On the back of the recent success of the new Toyota Land Cruiser, a test report of which was first featured in these pages in April of this year, Toyota’s 4x4 sales have cruised ahead of the market.
This has been helped by the growing success of the Toyota Hilux, which has overtaken the Ford Ranger as the best-selling 4x4 pick-up on the Irish market.
This is an impressive result for Toyota, given that the commercial version of the Land Cruiser was only effectively launched on the market in July for the 252 registration period.
In the two months since then, Toyota Land Cruiser registrations have gone from four units for the first six months of 2025 to 877 units (849 commercial and 28 passenger) in the last two months.
This is still half of the sales for the previous Land Cruiser in the full year of 2023, where the model was among the top five light commercial vehicles sold in Ireland, so there is still some catching up to be done.
With a list price of €70,300 incl VAT (€57,192 plus VAT) for a two-seat commercial vehicle, the Land Cruiser looks an expensive buy.
The ease of getting into a new Land Cruiser, even at that price, has been helped by good re-sale values for the previous model, where calculations based on quoted prices, can show a low depreciation value of less than 20% over three years, when many cars are 50% higher.
The nearest competitor to the Land Cruiser Commercial is the Land Rover Discovery with similar towing power and good comfort but costing about €74,800, or €60,900 plus VAT, which is €5,000 (€3,800 plus VAT) more than the Land Cruiser.
Taking all into account, the Land Cruiser has little competition in the 4x4 commercial market, hence the price point for what is essentially a two-seat commercial van with good towing ability and the benefit of four-wheel-drive.
The lack of availability of the new Toyota Land Cruiser up to June 2025 has encouraged many would-be farming customers to consider the twin-cab Hilux as a 4x4 option.
With improved features and comfort and similar 3.5-tonne towing capacity to the Land Cruiser, the Hilux has also become a more cost-effective choice with the extra benefit of four seats.
Entry prices start at €45,520 incl. VAT (€37,000 approx, plus VAT) making it a more price attractive option to the Land Cruiser.
These features have propelled the Hilux past the Ford Ranger in terms of registrations, for the first time in a number of years.
The registrations of new Toyota Hilux 4x4 pick-ups so far for 2025 have been more than double their total numbers for 2024 at 1,034 units to the end of August, an increase of 122%, while registrations of Ford Ranger pick-ups dropped marginally, year on year.
Volkswagen’s new Amarok is making some progress, possibly at the expense of the related through manufacturing of the Ford Ranger.
The numbers for the Isuzu D-Max remain steady while it is interesting to see the two all-electric 4x4 pick-ups from the sale Harris importing company, are making small but steady headway.
Toyota’s new Land Cruiser and a much-improved Hilux are now the firm favourites in the Irish 4x4 market. That success has been helped by the new Toyota 10-year or 185,000km warranty, provided that during that time, you get your 4x4 serviced by a Toyota dealer.
The Toyota Hilux has overtaken the Ford Ranger, for the first time in a number of years, as the market leader in the Irish 4x4 pick-up market.
Electric overtakes diesel in new car market
With a dwindling lack of choice in the availability of new diesel-powered cars on the Irish market, it should come as no surprise that sales of electric cars have overtaken new diesel car sales, according to the latest statistics from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI).
The latest SIMI figures show that 20,645 new electric cars were registered so far this year, a 32% increase compared with 2024.
And electric cars sales were higher than diesel sales which dropped by 24% to 20,032 new cars for the year to the end of August.
The market leader as a pure non-choice electric car is the Volkswagen ID.4, followed by the Kia EV3, the BYD Seal U and Hyundai’s mini car, the Inster. Among the overall market leader diesel car sales are dropping fast.
Ireland’s best-selling car is still the Hyundai Tucson. While the diesel-engine version was dominant in 2024, they dropped by 37% so far this year and accounted for 37% of all Tucson models sold this year, compared with 52% in 2024.
