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Used diesel cars in a dealership
Photo: Uwe Anspach / dpa
Car buyers have painfully felt the consequences of the past two years.
"Used cars are currently more expensive than ever before - also in relation to their new prices," says Martin Weiss from market watcher DAT.
“The price increase is often 5 to 15 percent.
In individual cases it can be significantly more.
It's crazy what you see there. ”The sales portal Autoscout24 reports even higher numbers.
According to this, a used car last cost an average of 24,965 euros, 18 percent more than a year ago.
DAT - the abbreviation stands for Deutsche Automobil Treuhand, a subsidiary of several associations in the automotive industry - has been monitoring used car prices in Germany for 90 years.
Sober numbers and data are their daily bread - if you talk about "crazy" there, the situation has to be extraordinary.
Even the emissions scandal is almost forgotten.
There is still a discount for cars with diesel engines, but it has shrunk considerably.
These vehicles would be sold much more expensively than in the first few years after the diesel scandal that was made public in 2015, says Weiss.
"Also because fewer and fewer vehicles from them have come onto the market since then."
The DAT price barometer has risen sharply since the middle of the year.
Three-year-old diesel cars, which in June were still available for 52.8 percent of the original list price, already cost 56.2 percent in October.
For petrol engines, the index rose from 55.5 to 59.3 percent.
The values for both types of drive for internal combustion engines were the highest ever measured by the DAT.
No matter fuel prices
"We don't see these increases in electric cars - used car prices are still under pressure here," says Weiss.
“On the one hand, this is due to the high level of funding for new cars, and on the other hand, because technology has developed further and customers tend to feel that they are buying an outdated product.” However, e-cars are still a niche product in the used car market.
Plug-in hybrids have not risen as much either.
In contrast, the high fuel prices hardly play a role in the used car market, as Weiss explains.
"At the moment we don't see that particularly economical used cars are in greater demand because of the high fuel prices."
The drivers of the development are the corona crisis and a lack of chips.
For fear of infection, cars are in greater demand overall, reports the DAT, but more difficult to get: On the one hand, because of long delivery times, customers finally turned to used ones after waiting a long time for new cars, and on the other hand, the range is significantly thinner than usual.
New cars are becoming scarce
"There are simply a lot fewer cars on the market," says Thomas Peckruhn, Vice President of the Central Association of the German Motor Vehicle Industry (ZDK).
"For the second year in a row, there are no new registrations of company cars, daily registrations, rental cars, which normally come onto the market relatively quickly as young used cars," he explains the mechanism.
The result: "At the moment we have fewer used cars than customers."
Peckruhn also sees a significant increase in the price of used vehicles, even if he estimates it to be slightly lower than DAT or Autoscout24 at 5 to 10 percent.
"Right now is not the time for used car bargains," he certainly agrees.
However, new cars have also become more expensive.
»We are coming from a time of vehicle overproduction to a time of vehicle shortage.
That makes prices rise - there are currently fewer discounts on new cars too, "says DAT expert Weiss.
And Peckruhn emphasizes: “Due to the semiconductor crisis, some new cars are still in short supply.
In some months the dealership only got half as many vehicles as normal. "
Good for those who don't have to buy a car
A quick relaxation is therefore not in sight.
If only because the missing new cars from today will be missing from the used market in the future.
"We will also have the high used car prices in 2022," says Peckruhn.
The industry expects further pressure only for the prices of used electric cars, because in the new year many 24-month leasing contracts for new cars, which will be sold in large numbers from the beginning of 2020, will expire.
According to DAT, the prices of plug-in hybrids, the subsidy of which will expire at the end of 2022, suffer both from their image as a disguised combustion engine and from their poor economic efficiency: in fact, they generally consume more fuel than a comparable diesel.
The technology offers the advantage of making it easier to get started with electric drives.
But it is particularly difficult for her in the used car market.
Weiss does not expect the market to normalize until 2023 at the earliest: "Good for those who are happy and satisfied with their vehicle and are currently not dependent on a change."
ak / dpa
