See all Motoring News With around 120,000 new cars sold every year, and many more used cars changing hands, which model to choose is never too far from an Irish driver’s mind. But which cars are we actually buying? Which cars keep us exercised, and which cars are top of our search lists?
We have a verified list of the best-selling new cars, thanks to the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) which collates the new car registration data each month.
The SIMI figures show that, in what has become almost a tradition, the Hyundai Tucson is the best-selling new car in Ireland, at least up to the end of June 2025 anyway. That’s nothing unusual — ever since the previous generation Tucson was launched in 2016, the mid-size Hyundai SUV has been stuck firmly to the top of the Irish sales charts, only losing to the Toyota Corolla in two years since then.
It’s quite some record of consistently high sales, the sort of performance that we’d have expected in previous years from a Ford Focus or a VW Golf. There’s another SUV in second place in the official new car sales charts — the Toyota RAV4, which in spite of the fact that there’s an all-new model arriving later this year, is still proving to be hugely popular with Irish car buyers.
The next car on the list is also an SUV, but a much smaller one — the Toyota Yaris Cross, and given that it’s a sharply-priced car with the potential for 4.5 litres per 100km fuel consumption, that should come as no surprise.
In fourth place is the Kia Sportage, which is basically the same car, under the skin, as the Hyundai Tucson, and yet which has only occasionally come close to knocking its cousin off the top sales spot.
In fifth place, we at last come to a car that’s not an SUV — the Skoda Octavia. The Octavia actually rose as high as second in the sales charts in 2024, and it at least proves that not every Irish driver wants to sit up high.
In sixth place is the evergreen Toyota Corolla, while in seventh is the big Skoda Kodiaq. That’s followed in eighth by the VW Tiguan, in ninth by the Hyundai Kona and finally in tenth place by the VW Golf.
Which is kind of interesting, because it’s the Golf that tops the charts for people searching for cars here on Carzone. In fact, while the new car sales top ten is dominated by SUVs, that hasn’t yet trickled down to the second-hand market, and the Carzone search top ten still leans heavily towards saloons and hatchbacks.
So, with the Golf in the No.1 spot, in second place is the BMW 5 Series. Given that BMW is the sixth best-selling brand in new car sales terms, that ought not to be a surprise, and even though we’re headed towards an electric future, the 5 Series’ combo of diesel frugality and low emissions (and therefore low motor tax) combined with a peerless image keeps it high on buyers’ minds.
Next up on the Carzone search list is the Hyundai Tucson, and that’s followed by a pair of premium-badged models in fourth and fifth places — the Audi A3 and BMW 3 Series. Clearly, Irish buyers are keen to get a posh German badge on the driveway but want to make sure that they’re still getting value for money.
That’s further underlined by the next three cars on the Carzone search list, taking us from sixth to eighth places — the BMW X5, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and the Audi A6. All of these are hugely expensive if you’re buying new, and consequently you’ll have to search deep in the new car sales lists to find them, but when it comes to second-hand value, clearly premium badges carry strong appeal.
Rounding out the Carzone search top ten is a pair of popular SUVs — the VW Tiguan in ninth and the Kia Sportage in tenth.
When it comes to electric cars, there are also some interesting models showing up on the Carzone search, and they’re vehicles that don’t tend to much trouble the upper reaches of the new car sales list.
OK, so at No.1 on the Carzone EV search list, there’s the Volkswagen ID.4, and given that that’s the best-selling new electric car in Ireland, and has been for the past couple of years, that kind of tracks. However, in second place is the MINI Electric, which isn’t a strong seller in the new car market, and this would largely be the previous-generation model that we’re talking about here. That had a very short range (only around 200km) so are large numbers of Irish EV buyers looking at an electric car as a second-car runaround, rather than the main car in the household?
In third place is something much more predictable: the Tesla Model 3. Tesla remains a hugely popular brand in Ireland, both new and used, in spite of the political fallout affecting the company in other countries. The BYD Atto 3 appearing in fourth place is an impressive position for such a new brand, while places five to nine are taken up by perhaps more predictable EVs — the Audi Q4 e-tron, the VW ID.3, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the Nissan Leaf and the Kia EV6. Actually, given the strength of new car sales for the Hyundai and the Kia, it’s a little odd to see them so low on this Carzone used EV search list.
Finally in tenth place there’s a real superstar — the Porsche Taycan, a car that mixes blistering performance and race-car-like poise, with the low running costs of an electric car. Taycans seem to suffer heavy depreciation, making them one of the best-value Porsche models on the second-hand market, which kind of makes you wonder why it’s not higher up this list.