Car sales flat in County Cavan for first half of the year

Toyota remains most popular make locally

New car sales in County Cavan remained flat for the first half of this year, compared to the same period in 2024.

There were 808 new vehicles registered in the Breffni county between January and June 2025, the exact same number as the first six months in 2024. More than half of those were sold in the month of January, the start of the '251' season.

Toyota remains the most popular make with car buyers in County Cavan with 164 vehicles registered, or one in five of all car sales for the first half of the year. Skoda (104), Volkswagen (102), Nissan (71) and Ford (66) complete the top five manufacturers locally.

The most popular model locally, meanwhile, was the Skoda Kodiaq with 40 units sold. The Toyota Rav 4 (38), the Hyundai Tucson (32), Nissan Qashqai (30), Toyota C-HR (29) and Toyota Corolla (29) are also a hit with Cavan drivers.

Sales in County Cavan were slightly behind the national trend, which recorded a 3.5% growth in sales or 81,750 units compared to 78,979 new cars registered in the first half of 2024.

Automatic cars are now outselling manual drives by a rate of more than two to one in the county; while the most popular colour with motorists is still grey, followed by blue, black, white and red.

The figures for the '251' sales period were released recently by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI).

Nationally, year to date, sales of Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs) are down 6.7% (18,820); while new registrations for Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) are down 9.3% (1,649). Year to date imports are up 8.1% (33,896) on 2024 (31,370).

In Cavan, almost one in three cars sold in the first half of this year locally were petrol-electric hybrids, with diesel coming in second place at 26% and petrol engines in third at 25%. Purely electric cars now account for 10% of sales locally.

So far this year, at a national level, 13,631 new electric cars have been registered, representing a 27% increase compared to the same period in 2024, when 10,737 electric cars were sold.

Brian Cooke, SIMI Director General, commented: “The most notable statistic for the half of the year has been the performance of Battery electric vehicle sales, which have shown consistent growth each month.”

He points out that, nationally, EVs represent nearly 17% of new cars sold this year.

“While this is clearly a positive development, it should be highlighted that EV sales are behind 2023 levels (14,307), and extension of Government supports is still vital in the establishment of the EV market,” he encouraged.

The Commercial vehicle sector experienced mixed results.

Mr Cooke said: “Overall, commercial vehicle sales continued to reflect the uncertain business environment at present.”

As July marks the commencement of the ‘252’ sales period, Mr Cooke also highlighted the debut of the new green ‘flash’ on license registration plates for zero-emission vehicles.

“We look forward to seeing the new EV plate on Irish roads,” he said.