Used car price inflation is likely to be seen across Europe for at least another 12 months and possibly into 2023, as the semiconductor crisis continues.

Virtually every European market is reporting that consumers are switching to a used car to avoid long lead times for new cars

Virtually every European market is reporting that consumers are switching to a used car to avoid long lead times for new cars, and the latest Indicata Market Watch shows that used car sales were up 13.9% for the first eight months of 2021.

As a result, dealer stocks of used cars fell by 7.3% on average between the beginning of August and early September 2021 across Europe.

While there was a visible slowdown in used car markets during the August holiday period, EV sales increased by 7% over and above July. However, EVs achieved the slowest stock turn (4.8) out of all the fuel types, compared with 7.6 for petrol and diesel cars. Hybrid stock turn proved to be a half-way house between ICE cars and EVs (at 5.7).

It means there’s no end in sight for the current price inflation in the market – and the used sector is being urged to increase prices as needed in line with consumer demand.

“Used car stock levels fell in every country except Turkey in August and demand shows no signs of slowing up due to new car supplies still being compromised which may last until 2023. This means we will see price inflation in the used market continuing for many more months to come,” said Andy Shields, Indicata’s global business director.

Indicata has also launched a list of the top- and fastest-selling used cars below four years of age in August from its nine million used vehicle adverts analysed across Europe.

The VW Golf, the Toyota C-HR and the Renault Zoe took the leads as the top-selling models within the respective ICE cars, hybrid and BEVs categories.

Meanwhile, the fastest-selling ICE, hybrid and BEV were the MG ZS, Mercedes-Benz GLA and the Škoda Citigo.