The resale value of best-selling electric vehicles fell almost a third in the US last year, amid a wider slowdown in the growth of EVs across the developed world.
The second-hand value of the top-10 selling battery cars in the US, including models from Tesla, General Motors and Ford, fell an average of 28 per cent in 2023, data from CarGurus and compiled by HSBC show.
In the UK, the value of used EVs fell about a fifth in the UK, far higher than the overall market where resale values dropped only 3.7 per cent, according to the bank which referred to Auto Trader data.
Resale values are a core indicator of a vehicle’s desirability, reflecting what a second-hand buyer is willing to pay for a model that is typically about three years old.
EV pricing “is likely only to get tougher in 2024”, said the bank’s analyst Mike Tyndall, who warned the wind down of subsidies in countries such as Germany and France “could force carmakers to get aggressive on pricing”.
Carmakers are likely to have to erode what little profit margin they have in EVs in order to prevent them being undercut by new, cheaper models from China, he added.
“It is difficult to completely focus on profitability since it risks losing market share to the EV-native new entrants that continue to remain price aggressive in the pursuit of market share.”
Carmakers have warned of deeper than expected scepticism from mainstream buyers over EVs, forcing manufacturers to cut prices or scale back sales targets.
Weaker resale values for battery cars means new EVs will be comparatively less affordable than petrol or diesel models that are expected to lose less value over the same period.
The metric is key for setting lease prices, where a motorist will finance the amount of money that a vehicle loses over a three-year lease. The larger value loss will mean a greater need for finance.
About 60 per cent of new vehicles in Europe are bought on a lease, while in some markets such as the UK it is more than 90 per cent.
The sharp declines in resale value will weigh on carmakers in markets such as the UK and California, where they must increase the proportion of their sales that are fully electric every year, or face hefty fines.
Mike Hawes, head of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, which represents the UK car industry, said more incentives, as well as cheaper insurance deals and more charging points, were needed to encourage consumers to buy electric models.
“Invariably we’ve got to the stage where we are through the early adopter phase, and we need to get into the mass market, and that’s never a linear transition,” he said.
In the US, the used price of Tesla Model X, the worst performer, dropped 36 per cent compared to a year earlier. While a second-hand Model X would fetch $75,798 in December 2022, by last month this had fallen to $48,511 for an equivalent vehicle.
Other best sellers fell sharply, including Ford’s F-150 Lightning pick-up truck, which dropped 30 per cent from $90,245 to $62,540, and the Chevrolet Bolt, which fell 32 per cent from $26,325 to $17,901.
In the UK, resale values for the Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe — both older models — fell by a quarter, while the Porsche Taycan fell 21 per cent and the BMW i4 dropped 18 per cent.
Carmakers are also increasing discounts to try to shift new EVs, both in the UK and US, as they face the challenge of convincing mass market buyers to shift to electric driving.
Roughly half of the new EVs on sale in the UK offer 0 per cent finance, sometimes with offers that effectively cut the price of a vehicle by a third. Other brands are offering straight cash discounts of up to 27 per cent, while the overall cash discounting “is at the highest level we have seen to date”, Tyndall added.
In the US, discounting offers doubled during the course of 2023. All of the top-10 selling US EVs in the country have discounts, including $5,000 from Tesla for its Model 3 or Model Y cars, and more than $8,000 for the Ford Mustang Mach-E and the Hyundai Ioniq 5.