Number of cars on Irish roads grows

THE total number of licensed (taxed) vehicles recorded on Irish roads at the end of last year stood at 2,624,958, according to recently-released department of transport figures.

This represents an increase of 54,664 vehicles (2.13%) on the previous year. The main components of the vehicle fleet include 2,026,977 private cars, 342,259 goods vehicles, 79,871 agricultural tractors and 38,023 motorcycles.

In the passenger car category, the number of vehicles at 2,026,977 represents an increase from 1,985,130 in the previous year (2.11% increase).

A total of 1,000,488 passenger cars are now taxed based on their Co2 emissions rating. This represents an increase of 185,584 (22.77%) units on the previous year figures and the CO2 based vehicles now represents 49.4% of the overall passenger car fleet. There are 84.56% of vehicles bases in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ CO2 bands less than 141 g/km.

A total of 181,293 new vehicles were licensed in 2016, an increase of 27,443 (17.83%) on the previous year figure. 89,603 imported used vehicles were licensed in 2016, an increase of 26,086 (41.62%), on the 2015 figure.

* 42% of vehicles use petrol while 56.93% operate on diesel.

* 78% of private cars are 4 years old and over while 66.9% are 6 years old and over. In 2010, 75% of private cars were 4 years old and over while 56% of private cars were 6 years old and over.

* 75.91% of goods vehicles are 4 years old and over while 68.26% are 6 years old and over.

There were 2.82 million current driving licences at the end of 2016, 91.1% held full licenses. There were 249,657 Learner Permits licences, an increase of 9,215 on the 2015 figure.