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.