INDICATA Market Watch: Used hybrids are now the second most popular used powertrain
Used hybrids are now the second most popular used powertrain
The Netherlands has long been a flag bearer for the move to BEVs, but there is evidence the momentum is starting to wane. In April, online B2C used BEV sales accounted for 5.96% of the market. This is a 0.62 percentage point increase over the previous month, but it is only 1.2pp higher year-on-year.
In contrast, used hybrid sales in April were 16.59% of the April 2023 market, which is a 3.91pp YoY improvement, and it means hybrids are now the second best-selling powertrain in the Dutch market. These YoY gains were almost equally at the expense of used petrol and used diesel car sales, with petrol faring marginally worse.
Online B2C used hybrid stock also makes up a larger share of the total inventory for the second consecutive month. Going into May, hybrids are 17.66% of available online stock compared to 16.25% for diesel.
Used petrol stock still accounts for more than one of every two used cars available online, but the real issue is with BEVs.
Despite BEVs taking less than 6% of April sales, they are 10.11% of the available stock going into May which is likely to have further negative consequences for used BEV pricing.
The challenge for BEVs is also highlighted by how slowly they are selling. For example, the most popular powertrain used petrol cars have a Market Days Supply of 71 days but BEVs have an MDS of 136, meaning you can sell almost two petrol cars in the time it will take to sell one BEV.
Our online B2C used car retail price index is based on a consistent pool of vehicles indexed against January 2022 and would generally see a lifecycle-driven downward curve in average prices. Average prices going into May were 0.6 percentage points lower than at the start of the previous month, but they are still 2.6pp higher than at the beginning of 2022. Factoring in the expected lifecycle depreciation means real used car inflation is even higher.
Only average used diesel car prices saw any month-on-month increase at the start of May, whilst used BEV prices continue to tumble and are now in line with the beginning of 2022.
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Background
On the 24th of March INDICATA published its first White Paper “COVID-19 To what extent will the used car market be affected (and how to survive)?”. This document explored:
Early market trends - Initial impact of the virus and the social distancing measures implemented.
Market scenarios – A range of impacts based on infection rate development and historical market data.
Mitigation – Risk assessment by sector coupled with potential corrective actions.
We committed to keeping the market updated with live data, volume, and price, to keep abreast of the fast-moving environment.
As such we are pleased to announce “Indicata Market Watch”.
How do we produce our data?
Indicata analyses 9m Used Vehicle adverts across Europe every day. To ensure data integrity, our system goes through extensive data cleansing processes.
The Sales (deinstall data) in this report are based on advertisements of recognised automotive retailers of true used vehicles. As such, it does not include data related to private (P2P) advertisements.
Where an advert is removed from the internet, it is classified as a “Sale”.
Appendix
INDICATA Market Watch April 2023 (The Netherlands)
INDICATA Market Watch April 2023 (Europe)
