Selling used cars goes like a spear

In the first nine months of this year, car companies sold no fewer than 1,022,021 used passenger cars. That is 5.5 percent more than in the same period last year. It is the first time that specialist shops have broken through the barrier of 1 million used cars sold in the first 9 months of a calendar year.

The high demand for used cars is easy to explain. Car manufacturers are suffering from the worldwide shortage of computer chips. Cars are limited from stock and you have to wait a long time for new ones. That has fueled interest in used cars and it doesn’t look like that demand is going to fall any time soon. Another factor is that the demand for individual transport has increased as a result of the pandemic.

Of all used cars sold by car companies in the first three quarters of this year, more than 80 percent had a petrol engine. This concerns more than 820,000 cars. Last year there were currently 790,000. As expected, interest in cars with a diesel engine continues to decline. Of the used passenger cars sold in the first 9 months of last year, 12 percent still had a diesel engine under the hood, now that percentage is just under 10 percent (103,000 units). In the past 9 months, 23,000 second-hand electric cars have been sold. That is no less than 2.5 times as many as last year’s 9,400 copies at the moment. RDC and the Bovag are also seeing an increase in demand for plug-in hybrid used cars. In the first three quarters of this year, 25,000 used plug-ins were sold, 15,000 more than in the same period last year.

Although the specialist trade has sold more second-hand cars, trade between private individuals has fallen sharply. Private individuals traded 515,000 cars among themselves in the first 9 months of this year, 9 percent less than in the same period last year.