The Irish Examiner says a total of 121 electric vehicles were registered in 2012 to end September, a “statistically significant” jump from the 23 registered throughout 2011 and the 48 registered in 2010. But the January-September EV registration figures released by the Central Statistics Office pale beside the total of 71,619 vehicles registered in the country already this year (representing 0.17%) — and in relation to the government targets set for electric vehicle deployment.
The paper says these low electric car sales figures mean there are now “hundreds” more public charging points in the country than there are vehicles to use them. The Irish government had set in 2011 a target of having 10% of the national fleet running on electricity by 2020, and 6,000 EVs on the roads by the end of 2012. The ESB grid utility has committed to installing 1,500 public charging points and making 2,000 home charging points available.
559 new hybrid cars and 1,189 dual-fuel gasoline/ethanol vehicles had been registered in the first nine months of 2012 in Ireland.
