by 5.8% on the comparison (115.04g/km) to the same time last year.
Diesel continues to remain the most popular engine type (42.1%) following by petrol (39.6), hybrid (13.6%) which gained a significant increase in market share along with electric (2.9%) and plug-in hybrid (1.8%).
New electric car registrations increased with 898 registered in January 2020, compared to 799 January 2019.
