11:41 am, November 16, 2023
The Ulez may have widened but there’s not much evidence that non-compliant used car stock is moving from the south to the north.
That’s according to Auto Trader in its Monthly Market Intelligence report for October, where the online vehicle marketplace said retailers across the UK were stocking fewer non-compliant cars.
Its findings follow the expansion of the zone on August 29 to cover all 32 of London’s boroughs.
For example, non-compliant vehicles comprise 10% of dealers’ stock in the East Midlands – down from circa 16% in October 2021 – and 12% in the north-west (16%).
But elsewhere, some used car dealers say they’ve been coining it in as a result of the expansion.
With supply falling and demand stable in most regions, prices of non-compliant diesel cars are robust, says Auto Trader, growing more quickly than last year and faster than compliant diesel cars.
It added that with the supply of non-compliant cars projected to tumble by 26% by 2025, prices shouldn’t change significantly so long as demand stays stable.
Elsewhere, in the report, Auto Trader said it had 74.3m visits to its site last month – up 9.4% on the 67.9m in October 2022.
Meanwhile, like-for-like used car prices fell by 1.7% year on year, with the average price standing at £17,600, although that was still £3,600 higher than in pre-pandemic 2019.
Much of the decline could be found in younger vehicles, with the price tag of one-to-three-year-old cars dropping by 7.6%, said Auto Trader.
Used car sales grew by 2% in October versus the same month last year, with much of the growth driven by an increase in the supply of younger stock it said, although again no figures were given.
Discounts on new cars following the September plate change averaged 7.4%.
