As of: February 5, 2024, 6:00 p.m
By: Patrick Freiwah
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The technical development of electric cars is progressing rapidly.
This is causing problems on the used car market.
© Steinach/Imago
Electric cars have been sold at high prices in recent years.
In 2024, economic reality will have arrived - and there will be a significant drop in prices.
Munich - The situation on the used car market will be relaxed for car buyers in 2024.
This particularly applies to electric cars, where models are available for attractive prices well below the new price.
From the perspective of electric car owners, this is a problem: Because the decline in value of electric vehicles - especially in the premium sector - is high, vehicles can only be resold at a greater loss.
As an example, the Handelsblatt
cites
an Audi e-tron 50 Quattro, which is around two years old and has driven just under 24,000 kilometers.
The electric SUV, which will be produced until 2022, will sell for around 34,890 euros, although the new price of the model series was almost twice as much.
The British luxury electric car Jaguar I-Pace is also being sold on the used car market at prices that are sometimes over 50 percent lower than the new price.
Used electric cars: Prices for electric cars are plummeting
The effect that affects the owners of electric cars: The market situation in the early 1920s led to enormous inflation (due to Corona and the lack of chips), and the prices for new electric cars rose to record levels.
But the consumer mood in Germany has now weakened: on the one hand due to inflation as a result of the energy crisis, and most recently the environmental bonus has also been canceled.
This mix sometimes led to a discount battle breaking out for electric cars, which were sold at a high price just a few years ago.
Car manufacturers like VW are also condemned to high price discounts.
Inevitably, used electric cars are coming under pressure - and prices are plummeting.
Even electric models for the mass market can only be resold in 2024 with a significant drop in price, including the VW ID.3 or the Opel Mokka-E.
Used electric cars: range and “bizarre pricing policy” cause problems
Marcus Hungerkamp, board member of the Starcar Europe Service Group, also explains the enormous drop in prices for used electric cars with the advances in battery technology.
Because modern electric cars have more efficient technology than those that are two or three years old.
“A new combustion engine, on the other hand, does not suddenly travel 200 or 300 kilometers further than an old one.
“That makes them more stable in value,” the manager of the car rental company describes to the
Handelsblatt
.
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The “bizarre pricing policy” of some car manufacturers also means that people shy away from electric cars.
Sales manager Stefan Schneck from the used car platform
AutoScout24
highlights electric pioneer Tesla: He speaks of an “Elon effect” and believes that residual values will “decrease significantly” in 2024.
AS24 published a study in January that illustrated the drastic drop in prices for used electric cars.
From a consumer perspective, experts say that the prices for new electric cars will probably no longer reach the heights they previously reached.
According to Ajay Bhatia, managing director of online competitor
Mobile.de
, “the prices for electric cars must fall significantly in order to rekindle the motivation to buy”.
Car buyers will still be unfamiliar with electric cars in 2024 - manufacturers have been warned
This also puts car manufacturers under pressure: If electric cars lose value quickly, this will become a “burden” for car manufacturers like Volkswagen, explains Stefan Reindl, director of the Institute for the Automotive Industry (IFA).
This is also due to the fact that VW and Mercedes have switched their sales model to an agency system: On the one hand, manufacturers can define prices, but they also bear the risk of stock goods that dealers previously had - and this clouds the balance sheet.
Because German car buyers' plans to switch to an electric car are still a long way off.
According to the industry report from Deutsche Automobil Treuhand (DAT), a total of 4,727 people were asked about car purchases and workshop behavior for a survey.
While just three percent of those surveyed own an electric car, just over a third cannot imagine switching to a purely electric car.
The most common reasons given by the new combustion engine car buyers surveyed for the DAT Report 2024 for not buying a BEV model were limited range, high acquisition costs and an immature infrastructure.
(PF)