The motor industry estimates the Government’s scrappage scheme has resulted in 5,000 new car sales, an additional €60 million in tax and saved 20,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
Reporting a 38 per cent rise of new car sales for the first four months of the year compared to the same period last year, the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) claims the scheme has also saved thousands of local jobs.
With four months of the year now gone SIMI director general Alan Nolan said: “At this stage it is clear that the scrappage scheme is yielding the results we had predicted last autumn.”
The industry lobby group estimates an additional €60 million in VRT and Vat has been generated from new car sales, even after subtraction of scrappage refunds.
In terms of the improved emissions, it claims a savings of 20,000 tonnes of carbon this year alone as car buyers have made more environmentally responsible buying decisions.
This is based partly on the fact that the average new car sold in Ireland so far this year had emissions of 135 g/km. Over the same period last year the average was 150.6 g/km.
The shift towards lower emissions is also reflected in the tax bands, where 75 per cent of new cars now fall into band A or B.
The latest sales figures show that 50,906 new cars were registered up to last Friday, April 30th. That’s an increase of 38.27 per cent on the same four-month period last year.
Ford is the best-selling brand, with 6,667 new car sales up to the end of April, followed by Toyota with 6,115 and Volkswagen with 5,954.
In the premium market, Audi is now the biggest volume premium brand with sales of 1,639 so far this year, compared to 1,402 for Mercedes and 1,223 for BMW.