A new electric car bought today might have lost 41% of its value in three years time, new research has found.
It has emerged that electric cars depreciate much quicker in value over the years than petrol-powered models.
On average, a new car purchased three years ago in Ireland will depreciate by a third (33%), however, for electric and diesel vehicles, that figure jumps to 41% and 43% respectively, a study by online marketplace DoneDeal found.
While electric vehicles might be best for the environment, the research revealed that the cars retaining their value the best are petrol.
A full three years after purchase, cars with petrol engines are losing less than a quarter of their value (24%), while Hybrid engines are also depreciating at a slower rate than the national average at 26%.
Martin Clancy from DoneDeal said: “The biggest impact on electric car resale value appears to come down to technology, which is changing rapidly. “Electric cars produced even in 2016 have a much shorter range and fewer features than the newer models.
“As the Financial Times recently pointed out the retention value of Electric Cars is still a relatively new area, with concerns over the depreciation of battery life and performance linked to the value of the vehicle itself.”
As part of the research DoneDeal also revealed the best-selling Hybrid and Electric cars of 2019.
It found that the Nissan Leaf is the country’s favourite Electric car with sales close to 1,000 units, closely followed by the Hyundai Kona (897) and the Renault Zoe (219).
Meanwhile, 171 E-Golfs have been sold by Volkswagen so far this year while exactly 60 new Teslas have been bought, including 38 of the Model S, with the Model X accounting for 22 of the sales.
It also seems that Dubliners are big fans of the US-produced car as 72% of all new Tesla sales were in the capital.
Dublin is also the largest consumer of Electric vehicles, accounting for 43% of all electric vehicle sales in the state in 2019.
Cork is next with a 12% share followed by Kildare with 5%.
In the Hybrid market, the Toyota appears to have cornered the market with the Corolla leading the way with 3,515 sales, followed by the C-Hr (2,151) and the Rav 4 (1,572).
