As at the start of this year, the survey data clearly shows that the top two financial concerns for motorists are the cost of fuel and road tax, followed closely by the price of motor insurance.
That’s backed up by over 66% of our respondents’ confirming that they plan to buy a more fuel efficient car.
Taking that a step further, 64.1% of those surveyed said they’d buy a diesel model next. The same data revealed that hybrid and electric power remains unpopular, with only 2.2% reckoning they’d choose such a car for their next purchase.
Earlier this year Carzone.ie revealed a large disparity between searches and the used car stock available in terms of fuel type, and though there are more diesel cars for sale now (55.4% of the total stock, up from 51.2%) demand is higher than ever.
An incredible 84.2% of searches on Carzone.ie were for diesel cars - up from 79.8% in 2012.
Cartell.ie’s data backs up this trend with just 34.9% of the cars on the road in Ireland fuelled by diesel (the figure was 33% at the end of 2012).
As explained earlier this year, the imbalance in supply and demand has a lot to do with the change to CO2 emissions-based motor taxation in 2008.
This favours efficient models, and diesel engines in particular, so new car sales since then have been predominantly diesel.
A total of 74% of cars sold in Ireland in 2012 were diesel. The figure for the first six months of 2013 reduced slightly to 72.5%.
Before 2008, VRT and annual road tax were calculated according to engine size, which encouraged buyers to opt for small capacity petrol cars.
It’s those that still make up the majority of the fleet.
Overall used car searches are up on 2012’s figures, but diesel searches increased faster than any other. Only searches for electric cars and bi-fuel vehicles reduced.