By Brendan Carroll

New car sales in Galway so far this year are down on the same period last year – with the slide in popularity of electric vehicles continuing at pace.

But there has been a growing number of imported used vehicles being brought in to the county, a substantial increase of 24% in the first nine months of this year.

Galway’s new car registrations from January to September this year are down by more than 2% on last year, a fall of just over 100 vehicles to 4,596. That represents the fourth highest sales figures by county, behind Dublin, Cork and Kildare.

Other counties saw widely varying changes over the year, from an increase of over 8% in Leitrim to a drop in sales of over 9% in Waterford. Nationally, there was a drop of 1.4%.

Sales of electric cars continue to fall – down by a massive 40% in Galway so far this year, with a total of 478 EVs registered in the first nine months of this year, compared with 794 in the same period last year.

January is traditionally the month of highest sales and this year was no exception in Galway, when a total of 1,342 cars were registered – which was actually an increase of 157 units on January 2023. The next highest sales month was July – another key date, with the advent of the 242 registration numbers —  with 1,049 cars sold. In September, there were just 217 registered, an increase of 17 on the same month last year.

Toyota is still the most popular car maker with Galway buyers, one in five of whom (19%) opted for the Japanese marque. Next most popular were Skoda and Volkswagen (both 11%).

The Hydundai Tucson remains the number one model in Galway so far this year, well ahead of Toyota’s Rav 4 and  Yaris Cross, with the Skoda Octavia doubling its sales to close the gap in fourth place.

In terms of segment, medium SUVs and small SUVs lead the way, with 60% of the Galway market between them. Hatchback sales lead the way by body type, followed by station wagons and MPVs.

While petrol cars are the most popular in Ireland as a whole, Galway drivers buy more Diesel cars, with petrol and petrol electric (hybrid) almost tying for second.

And two-thirds of all the cars registered in the county so far this year have been automatic transmission, selling twice as many as the traditional manual gear models.

Grey continues to be the most popular colour in Galway, followed by black, blue, white/ivory and red/maroon, which continued its downward slide despite the fact that it includes the county colours.

Meanwhile, the number of used car imports continues to grow. Up to the end of September this year, there had been a total of 2,605 used imports into Galway – 500 more than in the first nine months of 2023.

One fifth of them have been Volkswagens, followed in numbers by Audi, BMW, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz.

Pictured: The Hyundai Tucson: Galway’s favourite car.