Alternative fuelled vehicles are attracting a ‘flurry’ of interest at the vehicle auction sales, leading vehicle auctions company, British Car Auctions (BCA) reveals.
Latest data from auctions company, reports that alternative fuelled, greener cars such as LPG ready vehicles and hybrids are exceeding their expected selling price when at auction.
Values from the latest BCA’s Pulse report for September show that the small number of alternative fuelled vehicles entered for sale by fleet operators are averaging up to 122 per cent of guide price. In comparison, the average fleet values for petrol and diesel are currently around 92 per cent of independent benchmark, CAP values.
BCA’s Tim Naylor commented “The key issue for ‘green’, alternative fuelled cars is acceptability with motorists, because they will drive the demand in the used market. It would appear demand is continuing to rise because average values for hybrid/electric and LPG powered cars are well ahead of market expectations, with the few examples BCA handle always attracting a flurry of bidding.”
Hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Pruis and the Honda Civic are proving particularly popular at auction. Naylor explained “The hybrid electric/petrol models are definitely the flavour of the moment”.
In BCA’s 2008 Used Car Market Report, 6 per cent of those surveyed stated environmental considerations were an influencing factor in their most recent car purchase, 5 per cent suggested their next car will be an alternatively-fuelled car, 28 per cent said they would move to a car with a lower CO2 emission rating to cope with potential changes in VED while alf of all respondents said they would consider buying a car that does more miles to the gallon.
Naylor concluded “Many UK drivers are changing to cope with the tougher economic conditions and almost as an aside, many of these changes will also benefit the environment by leading to greener motoring habits.”
