At mid-October Cap HPI’s data showed the average value of used cars was down a further 2.1%, with its values experts expecting another 1% fall across all used car types by month-end.

Director of valuations Derren Martin told AM: “By fuel type, electric vehicles have been tough all year – although, saying that, they're now actually dropping by less than petrol and diesel.”

“Within that however, you have some best performers that have increased a couple of percentage points in value such as the BMW i3, Nissan Leaf, Peugeot e-208 and the Renault Zoe.”

Some cars have however dropped by 5-6% due to increasing volume in the market, impacting values of models like the KIA ev6 (-5%) and the Mercedes EQA, EQB EQC and EQS.

Across the market, the average movement of a six-month-old car with 5,000 miles on the clock has dropped by 1.7%, while at the three-year, 60,000-mile point, car values have fallen 2.1%.

Highlighting the SUV segment, Martin said the average value of a BMW X3 petrol was down 5% which represented one of the most significant falls. The Jaguar F-PACE diesel was down 4%, F-PACE hybrid down 5%, while the Land Rover Discovery Sport model was down 6% with its diesel variant down 8%.

“Overall,” Martin added, “there's very little that's going up in value at all apart from the best performing EVs.”

Explaining the value status of used cars, he said prices remain high but with more supply coming back with the recent uptick in new car registrations in addition to the cost-of-living crisis meant that although dealers are replacing sold vehicles, re-stocking is currently muted. “It's quite simple - when supply is going up but demand isn't very strong, prices come down.”

He added that as the supply of new cars is increasingly significant, older cars are now entering into the used car market.

“Values here are all very dependent on the car’s condition. If the price point of the car is between £5,000-£15,000 and is in good condition, they're actually still performing alright, although with a falling market, dealers are not going to be wanting cars that are going to sit in a workshop for a month.”

Martin predicted that the same downward trend for used car values would likely persist for the next couple of months until the year-end.

“It's tough,” he said. “We speak to a lot of dealers and none of them are doing very well. They're all struggling retail-wise so none of them are stocking up and that's just as more cars come back into the market. So, when they do go and buy they’ve got more choice, which just brings the prices down further.”

“Used cars are still around 20% more expensive than they were in 2020 so this kind of realignment is bringing prices down closer to where they used to be.”

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