6:45 am, December 11, 2023
Navigating crashing used electric car prices and falling consumer demand has not made life easy for the dedicated specialists that sell only EVs this year.
But if anyone knows how to manage rapidly falling stock prices, it’s this battle hardened band of car dealers.
Joining us at Car Dealer Live 2024 – sponsored by Auto Trader – to talk about her experiences during a tough 2023 will be Estelle Miller, co-founder of award winning dealership EV Experts.
Estelle and her husband Martin won the Used EV Dealership accolade at our recent Used Car Awards for their excellent customer service across their two sites in Guildford, Surrey, and Hook, Hampshire.
This year the duo have been faced with managing falling electric car prices and waning consumer demand.
Their experience will help other used car dealers as they manage falling prices across the board. Used cars dropped 8.4% in October and November and have fallen nearly 18% since April, according to figures from Cap HPI.
Miller will join Alex Jones from used car dealer Carbase at our special event on March 7 at the British Motor Museum, Gaydon.
Miller said she was looking forward to sharing her experiences over the past 12 months with other dealers. Used electric cars dropped as much as 30 per cent this year following Tesla slashing their new car prices.
Miller said: ‘We set up EV Experts in 2017 to provide modern and friendly environments where EVs can be bought and sold with on-hand specialist and independent advice.
‘It was prompted by a pretty disappointing experience trying to buy our own first EV in 2016.
‘My mission now is to empower my customers with knowledge so that they can be confident about choosing, running and maintaining their electric vehicle.’
Tickets are now on sale for the packed day which will see a variety of dealers and motor trade experts take to the stage to discuss the latest in the industry.
Car Dealer Live tickets cost £150 for trading car dealers and £300 for suppliers. Streaming tickets are also available for the day at £200.
The event will feature headline interviews with Peter Vardy, the franchised dealer boss, and Peter Waddell, the owner of Big Motoring World.
The motor trade titans will give their unique takes on the motor industry and what it has in store in 2024 in separate interviews.
Franchised car dealer bosses including Swansway’s Peter Smyth, Wessex Garages’ Chris Wiseman and Sue Corkin, of Chorley Group, will appear on another panel discussing the new car market.
Attendees will also hear from luxury car dealers including Tom Hartley, of the eponymous dealer, and Brett Ward from HR Owen, as well as a car manufacturer panel. A full line up for these will be announced in due course.
Partners for the event include headline sponsors Auto Trader, as well as Google, Automotive Transformation Group, iVendi and Cox Automotive. All five will present exclusive research carried out for the event on the day.
Tickets include breakfast, lunch and refreshments as well as entry to the British Motor Museum.
Nigel Hurley, CEO of Carshop, who attended this year’s Car Dealer Live, said: ‘The day was informative, professionally organised and varied in content with all the current hot topics that we are wrestling with today in our industry.
‘The panel of experts gave honest and clear feedback on how they saw the challenges and opportunities that we are dealing with right now and also what’s coming down the track at us. I will certainly be making next year’s event a date in the diary to attend.’
To book tickets, visit the event’s dedicated website.
