What's the news?
New car registrations for March fell more than 10 per cent compared to 2017's figure, reports the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI).
A total of 17,796 were registered in March 2018, more than 2,000 units down on March 2017's figure of 19,890 - resulting in a 10.5 per cent fall year-on-year.
To date, 2018 is also behind on new car registrations, with 71,842 so far comparing to 75,982 in the same period last year, a reduction of 5.5 per cent.
Better news came in the Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) sector, where new registrations climbed 2 per cent to 3,147, compared to March 2017's figure of 3,084 - and, year-to-date, LCV numbers are up 5.4 per cent to 12,537. However, Heavy Commercial Vehicles (HGV) have declined 11.2 per cent for both the month of March (from 305 12 months ago to 271 for this year) and year-to-date (916 HGV units registered in 2018 so far).
Imported used cars have also fallen slightly in March, with 8,154 brought in during the month this year compared to 8,545 in 2017 (-4.6 per cent), but overall they're up this year - 26,116 units in 2018 compares to 23,862 at the same point in 2017, a rise of 9.5 per cent.
Anything else?
Alan Nolan, SIMI director general, said: "March has been a challenging trading month for our industry, with snow days and two public holidays leading to shorter trading weeks, but we also had the hire-drive deliveries at similar levels to last year to bolster registrations.
"Brexit, however, remains the dominant issue, with used car imports up 9.5 per cent for the first quarter while new car registrations are down by 5.5 per cent over the same period. For the month of March, new car registrations (-10.5 per cent) and used car imports (-4.6 per cent) are both down, although it should be noted that the number of business days were reduced this year due to the Storm Emma and the Easter Holiday period, which was in April last year.
"Overall, registrations for the first quarter remain in line with projections based on the continuing impact of Brexit and the increasing volume of imported used cars. The light commercial vehicle sector by contrast has seen a continued increase, reflecting the strong economic growth for businesses at present."
And Mr Nolan added: "Continuing the trend highlighted in January, the diesel market share has reduced from 67 per cent last year to 56 per cent in 2018. This will have implications for our CO2 targets, as the average CO2 emissions from a new car (113.2g/km) in Q1 this year has increased by 1.5g/km (from 111.7g/km in Q1 2017). This would produce a calculated increase of around 2,000 tonnes in annual CO2 for the new cars registered so far this year. The increasing volume of imported used cars in Q1 had average CO2 emissions of 121.1g/km."