INDICATA Market Watch: Diesel set to fall to third most popular powertrain
Diesel set to fall to third most popular powertrain
We have seen evidence of manufacturer-backed tactical registrations for the second consecutive month. Online B2C sales of very young used cars under one-year-old were 15.54% higher in March 2023 than last year and 13.92% above February 2023.
Despite being one of the more BEV-friendly European markets, online B2C used BEVs only accounted for 5.32% of March sales, which is at a similar level since September 2021. It is similar to used petrol cars, which were 62.21% of March sales, although it has lost a little market share over the last twelve months.
The most interesting dynamic in the Dutch market is the battle to be the second most popular powertrain. Across Europe, used petrol cars have tended to dominate, with used diesel second. In Southern Europe, the inverse has been the case. But the Netherlands used hybrids look set to break the traditional powertrains stranglehold. Used diesel cars took 16.63% of the March online B2C used car market, just 0.79 percentage points above used hybrids at 15.84%.
The steady increase in used hybrid stock has seen it account for 17.25% of online B2C used inventory at the start of April, but with sales rising, this does not currently appear to be an issue. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the 204.6% increase in used BEV stock over the last six months, and there will likely be a need for further price reductions to help clear them.
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 April were 0.5pp lower month-on-month, but they are still 3.0pp higher than at the start of 2022.
While used BEV prices have followed a similar sharp rise and fall seen in other countries, the average used diesel prices fell from 104.5 points in our index at the start of September 2022 to just 99.0 points at the beginning of March, something unique to the Netherlands currently.
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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)
