The price of a used car should continue to rise, the author of DoneDeal's Car Price Index report has said. 

Amid strong demand for second hand vehicles, the report found prices rose by 4.6% in the final quarter of 2022.

Over 58,000 new cars have been registered so far this year - an increase of 16% on the same time last year. However, Dr Tom Gillespie said a shortage of second hand cars for sale would likely continue for some time. 

“Before Brexit, we had a huge number of cars coming in from the United Kingdom,” he said. 

“The share of imported used cars was up around 95% and that’s fallen to 32% - so there’s a huge drop off in the number of cars we can get from the UK. 

“That’s a big problem for affordability because if we can’t get the supply of cars - especially cars on the lower end of the market - the price will continue to rise.” 

Electric vehicles

Last year, Transport Minister Eamon Ryan said Ireland is “on track” to meet the Government’s target of 950,000 electric cars on the roads by the end of the decade and the report suggests the number is surging. 

2D75YN5 A new shiny dark colored electric vehicle has an EV charger plugged into the rear of the vehicle.

40% of all new cars sold in Ireland are electric or hybrid - compared to only 20% in 2020 and there was also a significant increase in the number of second hand electric vehicles for sale. 

“So, we’re starting to see the boost in EV sales that we started to see two years ago in 2020 starting to translate into the used car market,” Dr Gillespie said. 

“In the first quarter of 2023, there were almost triple the number of used EV for sales on DoneDeal [as there were in 2022].

“So, that boost of supply in used EVs seems to kind of had a stabilising effect on prices in the used EV market.” 

Electric cars are still more expensive to buy than diesel or petrol cars but their running costs are significantly cheaper - with savings of up to 60% on fuel costs.

Main image: Use car dealership. Picture by: Alamy.com