Ireland registered 29,046 new cars in July 2026, with a record 9,682 electric
Ireland registered 29,046 new cars in July 2026, up 8.6% on July 2025, as the 262 plate opened. Inside that month sat 9,682 battery-electric registrations, up 98% year on year and the highest monthly EV count Ireland has ever recorded, which is roughly one in every three cars sold.
July 2026 headline numbers
| Metric | July 2026 | vs July 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| New car registrations | 29,046 | +8.6% |
| Battery-electric | 9,682 | +98% |
| Light commercials | 5,744 | -6% |
| Heavy goods vehicles | 433 | +14.2% |
| Used car imports | 8,616 | +27% |
| YTD new cars | 114,228 | +5.2% |
| YTD battery-electric | 29,840 | +61% |
| YTD used imports | 55,724 | +37% |
Year-to-date powertrain mix
| Powertrain | Share of 2026 registrations |
|---|---|
| Electric | 26.12% |
| Hybrid (petrol electric) | 24.59% |
| Petrol | 20.39% |
| Plug-in hybrid | 14.45% |
| Diesel | 12.45% |
Why the July number carries weight
Ireland's registration year is front-loaded and plate-driven. January is the largest month, July is the second, and the months in between are comparatively thin. That makes July the last high-volume window of 2026, so the full-year electric share is close to settled at this point rather than still open. Electric has now passed hybrid as the single largest powertrain on the year to date, a first for the Irish market.
Source and methodology
All figures verified against the SIMI July 2026 release, published 4 August 2026, and independently corroborated by RTE. total_registrations follows SIMI's official year-to-date print of 114,228; the sum of the published monthly series is 114,298 because SIMI revises its cumulative figures. The live monthly bars, county split and fuel mix sit on the Ireland dashboard. Verified 2026-08-26.