Nearly 10% of all car searches in Ireland are now for Electric & Hybrid vehicles.

New data released by Ireland’s leading motor website DoneDeal has revealed that nearly 10% of all car searches nationwide are now for Electric and Hybrid vehicles.

For this research, DoneDeal analysed over 200 million car searches on their website between January 2017 and May 2019.

The data revealed that searches for Hybrid & Electric cars increased by 244% over the two and a half year period, accounting for just 2.5% of searches at the start of 2017 and growing to 8.6% by May of this year.

The search data closely mirrors activity in the new car sales market for the opening five months of the year. Since January 7,453 Hybrid vehicles were sold in the state – accounting for 9.4% of the total new car sales market. Electric sales reached an all-time high of 1,901 for this time period and now represent 2.4% of all new cars on Irish roads.

Interestingly, DoneDeal also revealed that Petrol searches grew from 19% to 23% between January 2017 and May of this year. Diesel which still accounts for the largest number of searches and car sales saw its share of the search market shrink to 68.2% from 78.4% in January of 2017.

Martin Clancy from DoneDeal said: “Search trends are a clear indicator of consumer preference and future purchasing behaviour. For instance, our search data highlighted the decline of Diesel as early as 2016. These user behaviours translated into the first noticeable drop in Diesel’s new car market share the following year. Presently, 6% of all searches are now for Hybrid vehicles with 3% of consumers solely focused on Electric car searches.”

The figures come on the back of the Government’s announcement this week that it is aiming to have 100% of cars on the road to be electric by 2030.