8:34 am, January 15, 2025
The new cars that lost the most money last year have been revealed – and they’re pretty much all electric.
Car Dealer asked the trade valuations experts Cap HPI to provide a list of the new cars that depreciated the most last year and nine out of the top 10 are EVs – and the 10th is a hybrid.
Cap HPI looked at 73-plate cars with just 10,000 miles on the clock and at the prices they were changing hands for in the trade in January 2024 compared with what they are changing hands for now.
All of the top 10 lost more than a third of their value last year. For comparison, the average fall for all 12-month old cars for the same period was just 2%.
The biggest depreciating new car over that period was the Fisker Ocean which saw its value collapse some 67.2% – a loss of £33,675.
Fisker went into bankruptcy last June which saw the price of the cars it had sold in the UK tumble dramatically.
In January 2024 Oceans were worth around £50,100, now they are changing hands in the trade for just over £16k as the dealer network in the UK has collapsed and there are no official servicing routes.
The second biggest faller was the Honda e:NY1 – which dropped 40.5% – dropping from £36k to around £21k.
In April last year, Honda slashed £15k off the price of an entry level e:NY1 which had a painful impact on the new models already delivered to customers.
In third was the Jeep Avenger – an electric off roader – which dropped 37% or nearly £11,000, in fourth was the Toyota bZ4X which lost 34.6% or just over £13,000 and in fifth was the Citroen C4X electric which fell 34.2% and lost around £8,000.
Biggest falling new car prices
Source: Cap HPI, Jan 24-Jan 25, 73-plate, 10k miles
- Fisker Ocean – down 67.2%
- Honda e:NY1 – down 40.5%
- Jeep Avenger – down 37.9%
- Toyota bZ4X – down 34.6%
- Citroën C4X – down 34.3%
- Subaru Solterra – down 34.0%
- SsangYong Korando – down 31.5%
- Hyundai Kona – down 31.2%
- Genesis GV60 – down 30.7%
- DS DS4 – down 29.2%
Last year, car manufacturers drastically cut the price of new electric cars to hit tough ZEV Mandate targets which required 22% of the cars they sold to be electric, or face punishing fines of £15k per car they missed by.
Most car makers decided instead to slash the price of new electric cars rather than pay fines and this had a serious detrimental impact on the nearly new cars already in owners’ hands.
In sixth place was the Subaru Solterra, losing more than a third of its value in a year (34%) or £13,200, in seventh was electric SsangYong Korando, down 31.5% or just over £7k, and in eighth was the Hyundai Kona electric which lost some £10,332 in 12 months, equivalent to 31.2% of its value.
The Genesis GV60 – a posh Hyundai – fell 30.7% which equated to just over £13,000 and the DS4 hybrid was the only non pure electric car on the list which dropped 29.2% or £8k.
Chris Plumb, head of car valuations for Cap HPI, told Car Dealer: ‘The performance of used vehicles proved resilient throughout 2024, with average values for 12-month-old vehicles declining by approximately 2%.
‘Notably, some models experienced more significant reductions, particularly among battery electric vehicles, with nine of the 10 highest downward movers falling into this category.
‘Most of the downward pressure was observed in the first half of the year and it was encouraging to witness performance stabilising in the latter half of the year.
‘During this period, average values decreased by just 1.7% for one-year-old vehicles, with October and November highlighting BEVs as the strongest-performing fuel type.’
