2025 marked a “disappointing” year for the used car industry with hybrids the only fuel type where prices rose, while diesel, petrol and EVs all experienced a price
2025 marked a “disappointing” year for the used car industry with hybrids the only fuel type where prices rose, while diesel, petrol and EVs all experienced a price fall.
Autorola’s annual online used car sales review reveals used hybrid prices on its MarketPlace online wholesale platform rose by 1.2% (£269) from £21,249 to £21,528 at an average of 33 months and 22,302 miles.
In contrast, petrol prices experienced the biggest fall of 4.3% (£679) from £15,638 to £14,959 at an average of 41 months and 23,803 miles.
Diesels fell by 3.4% in the year (£711) from £20,624 to £19,913 at an average of 39 months and 34,387 miles.
EVs reported the smallest annual fall of 2.7% (£477) from £17,521 to £17,044 at an average of 31 months and 19,490 miles.
This overall performance was despite used cars being in short supply in 2025 following a fall in new car sales in 2021 and 2022 caused by Covid.
“Generally, when there is a shortage of used cars in the market demand exceeds supply and prices rise,” explained Autorola UK’s MD Neil Frost.
“2025 was different in that there were a number of economic factors which reduced consumer and wholesale confidence, so sales never really took off, and prices either stagnated or fell. The used car sector has been stable, but we expected it to be more buoyant than it was. It will be interesting to see how 2026 shapes up with more used cars coming back into the market,” he added.
Analysis of the breakdown of fuel types sold in 2025 reveals hybrids and EVs comprised 22.1% of MarketPlace sales, split 16.7/5.4% in favour of hybrids. This compares to 17.7% in 2024, split 14.5/3.2% between hybrids and EVs respectively.
The growth for used hybrids came from petrol cars whose market share fell from 63.9% in 2024 to 58.5% in 2025. Diesel’s market share remained stable at 19.3%.
“Wholesale demand for EVs remained slow in 2025, but hybrids continued to go from strength to strength. However, there is still work to do to build wholesale buyer confidence to stock and sell used EVs to ensure demand keeps up with the growing supply of zero emission cars coming back into the market,” said Frost.