On the back of the recent success of the new Toyota Land Cruiser, a test report of which was first featured in these pages in April of this year, Toyota’s 4x4 sales have cruised ahead of the market.
This has been helped by the growing success of the Toyota Hilux, which has overtaken the Ford Ranger as the best-selling 4x4 pick-up on the Irish market.
This is an impressive result for Toyota, given that the commercial version of the Land Cruiser was only effectively launched on the market in July for the 252 registration period.
In the two months since then, Toyota Land Cruiser registrations have gone from four units for the first six months of 2025 to 877 units (849 commercial and 28 passenger) in the last two months.
This is still half of the sales for the previous Land Cruiser in the full year of 2023, where the model was among the top five light commercial vehicles sold in Ireland, so there is still some catching up to be done.
With a list price of €70,300 incl VAT (€57,192 plus VAT) for a two-seat commercial vehicle, the Land Cruiser looks an expensive buy.
The ease of getting into a new Land Cruiser, even at that price, has been helped by good re-sale values for the previous model, where calculations based on quoted prices, can show a low depreciation value of less than 20% over three years, when many cars are 50% higher.
The nearest competitor to the Land Cruiser Commercial is the Land Rover Discovery with similar towing power and good comfort but costing about €74,800, or €60,900 plus VAT, which is €5,000 (€3,800 plus VAT) more than the Land Cruiser.
Taking all into account, the Land Cruiser has little competition in the 4x4 commercial market, hence the price point for what is essentially a two-seat commercial van with good towing ability and the benefit of four-wheel-drive.
The lack of availability of the new Toyota Land Cruiser up to June 2025 has encouraged many would-be farming customers to consider the twin-cab Hilux as a 4x4 option.
With improved features and comfort and similar 3.5-tonne towing capacity to the Land Cruiser, the Hilux has also become a more cost-effective choice with the extra benefit of four seats.
Entry prices start at €45,520 incl. VAT (€37,000 approx, plus VAT) making it a more price attractive option to the Land Cruiser.
These features have propelled the Hilux past the Ford Ranger in terms of registrations, for the first time in a number of years.
The registrations of new Toyota Hilux 4x4 pick-ups so far for 2025 have been more than double their total numbers for 2024 at 1,034 units to the end of August, an increase of 122%, while registrations of Ford Ranger pick-ups dropped marginally, year on year.
Volkswagen’s new Amarok is making some progress, possibly at the expense of the related through manufacturing of the Ford Ranger.
The numbers for the Isuzu D-Max remain steady while it is interesting to see the two all-electric 4x4 pick-ups from the sale Harris importing company, are making small but steady headway.
Toyota’s new Land Cruiser and a much-improved Hilux are now the firm favourites in the Irish 4x4 market. That success has been helped by the new Toyota 10-year or 185,000km warranty, provided that during that time, you get your 4x4 serviced by a Toyota dealer.
The Toyota Hilux has overtaken the Ford Ranger, for the first time in a number of years, as the market leader in the Irish 4x4 pick-up market.
Electric overtakes diesel in new car market
With a dwindling lack of choice in the availability of new diesel-powered cars on the Irish market, it should come as no surprise that sales of electric cars have overtaken new diesel car sales, according to the latest statistics from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI).
The latest SIMI figures show that 20,645 new electric cars were registered so far this year, a 32% increase compared with 2024.
And electric cars sales were higher than diesel sales which dropped by 24% to 20,032 new cars for the year to the end of August.
The market leader as a pure non-choice electric car is the Volkswagen ID.4, followed by the Kia EV3, the BYD Seal U and Hyundai’s mini car, the Inster. Among the overall market leader diesel car sales are dropping fast.
Ireland’s best-selling car is still the Hyundai Tucson. While the diesel-engine version was dominant in 2024, they dropped by 37% so far this year and accounted for 37% of all Tucson models sold this year, compared with 52% in 2024.
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