SIMI published its April 2026 bulletin on 1 May, and the headline figure is the kind that makes a market analyst sit up straight: 10,184 new passenger-car registrations, up 17% year-on-year. Year-to-date now stands at 75,074 cars, slightly ahead of full-year 2025's pace at this point. The growth is not evenly distributed across the engine table - and that is the more interesting story.
Battery-Electric Cars More Than Doubled
The single most striking number in the SIMI release is the EV count. 2,779 fully battery-electric cars were registered in April 2026, against 1,335 in April 2025. That is a +109.7% year-on-year jump in a single month, and it is not an artefact of a quiet base period - April is structurally the second-largest plate-change month after January and the data sample is large.
Year-to-date, Ireland has registered 16,779 new EVs across the first four months. That is up 48.5% on the same period in 2025, when the running total was 11,299. The yearly trajectory now points at an EV share well past 20% by full year, possibly higher if Q4 supply holds.
Hybrid Re-Takes the Mix
For most of 2024 and 2025, the engine-type leaderboard in any given month flipped between hybrid and petrol depending on plate-change timing. In April 2026, hybrid (petrol-electric) led at 26.67% market share, followed by full electric at 22.35%, petrol at 21.25%, plug-in hybrid at 14.41%, and diesel at 12.96%. Diesel's share is now down by roughly 50 percentage points from its 2016 peak - one of the fastest powertrain transitions in any European market.
Plug-in hybrids deserve special mention. The 14.41% share is well above PHEV averages elsewhere in Europe, and it suggests Irish buyers continue to use PHEVs as a bridge fuel for households that are not yet ready for a full BEV but want some electric range.
Brand Standings: Toyota, Volkswagen, Skoda
The top-five April brands were Toyota, Volkswagen, Skoda, Hyundai, Kia - the same shape we have seen for most of 2026, with Toyota's hybrid-heavy lineup continuing to carry it. The top-five April models tell a similar story: Toyota Yaris Cross, Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage, Skoda Kodiaq, Toyota Corolla. Every one of those is either a hybrid or available with hybrid powertrains, and every one is a crossover or compact SUV.
The single best-selling car in April was the Toyota RAV4. The single best-selling EV was the Skoda Enyaq, an interesting marker - the Enyaq has consistently outsold higher-profile rivals in Ireland thanks to dealer reach and a price-to-range curve that lands in the right place for Irish buyers.
What April Signals for the Rest of 2026
Ireland's April number normally accounts for around 8-10% of full-year volume, so the +17% YoY in April implies the full-year market will close ahead of 2025's 124,954 if the trend holds. The bigger question is the EV ratio. With BEV share at 22.35% in a single month and YTD growth running at +48.5%, the country looks set to print its highest-ever full-year EV share. Whether that share crosses 25% depends on Q4 supply for the high-volume models - Tesla Model Y, Skoda Enyaq, Volkswagen ID.4 - and on whether the SEAI grant structure stays unchanged through the autumn budget.
Open the live Ireland dashboard on AutoNergy to drill into the monthly bars, fuel-mix streamgraph, and county registration map.