Kildare & Meath are Ireland’s EV capitals as DoneDeal Cars data reveals a stark north-west divide in electric car uptake

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DoneDeal Cars has analysed new car registration data for all 26 counties to reveal a striking divide in Ireland’s electric vehicle transition. With national EV sales up 54% year-on-year and EV searches on DoneDeal Cars up 94% over the same period, the shift toward electric is accelerating — but the data shows it is happening far faster in some parts of the country than others.

The analysis, drawing on SIMI new car registration figures for January to May 2026 and DoneDeal Cars’ own platform data, shows electric cars are the best-selling fuel type in just four of Ireland’s 26 counties. In five counties, diesel is still outselling electric outright.

New car registrations by fuel type: Jan–May 2026 vs 2025

Source: All new car data from SIMI (Society of the Irish Motor Industry), January–May 2026 vs January–May 2025.

The EV heroes: Ireland’s four electric capitals

Just four counties have crossed the tipping point where electric is the single best-selling new fuel type, beating both petrol hybrid and petrol:

Source: All new car data from SIMI (Society of the Irish Motor Industry), January–May 2026 vs January–May 2025.

Kildare leads the country at 5.0 new EV registrations per 1,000 people — the highest rate of any county in Ireland. All four counties are in Leinster with strong Dublin commuter populations, where EV uptake in new car sales is running at well above the national average of 3.7 per 1,000.

Hybrid Ireland: the #1 fuel type in 20 of 26 counties

While electric dominates the headlines, petrol hybrid is the real bestseller in 20 of Ireland’s 26 counties — including Cork, Galway, Limerick, Kerry, Tipperary, Donegal, and every Connacht county. Hybrid new car sales are up 17% year-on-year nationally, and the fuel type now accounts for 26.1% of all new car registrations — the largest single share of any engine type in the market.

Five counties where diesel still outsells electric for new cars

In five counties, diesel is registering more new cars than electric in 2026. Every one is west, north-west, or border:

Source: All new car data from SIMI (Society of the Irish Motor Industry), January–May 2026 vs January–May 2025.

Monaghan is the only county in Ireland where petrol is the #1 fuel type and electric finishes last of all four categories. In Leitrim, just 49 new electric cars were registered in the first five months of 2026 — one for every 718 residents, compared to a national average of one for every 270. All five counties have EV per capita rates running at less than half the national average.

The Dublin surprise: petrol leads in the capital

Despite being the single largest EV market in Ireland by volume — accounting for 41% of all new EV registrations nationally — petrol is the best-selling fuel type in Dublin in 2026, ahead of both hybrid and electric in proportional terms.

Source: All new car data from SIMI (Society of the Irish Motor Industry), January–May 2026 vs January–May 2025.

In the four counties where EV is #1 — Kildare, Meath, Wicklow and Laois — electric is outpacing petrol by a clear margin. Dublin, despite its volume, has not yet crossed that threshold.

Used EV availability on DoneDeal Cars by county

DoneDeal Cars listing data for the last 12 months shows that used EV availability broadly tracks the pattern of new EV registrations — strongest in Dublin, Cork and Kildare, and thinner in the western and border counties where new EV uptake has been slowest.

Source: DoneDeal Cars used EV listing data covers all EV listings published on DoneDeal.ie in the last 12 months. Data is all-island.

DoneDeal Cars currently has over 6,500 EVs available — the largest selection of any car marketplace in Ireland. A third of those are new, giving buyers the choice of both new and used electric vehicles in one place.

New €8,500 scrappage scheme targets the counties the data identifies

The government announced today that owners of petrol and diesel cars aged 13 years or older will be eligible for grants of €8,500 to purchase a new electric vehicle — structured as a €5,000 scrappage payment combined with the existing €3,500 EV purchase grant. The €10 million pilot scheme launches in July 2026 on a first-come, first-served basis.

Significantly, 65% of the fund — €6.5 million — has been ring-fenced specifically for rural areas, with only 35% available to residents of the five cities of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford. The rural weighting directly reflects what the county-level data shows: EV uptake per capita in Connacht and border counties is running at less than half the national average.

The five counties where diesel currently outsells electric in 2026 new car sales — Leitrim, Mayo, Monaghan, Cavan and Roscommon — are all in the rural areas the scheme is designed to reach. All five have EV per capita rates below 2.1 per 1,000 people, against a national average of 3.7.

The existing €3,500 EV grant price cap will also fall from €60,000 to €50,000 from 31 July. An additional €30 million is being added to the existing EV grant scheme from the Climate Action Fund, following EV sales growth of 54% in the year to date.