The pandemic led to a price bubble for all vehicles, especially used ones. The good news for buyers is that values are starting to fall again. However, while the bubble is deflating for used cars, it has burst for second-hand EVs.
In October 2023, the average price for a one to five-year-old used vehicles fell by 5.1 percent market-wide compared to the same month a year earlier. However, buyers are now paying an average of 33.7 percent less for older EVs in 2023 than they were in 2022.
In fact, the five used vehicles whose average transaction prices have fallen the most since 2022 are all electric, reports iSeeCars. They include the Nissan Leaf, the Tesla Model 3, the Chevrolet Bolt, the Tesla Model X, and the Tesla Model S.
Top 10 Biggest Used Vehicle Price Drops For October
Their values have fallen by between 24.7 and 30.6 percent, and the presence of a number of Tesla vehicles is no surprise. In addition to leading the EV market in America, the automaker has been constantly lowering the prices of its new vehicles this year, driving down the prices of its used models.
While the drop in used EV prices has been significant, their average prices are still higher than those of used vehicles generally. Whereas the typical second-hand EV sold for $34,994 in October 2023, the average across all used vehicles was $30,972.
Read: Tesla Slashes Prices Of New And Used Cars By Over $3,000 (Again)
The high price of second-hand EVs also helps explain the segment’s precipitous fall. In October 2022, the average second-hand vehicle sold for $32,627. Meanwhile, the typical price for a used EV was 62 percent higher, at $52,821.
While prices for EVs are falling back down to earth, prices for hybrids are shrinking more slowly. Like their all-electric counterparts, hybrids continue to sell for a little more than the average vehicle ($31,511), but their value has only fallen by 9.6 percent since 2022.
Whether prices for these segments have bottomed out remains to be seen, but as the used vehicle market recovers from the pandemic, some uncertainty about where prices will normalize inevitably persists.
Used Vehicle Price Drops by Segment