Sales Of Second-hand Hybrid Cars Are On The Rise - Understanding Spending Habits

7th August 2024

Second-hand sales data from Auto Trader provide information on an estimated 300,000 used car sales per month, dating back to 2018.

We use this to produce our petrol and diesel second-hand car inflation indices. As well as the advertised price, they include information on vehicle manufacturer, colour and fuel type.

We estimate that the number of second-hand hybrid cars sold increased by 59% from 2022 to 2023.

The additional detail in this data helps us assess how representative the consumer price basket is of the wider market. The "shopping basket" of items used to measure consumer price inflation changes each year to reflect consumer spending patterns.

While the price of new hybrid and electric vehicles are included in the consumer price basket, second-hand sales of these cars are not captured because of the relatively low amount of money currently spent on them.

Most hybrid and electric cars in the UK are bought new, meaning there are relatively low numbers of second-hand sales, but these new data allow us to monitor trends and update our representative basket when spending hits the necessary threshold.

As the data are received daily, and a vehicle is listed for an average of 40 days before being sold, this still leaves multiple listings for each unique vehicle within the dataset.

To estimate the number of individual cars we use a four-day gap before considering a listing "sold" to produce our index. For more information see our Using Auto Trader car listings data to transform consumer price statistics, UK release.

As these data are for advertised listings, they do not contain explicit sales revenue information.

Some of the least popular colours were pink and turquoise, with 3,000 of each estimated to be sold in 2023.

Beige, a colour often seen as being plain, was not popular among drivers, with an estimated 12,000 cars sold in that shade in 2023. More drivers were willing to be bold, with approximately 19,000 opting for a multicoloured car.

Gold may normally be linked with victory, but compared with the other medal colours, silver and bronze, it takes third place. Approximately 385,000 silver cars and 11,000 bronze cars were estimated to be sold, compared with 5,000 in gold.

And finally, in the battle of red versus blue, blue is the clear favourite among second-hand car drivers, with around 554,000 drivers choosing blue vehicles, compared with 362,000 choosing red.

‘Newer' is not always better when buying a second-hand car
The biggest appeal when buying a second-hand car is usually the cost. They are typically cheaper than a new model, but the trade-off is that the older a car gets, the more likely it is to have problems later on.

Second-hand cars aged two to four years were most popular among UK drivers in 2023.

Read the full ONS article with car sales in second half