Kilkenny motorists go green as electric and hybrid cars drive motor sales

A surge in car sales in Kilkenny city and city county in the first six-months of the year has been driven by growing demand for electric and hybrid vehicles.

More than 27% of all new registrations in Kilkenny so far this year have been either an electric or hybrid vehicle.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) latest report on vehicles licensed for the first time shows 1,210 new cars were registered in Kilkenny in the first half of this year.

In comparison, there were 1,060 new car registrations in Kilkenny in the first six-months of 2020, representing an increase of 14.2% year on year.

Despite the recent impressive rise, new car registrations are still down on pre-Covid-19 numbers. In the first half of 2019, there were 1,299 new registrations, a near 7% drop.

The encouraging sign for the industry locally is the unprecedented rise in people looking for electric or hybrid cars. In the first six months of this year, more new Hybrid and Electric cars were registered than in the whole of 2020.

So far this year 334 electric or hybrid cars have been registered as opposed to a total of 298 last year.