THE NUMBER OF newly-licensed private cars fell by almost eight per cent in December, according to new data released by the Central Statistics Office.
There were just 597 new private cars licensed last month, compared with 647 in the previous December, marking a decrease of 7.7 per cent.
However, the total number of new private cars licensed last year was 86,932 – an increase of 2.4 per cent on 2010. Last year, some 86,932 new private cars were licensed; of those, 23,246 (26.7 per cent) were petrol and 61,730 (71.0 per cent) were diesel. The remaining cars used a combination of petrol and electric (538 vehicles), petrol and ethanol (1,370 vehicles) and electric (48 vehicles).
Meanwhile, the number of goods vehicles registered in December saw an increase of 22.7 per cent on the same period of the previous year, with 292 registered in the month in 2011 compared with 238 registered at the same point in 2010. The total number of new goods vehicles for the year overall increased by 6.5 per cent, with 11,188 new goods vehicles licensed in comparison to 10,510 in 2010.
The figures show that the total number of all vehicles licensed was 160,777 compared with 160,418 during the previous year – an increase of 0.2 per cent, while the number of all new vehicles licensed during 2011 was 105,761 compared with 103,076 during 2010 – an increase of 2.6 per cent.
There was a 5.2 per cent increase in the number of used imported private cars licensed last year, with 41,149 compared with 39,103 during 2010.
Classified by make, the highest number of new private cars licensed in 2011, was Toyota (11,065) followed by Volkswagen (11,007), Ford (10,108) and Renault (8,478).
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