Just 959 private electric vehicles were registered in County Roscommon as of June this year, placing the county among the lowest in the country for EV ownership.
New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that Roscommon had the fourth-lowest number of privately licensed electric vehicles nationally, ahead only of Monaghan, with 704, Longford with 550 and Leitrim with 434.
By comparison, Dublin had 47,401 private EVs, followed by Cork with 13,840, Kildare with 8,789 and Meath with 6,647. Galway had 4,980, while neighbouring Mayo had 1,618.
The figures highlight a considerable geographical divide in the adoption of electric vehicles. Dublin, Cork, Kildare, Meath, Wicklow and Galway together accounted for 70 per cent of the country’s private EV fleet, despite representing 57.2 per cent of the population.
Nationally, there were 134,475 electric vehicles across the entire licensed vehicle fleet in June, representing 4 per cent of all licensed vehicles. Petrol and diesel vehicles together continued to account for 85.3 per cent of the fleet.
Electric vehicles are, however, becoming increasingly prominent among new cars. Between January and June this year, EVs accounted for
24.1 per cent of new private vehicles licensed in Ireland.
The CSO figures also show that the country’s electric vehicle fleet remains comparatively young, with more than eight in ten private EVs less than five years old.
