New research done by Tradesure Insurance Services reveals how drastically the pandemic affected our driving habits. It highlights that second-hand car sales rose by 108%, while electric vehicle sales rose by 43%.
Most drivers stayed at home, with 55% saying they were driving fewer miles than before the first lockdown in March 2020. This was great news for the environment during 2020, with CO2 transport emissions falling by 19.6%.
Used Cars Gained Value
‘We’ve seen a huge rise in second-hand car sales throughout 2021, which is great news for a lot of used car motor trade businesses – both big and small. The value of used cars is still on the rise, with a year-on-year increase of 25.6% recorded in October 2021’, said Mark Wilkinson, Tradesure Managing Director.
‘With the semiconductor shortage expected to carry on through 2022, we’re hopeful that the used car motor traders can enjoy some price stability in the first six months of the year, although we do urge used car dealerships to keep an eye on industry values when it comes to pricing their stock’ he added.
With a shortage of new models, in the second quarter of 2021, second-hand car sales rose by 108%, a growth of 6.6% on the pre-pandemic figures in 2019.
New cars will continue to be in short supply in the first half of 2022 as a result. Waiting lists for new vehicles are still over 12 months long in some cases.
This led to a massive rise in sales of older used cars throughout 2021, with only 12.7% of all vehicles sold having been made within the last three years, the lowest number on record.
We went electric
Electric vehicle (EV) sales were also at an all-time high during 2020. Sales figures for battery EVs almost tripled, and plug-in EV sales doubled, with a ‘combined market share of 10.7%’. Furthermore, non-plug-in hybrids accounted for 18% of car sales.
2021 was considered the most successful year in history for electric vehicle uptake as more new battery electric vehicles were registered than over the previous five years combined. Plug-in vehicles accounted for a record more than one in six registrations, whilst battery-electric cars alone rose to one in nine, with more registered than in 2016-2020 combined.
‘While battery technologies aren’t quite there yet when it comes to range in comparison to a combustion engine, having the average journey a lot shorter means that it becomes easier to adopt, especially with new legislation for newly built homes to have an EV charging point fitted as standard”, said Chris Butterworth, a sustainability-driven design technologist and strategist at Yard.
“The rise in EV car sales lines up nicely with the fact that more cities up and down the UK have plans to implement low emission zones over the coming months, which means that drivers will see more potential savings when making their daily commute’, added Butterworth.