Price growth for used electrics vehicles (EVs) was 30.4% in August, the highest ever recorded growth in the sector, according to Auto Trader.
The company’s latest Retail Price Index found that the average price of a used car advertised by retailers remained stable in August – an average of £13,001; a slight decline on the £13,115 recorded in July.
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Like-for-like prices for diesel and petrol vehicles decreased by 1.7% and 1.4% respectively while alternatively fuelled vehicles (AFVs) continued their upward trend, recording 5.7% year-on-year growth in August. Petrol vehicles have an average advertised price of £11,556, diesels £14,202 and AFVs £21,782.
According to Auto Trader, used car advertised prices have been impacted by the market corrections to trade valuations which were made through the summer. These marginal decreases in residual values follows the automotive boom of new car registrations in 2015 and 2016 which resulted in a large volume of stock for cars in the three to five-year age range. Cars aged 10 to 15 years still show like-for-like price growth (0.8%).
The index also revealed the percentage of searches by fuel type changed slightly in August. Petrol cars remained the most popular, accounting for 50% of all fuel searches, diesel cars have increased to 42% (up from 41% last month) while 7% of searches by fuel type are for AFVs.
“Used car prices will naturally fluctuate, but over the last few months there’s been a variety of unprecedented factors affecting average prices, not least the realignment of market values over the summer, which resulted in some cars having up to £1,000 knocked off their sticker price,” said Karolina Edwards-Smadja, director of commercial products at Auto Trader.
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By GlobalData““Supply and demand is less of an issue, but we shouldn’t entirely dismiss the impact the spike in new car registrations three to four years ago has had. Add to the mix the ongoing economic uncertainty and there’s clearly been an unusual amount of pressure placed on second-hand car values. It will be interesting to see whether these factors have any further influence during the closing quarter of 2019.”
