New car registrations in Offaly increased slightly in 2021

The number of new cars registered in Offaly last year was up slightly - by 49 vehicles, or 4.4% - when compared with 2020.

However, the increase in new vehicle registrations in Offaly lagged behind other areas of the country, with registrations nationally increasing by an average of 19%.

The figures were released this week by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) in its annual round up of official new vehicle statistics.

It showed that 1,164 new cars were registered in Offaly during 2021, compared with 1,115 in 2020.

The picture was very similar in Laois, with a 4.75% increase in registrations bringing the number of new cars registered up to 1,236.

In Westmeath, on the other hand, there was a substantial 21.5% increase in new cars registered over the last twelve months, bringing its total number of new vehicles last year up to 1,566.

In all, 104,932 new cars were registered in Ireland in 2021, compared to 88,325 for the same period in 2020.

Despite this increase, the car market has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels of activity, with new registrations last year down by more than 10% when compared with 2019.

A total of 8,646 new electric cars were registered in 2021, which was more than twice the figure in 2020 (4,013) and was also up significantly on the figure from 2019 (3,444).

New Light Commercial Vehicle (HCV) registrations in 2021 saw an increase of 32.3% (28,741) compared to 2020 (21,732) while new Heavy Commercial Vehicle (HGV) registrations were up by 31.5% (2,716) in comparison with 2020 (2,066).

Manual transmissions accounted for 50.95% of the market share, while automatic transmissions, at 48.93%, continued to increase their popularity again this year.

The hatchback remained Ireland's top-selling car body type of 2021, while grey was the top-selling colour, as it has been for the past six years.