Used EV prices rise for the first time in over a year

Data shared by Autotrader suggests that Electric Vehicles (EV) prices rose by 0.8% at the mid-point in September. It was the first monthly increase since August 2022.

There was some other encouragement, with used EV demand exceeding supply levels (up 5.4%) for the first time in 14 months.

All of this comes after EV prices fell back 21.4% on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, albeit from a skewed high point in a period of very low supply.

The challenge for used EVs, notably zero-emission Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), is that the supply of used BEVs will keep rising, and creating a sustainable BEV market requires that consumer demand thrives as well. To put this in context, BEVs now have a 20% market share in the new market, but in H2, used BEVs accounted for under 2% of the used market.

In the same way that new BEV sales have been built on business/fleet incentives supported by the government –including those helping the salary sacrifice BEV sector proliferate – the used BEV market requires financial help to encourage an ‘early majority’ of BEV buyers to become established.

Helping the used BEV market will be crucial to the long-term viability of zero-emission vehicles because the future value of new BEVs, which is so important to new car finance and lease pricing, needs to be stable.

Autotrader points to the continued ‘de-fleeting’ of circa 750,000 electric vehicles sold over the last three years, meaning it will take some time before the market reaches maturity. In establishing this maturity, confidence in the profitability of second-hand electric cars is heavily reliant upon building consumer confidence in BEVs and, with it, demand.

Some encouragement for buyers will come from the lower BEV prices in the market right now, some of which are lower than Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) equivalents, but we need additional momentum.

Debbie McKay, Commercial Director of Motor Sales