Data released today (Friday 28 May) by the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) show that more new cars have already been sold this year than in the whole of 2009.
A total of 57,460 cars were sold last year, which lead to a cautious prediction of 70,000 units for 2010. Now, however, that figure looks pessimistic.
Alan Nolan, Director General of SIMI puts the success down to the scrappage scheme:
"At the start of this year, we were very cautious about our expectations for 2010. While we knew that scrappage would have the knock on effect of increased sales, we didn't expect to be hitting the 57,000 mark in May. At the beginning of the year we predicted 70,000 new car sales for 2010. Now, we are looking at considerably more. Our proposals last year outlined that we never had expectations that tens of thousands of scrappage scheme cars would be sold, but we did say that one of the real benefits of scrappage would be to kick-start the demand for new cars. We can clearly see today that this is working. Our CO2 emissions are reducing too with the average car representing 150g/km last year to 135g/km as of today, a reduction of 10% in a year."
Nolan continued, "Our industry was one of the worst hit in the economic downturn. We can be the first to come out of it too."