![\"Brian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4936667_2_articleinline_SIMI_004.jpg\" "\\"Brian")
Brian Cooke, Director General of Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI).\u00a0<\/p>\nThe high rate of electric car adoption over the last few years has been a \u201cpositive story\u201d but unfortunately the Government\u2019s climate target of 845,000 electric cars on the road by 2030 was an \u201cunrealistic target\u201d and it \u201cshouldn\u2019t undermine what we\u2019re trying to achieve,\u201d the director general of Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) has said.<\/p>\n
During 2025, new electric car registrations saw a significant resurgence, rising by 36% to 23,398 after a concerning drop-off in 2024. In 2023, new electric car registrations stood at 22,493.<\/p>\n
A high adoption rate of electric cars is a significant pillar of the Government\u2019s climate action plan. The country hit an initial target of 195,000 electric cars on the road by the end of 2025; however, the target for 2030 is to have 845,000 private electric cars on the road.<\/p>\n
This means that 650,000 additional electric cars will have to be registered in five years or, on average, 130,000 a year.<\/p>\n
The director general of SIMI, Brian Cooke, said every new car sold would have to be either an electric car or a plug-in hybrid to meet those targets.<\/p>\n
Brian Cooke, Director General of Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI).\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first climate action plan to highlight those targets was in 2019. We said at the time that that target was not realistic, and it never has been realistic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be negative about electric vehicle sales, because there are going to be hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles on the road in 2030, coming from basically zero in 2020. We\u2019re probably on track for maybe 450,000, which is a bit more than half of their targets, and we might do a bit better than that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a positive story. We are moving towards electric, we\u2019re moving towards zero-emission vehicles.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn many ways, that\u2019s been used as a negative to knock electric vehicle sales, which have been really good from a standing start so far.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unfair to expect Ireland to hit an unrealistic target, but it shouldn\u2019t undermine what we\u2019re trying to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that the Government needs to continue to incentivise their adoption.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think EV sales will increase this year, and I think there\u2019ll be further increases in hybrid, plug-in hybrid vehicle sales,\u201d he said, adding that early indications show that electric car sales are up in the first few weeks of January compared to last year.<\/p>\n
One area that electric cars have the potential to disrupt the dealership sector is around after-sales care, repair, and servicing, which is a large part of any dealer\u2019s business \u2014 as electric vehicles have very few moving parts when compared to a regular internal combustion engine vehicle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere still is going to be an after-sales business in electric vehicles. It may not be the same; there are not as many moving parts, but there are some parts of the vehicles that require more attention, particularly the braking systems, which are important for regeneration, the tyres as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo there is still going to be an aftermarket piece to the business, and what we see in SIMI is on a vehicle manufacturer level, all those franchise dealers have up-skilled all their technicians to be able to deal with electric vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that the independent repair sector is also showing a strong appetite for training in hybrid and electric vehicles because they are now actually starting to see used electric cars coming into their places.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe outlook is a bit more positive than some people are saying, and I do think aftercare is still going to be a hugely important part of everyone\u2019s business going forward,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of the nature of electric vehicles and the potential dangers with significant batteries, I think what you\u2019re going to see is more specialised staff and those vehicles are all going to find their way into workshops that are properly equipped with the properly qualified technicians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another potential issue for the sector was moves by manufacturers towards direct-to-consumer agency models for dealerships rather than through franchises, which are the most common in Ireland.<\/p>\n
Franchise dealers operate the business themselves; they buy it from the manufacturer and sell it on for a profit \u2014 whereas the agency model sees the dealer owned by the manufacturer, and the seller earns a commission on sales.<\/p>\n
Tesla operates on these direct-to-consumer agency sales.<\/p>\n
Volkswagen attempted to move towards a model like this in Ireland but abandoned it last year.<\/p>\n
Mr Cooke said most of their members like the franchise model, because \u201cthey\u2019re business people, and they\u2019re creative business people\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey provide a lot of jobs. They generate a lot of tax for the government as well, and they like to have a large degree of control over their business,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe agency model may well come back in a few years, but at the moment, over the next couple of years, the vast majority of new car retailers in Ireland will remain on the franchise model.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the trends in the market, Mr Cooke said that there has been a significant reduction in diesel sales over the last decade, which once accounted for 70% of all sales. They are now down 17% according to the CSO.<\/p>\n
One of the significant trends in new cars over the last 10 years, for Mr Cooke, is the cost, which he said has gone up \u201csignificantly\u201d for a number of reasons.<\/p>\n
One factor for these rises is energy costs, while another is the additional important safety and emission regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think the cost has also impacted the size of the new car market, which is down probably 10 to 15% in most European markets compared to where it was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The high rate of electric car adoption over the last few years has been a \u201cpositive story\u201d but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,5367,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-251991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-ireland-markets-irish-economy-iseq-stocks-shares","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}