Hawaii vehicle registrations regained traction at the end of last year after two down quarters.

The number of newly registered cars and light trucks increased 2.4 percent in 2016 from a year earlier as registrations surged 8.2 percent during the final three months of the year.

There were 58,485 new retail light vehicles registered in 2016, according to a Hawaii Auto Outlook report due out today by the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association. Hawaii beat the U.S. market’s 0.2 percent increase over the same period.

The fourth quarter fueled the auto industry’s year after vehicle registrations in Hawaii fell 1.6 percent in the third quarter and declined 0.2 percent in the second quarter from the same periods a year ago. Registrations increased 4.1 percent in the first quarter.

The Maui market was the big driver for the year as vehicle registrations jumped 7.9 percent; followed by Kauai, up 3.4 percent; Oahu, up 1.8 percent; and Hawaii island, up 0.6 percent.

Until the fourth-quarter turnaround, new vehicle registrations had been in danger of falling for a full year for the first time since 2010, the last of five consecutive declining years after they peaked at 70,268 in 2005.

Now, Hawaii Auto Outlook is forecasting that new vehicle registrations in the state will increase 1.3 percent to 59,250 in 2017.

New vehicle registrations can be representative of auto sales. The two don’t always align because a buyer can purchase a vehicle one month and register it in another month. The data are based on county Department of Motor Vehicles registrations.

The light-trucks category, which includes vans, SUVs and pickups, continued to outpace cars in popularity in the fourth quarter. The market share for light trucks expanded to 61.4 percent while cars made up 38.6 percent. Light truck registrations were up 11.3 percent over 2015 while passenger cars fell 9.1 percent over the same period.

“It’s a dramatic shift to truck-bed type of vehicles versus car vehicles,” HADA Executive Director Dave Rolf said. “I’ve never seen it in all of the years I have been around. That probably relates to gasoline prices and the good interest rates and all the values on cars right now.”

Rolf said the size of the vehicles may have had an impact on why customers opted for SUVs over passenger cars.

“The SUV has a lot more attributes in carrying things, and the size on the inside, that the regular passenger car doesn’t have,” he said.

For automakers, Toyota maintained its leading position in the market with a 27.8 percent market share. Honda was next at 14.3 percent.

State registrations of hybrid and electric cars and trucks fell 1.8 percent in 2016 from the previous year.