The CSO said that a total of 2,255 new electric cars were sold in Ireland in August, up 49.04 percent compared with the same month last year.

In the first eight months of this year, sales of new electric cars in the country increased by 63.72 percent to 19,021, compared with the same period last year.

The share of electric cars in the total number of new car sales in Ireland for the first eight months of this year stood at 18.53 percent, an increase of more than five percentage points year-on-year, CSO said.

A total of 102,600 new cars were sold in Ireland between January and August, up nearly 19 percent compared with the corresponding period last year.

Ireland aims to increase the number of electric cars on its roads to 845,000 by the year 2030, under a climate action plan released by the Irish government in 2021.

At the end of 2021 there were less than 45,000 electric cars in Ireland, the government said.

CSO’s figures show that in 2022, over 15,000 new electric cars were sold in Ireland, in addition to some 400 used electric cars.