It’s a buyers’ market! Tesla Model 3 and Tesla Model Y dominate rapidly growing used EV sales in Australia

April 17, 2024April 17, 2024 Bruce Newton 10739 Views

While demand growth for EVs outstrips traditional petrol and diesel vehicles, buyers still have the upper hand in an Australian used electric vehicle market dominated by Tesla.

That’s the findings from the Automotive Insights Report analysing March 2024 used car sales compiled by AutoGrab and the Australian Automotive Dealer Association.

EV sales grew more than 13 per cent in March, which was substantially faster than petrol, diesel and hybrid vehicles.

But EVs only made up less than one per cent of the market, with the vast bulk of used car buyers opting for traditional vehicles, led by the market-leading Ford Ranger ute.

Emphasising how small the used EV market is, AutoGrab found the top 10 selling used EVs in the period January 1 2023 to March 31 2024 (so 15 months) were:

Tesla Model 3 – 3290 (43.6 per cent)
Tesla Model Y – 596 (7.9 per cent)
MG ZS EV – 469 (6.2 per cent)
Nissan Leaf – 359 (4.8 per cent)
Tesla Model S – 344 (4.6 per cent)
Hyundai Kona – 270 (3.6 per cent)
Tesla Model X – 224 (3.0 per cent)
BYD Atto 3 – 179 (2.4 per cent)
Mercedes-Benz EQC – 173 (2.3 per cent)

A healthy and growing pool of affordable used EVs is critical to their wider adoption in Australia.

New electric vehicle sales in Australia March 2024 comprised 9.5 per cent of the market, up from the 2023 figure of 7.2 per cent.

The rise in demand for EVs and – to a lesser extent – plug-in hybrids still hasn’t caught up with stock, AADA CEO James Voortman said.

“The used market for electric vehicles is gradually emerging with strong growth in the number of listings and cars sold,” he said.

“Sales of EVs grew by an impressive 13.1 per cent while PHEVs grew by 8.9 per cent.

“Customers in the market for a used EV have plenty of bargaining power as the number of listed vehicles is well above the number being sold.”

According to stats compiled for the report by AutoGrab, which specialises in automotive industry data analytics, there were 4771 EVs offered for sale in March 2024 and 1393 sold.

This compared to 4451 offered for sale in February 2024 out of which 1232 were sold.

Just 297 PHEVs were offered for sale in March 2024 with 147 sold. Hybrid numbers were 10,426 and 6365.

Underlying the immensity of the task ahead for electrified vehicles, there were 168,097 petrol vehicles offered and 117,977 sold. Diesel numbers were 103,648 and 57,904.

AutoGrab chief commercial officer Saxon Odgers said it would take years for the used EV market to truly establish itself.

“The second hand EV market remains young and volatile. We saw in 2023 just 0.6 per cent of used cars sold were EVs. It will take several more years for this to increase to a significant level.

“Changes to the FBT exemption have boosted demand for new EVs, including seeing owners of EVs moving to novated leasing to take advantage of the tax opportunities.

“Due to the growing availability of supply, the prices of used EVs have been gradually decreasing during this period. However, the extent of this decline differs among brands, with OEMs’ pricing strategies for new cars being a significant contributing factor.

“For instance, consider the 2021 Model 3: its price decreased by 9.5 per cent between May and July 2023 following Tesla’s announcement of the reduction in pricing for the 2023 Model 3, in anticipation of the release of the 2024 Model 3 Highland.”

According to the AIR a total of 287,620 used vehicles were offered for sale in March 2024 with 184,054 sold.

The top-selling vehicle was the Ranger, followed by the Toyota HiLux ute, the Toyota Corolla small car, Toyota Camry medium sedan and the Mitsubishi Triton ute.