By Gerry Murphy

Toyota has closed out the competitive January passenger car sales period in pole position, continuing the brand’s dominance as Ireland’s best-selling car brand for three years in a row.

Toyota sold 4,446 passenger cars last month, over 700 more than the next best seller, giving it a market leading share of 16.25%, and demonstrating the continued high demand for its wide range of low-emission, hybrid vehicles.

Toyota cars accounted for four of the top five best-selling cars with Yaris Cross, Yaris, Toyota C-HR and Corolla all posting impressive numbers. With hybrids representing 21% of the entire January market, Toyota is benefiting from the continued migration away from diesel to more environmentally friendly options.

Reflecting this fact is that January sales of hybrids were just 2.3% lower than the historically high selling diesels. Diesel market share has also fallen significantly over the past few years, dropping from 42.4% in 2020 to 23.2% in 2022. On the other hand, full EVs showed continued growth accounting for 13.8% of the market, while PHEVs were at 7.1% and petrol came in at 37.4%.