With the ever increasing prices of cars and affordability of motor vehicles at the start of the decade many Irish customers began to look abroad and to the prospect of bringing cars in from the UK, the price and spec of the cars being the main attraction point since the years have gone on this has become more difficult for the consumer in this piece we will go on to discuss these matters.
In 2019 Rte reported that imported second-hand cars from the UK will overtake the number of new cars sold in Ireland for the first time. The Consumer Market Monitor from the Marketing Institute of Ireland showed that new and second-hand car sales continue to decline from 901,000 in 2016 to 839,000 in 2019. At its peak in 2007, the new car market topped 180,000, while imported second-hand sales amounted to just 59,255. But since 2016, new-car sales have followed a decline from 142,688 that year to just 127,045 in 2018, with sales down a further 12.9% in the first quarter of 2019 to 50,861. Imported second-hand cars registered for the first time have continued an upwards trend.
To combat this the Irish government have brought in a NOx levy. This has a big impact on the cost of importing older used cars into the country, this was done to try to boost new car sales in Ireland as well as making imports less attractive. Over half of the cars imported into Ireland in 2019 where more than four years old so it seems that this levy could have a great impact of the renewal of the Irish car market in the future.
However as it currently stands 111,245 new cars have been registered since 2020, which would represent a decline of 5% on the 2019 outturn. Which shows that the market still has some way to go to find more on this take a look at our white paper.
Find attached : https://fdw.ie/auto-stats/