Ireland registered 29,046 new cars in July 2026, with a record 9,682 electric

Latest data: SIMI has since published August 2026. Read the newer report. This page is kept as the record for its month.

Ireland registered 29,046 new cars in July 2026, up 8.6% on July 2025, as the 262 plate opened (SIMI, 4 August 2026). 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 the year, so the full-year electric share is largely shaped by this point. Electric has now passed hybrid as the single largest powertrain on the year to date, a first for the Irish market.

Source and methodology

Figures from 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.