September 2018 Used Electric Vehicles: just another used car market?
According to OEMs, a very large share of new BEVs – 70% to 80% - are leased by their owners (private or business) for an average length of 36 months. Due to the acceleration of the BEV sales in some European markets, it is expected that car manufacturers will have to manage an increasing number of buy-backs and will have to find ways to remarket their leased BEVs. On the retailing side at least in the first place franchised dealers, will have to find an outlet for these cars in the used car market.
However, for the time being, it seems that the used market for BEVs is still immature, with no clear trend regarding its retail price positioning. It is often characterised by a very small number of transactions which in turn leads to many questions that need addressing in order to be able to assess the residual value of the cars. Furthermore, retailers have to understand the triggers of purchase of the used EV leads and evaluate their ‘electro-compatibility’. Due to the many specifications of the product (technological breakthroughs, finance scheme, battery lease, etc.), some dealers have reported that the selling process of a used EV has sometimes been very demanding. This might prevent sales growing significantly since untrained or unmotivated salespeople could be more inclined to close a deal for an ICE counterpart instead.
This webinar brought together some perspectives on a number of EV-related questions:
What are the current features of the used car market for EVs in some of the main EU5 countries?
How do OEM assess the RV of their EVs?
Are there specific initiatives taken by OEMs to support the used BEVs remarketing?
Are the reconditioning processes and costs different for a BEV versus an ICE?
Is there a right balance between the used BEV offer and the demand?
What are customers looking for? And what are retailers offering to face that demand?
What about the independent retailers, are there some used EV independent specialists emerging?
How long might it take for used car business operators to come to the conclusion that ‘Yes, this is definitely just another used car market’?