AUTO1.com Electric Vehicle Report: More dealers expect to trade electric vehicles this year

• Toyota, Volkswagen and Tesla continue to dominate the top 3 EV and hybrid brands sold on AUTO1.com in 2023
• The Netherlands remains the market with the highest demand for EVs in Europe, followed by France and Denmark
• A low retail price as well as battery health and maintenance transparency are the main factors for consumers to buy EVs, according to an online survey among European AUTO1.com partner dealers

Berlin, 6 May 2024 - AUTO1.com, the leading wholesale platform for used cars in Europe, today published its yearly Electric Vehicle Report for 2023 and the result of an AUTO1.com partner dealer survey ¹, showing that electric enabled vehicles are slowly, but steadily entering the used car market. In this report, AUTO1.com refers to battery-electric vehicles (BEV), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) as electric vehicles (EVs).

In 2023, around 17,000 EVs were traded on AUTO1.com, that is 3.2% of all AUTO1.com units sold in 2023, with the share of units sold slightly up from 3.1% in 2022. According to an online survey conducted by AUTO1.com amongst its partner dealers, 35.2% of the European partner dealers traded at least one EV in 2023, compared to 32.7% in 2022, that’s a slight increase of 2.6 percent points year over year. Looking ahead at this year, 44.2% of AUTO1.com’s partner dealers expect to trade at least one EV in 2024 while in 2023 these expectations were only 39.9%.

Driving factors for consumers to buy EVs according to AUTO1.com dealers

According to the majority (56.7%) of AUTO1.com European partner dealers a lower retail price would be the most important factor for their customers to buy an EV. “Just like our partner dealers, we believe that lower retail prices for EVs are a crucial component for broader EV adoption amongst consumers and used electric vehicles can play a crucial role when it comes to affordability,” Moritz Lück, SVP Sales & Operations of AUTO1 Group comments.

Battery health and maintenance transparency of the electric vehicle is the second most important factor (29.7%) for consumers to buy an EV according to AUTO1.com partner dealers, closely followed by subsidies for EVs (29.4%) and easy access to charging infrastructure (28.8%).

“Testing the charging capacity of batteries from every vehicle at the point of transaction will be an important aspect of determining the value of used electric vehicles. Our aim is always to provide great value and exceptional customer experiences and transparency, in this case in regards to the battery health, is a cornerstone of this mission. Having access to the current and historic condition of the vehicle and information on the battery health is valuable information for buyers. That's why we are part of the Battery Health working group of the Car Remarketing Association (CARA), aiming to create standardized certifications,” Lück says. 21.7% of AUTO1.com partner dealers responded in the survey that they think that sustainability impacts the buying behaviour of consumers.

Traded EVs on AUTO1.com in 2023

In terms of the number of traded vehicles on AUTO1.com, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Tesla continued to dominate the top three spots for the third consecutive year, with Toyota being the leading brand for EVs. Volkswagen moved from the third position in 2022 to the second position in 2023 with an increase of 30.6% in units traded compared to 2022. Volvo achieved nearly 90% year over year growth in 2023, propelling it into the Top 10 for the first time. Consequently, Kia dropped out of the top 10. Within the top 20 traded EV brands on the platform, Cupra with 321.1% (year over year growth) and Jeep with 158.6% (year over year growth) stood out with impressive growth figures in 2023.

Chinese brands such as Lynk & Co, MG, and Aiways still trade very low volumes, but have experienced a significant surge in their share of EVs traded, with an average triple-digit-increase compared to 2022. Among these, MG has emerged as the leading Chinese brand on the platform, signalling an expanding footprint in the European market.

In 2023, over 65% of the electric vehicles traded were aged between 1 and 5 years, while approximately 33% were older than 5 years. This marks a subtle shift from 2022, where 70% of traded EVs fell into the 1 to 5-year age bracket and 30% were beyond the 5-year mark. This trend indicates a gradual change in the age distribution of used EVs in the market towards slightly older vehicles.

Used EVs in the European B2B-market

“We are proud to be one of the go-to platforms in Europe for our partners to successfully trade electric vehicles thanks to our European trading network. We have revolutionized the B2B used car market by matching vehicle supply and demand across markets, and this is also true for EVs of course”, Lück says. About 75% of electric vehicles were traded across borders on the European wholesale platform in 2023. The Netherlands maintained the leading position with the highest demand for EVs on AUTO1.com followed by France moving up from the fourth place in 2022 to second place in 2023. Denmark consistently holds the third position for the third consecutive year, followed by Germany and Spain in fourth and fifth places. After two years of securing the second position, Finland has seen a shift, descending to the sixth place in the AUTO1.com country ranking in 2023. Notably, Italy and Poland recorded significant growth in the number of traded EVs: Italy was 15th in 2022 and 11th in 2023 with 55% growth year over year while Poland was 13th in 2022 and 8th in 2023 with 49% growth year over year.