Sales of new cars in Mayo lag behind rest of Connacht
Electric car sales have increased in Mayo but at a much slower rate than the rest of the country.
Sales of new cars in Mayo increased in October but at a slower rate than all other Connacht counties bar Leitrim.
Figures from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) revealed that there were 2,033 new vehicle registrations in Mayo from January 1 to October 31, 2023, an increase of 6.05% on last year, when 1,917 new cars were registered in the same ten-month period. In October, 28 new cars were registered - a drop of 44% when compared to October 2022 when 50 new cars were registered.
Compared to Roscommon where new vehicle registrations have increased by 12.46% in the first ten months of 2023 (from 995 to 1,119), the Mayo figure seems quite poor, but it is more in line with Galway (+7.12%) and Sligo (+7.86%). Galway continues to be the dominant player in the car market in the West with 4,757 new registrations up to October 31, compared to 4,441 for the same period last year. In Sligo, new vehicle registrations of 1,111 were recorded compared to 1,030 a year ago, while in Leitrim, sales increased from 423 to 438, a rise of just 3.55%.
With the exception of Roscommon, all of the Connacht counties are well behind the national average increase of 15.6% in new car registrations in 2023 (120,495 up to October 31 compared to 104,204 for the same period in 2022).
There continues to be an increase in the use of electric cars in Mayo, but again the county trails the national average by some distance. A total of 247 electric vehicles were registered in Mayo up to October 31, compared to 216 for the first ten months of 2022. However, the increase of 14.35% is significantly less than the national average of 46.1% in 2022. Galway (+32.63%) was the only Connacht county to come close to the national average, with Roscommon (+17.31%) and Sligo (+17.53%) posting similar increases to Mayo.
The sale of new electric vehicles nationwide slowed in October, with the SIMI figures showing that a total of 607 new electric vehicles were registered during the month, a decrease of 17.6% on the 737 registered the same month last year.
October marked the second month in a row of slowing EV sales. However, SIMI added that a total of 22,280 new electric cars have been registered so far this year, up from 15,247 in 2022.
Meanwhile, imported or used cars are up 4.2% to 42,463 from 40,752.
