Used car sales March 2024: Market up, EVs see big gains

The Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux were once again Australia’s best-selling used cars in March, but electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids (EVs and PHEVs) saw significant gains.

“There were 184,054 used cars sold in March which is a very impressive result considering the number of trading days lost through weekends and public holidays,” said Australian Automotive Dealer Association (AADA) CEO James Voortman.

“Ongoing strength in new car sales has improved the supply situation on the used car market leading to more choice and improved affordability.

“Consumers are in a good position to shop around and negotiate a good price for a used car.”

Overall used car sales were up 2.6 per cent over February 2024 according to data compiled by AutoGrab and published by the AADA, though the total number of sales listings were only up by 0.5 per cent.

EVs saw the largest increase in sales, besides LPG-powered vehicles. Their sales were up by 13.1 per cent over the month before, while LPG-powered vehicles were up 22.4 per cent and PHEVs were up by 8.9 per cent.

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

“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.”

EVs still made up less than 1.0 per cent of the used car market, however, well below the share they’ve reached in the new car market.

New car price cuts have had a flow-on effect to the used car market, and prices of used cars overall eased slightly.

“The average time to sell a used car is now the lowest it has been for 12 months which tells us that sellers are becoming more pragmatic and buyers are taking advantage of lower prices of used cars,” said Mr Voortman.

March data shows the average time to sell a used car is 44.2 days. This data also looks at resale value for used cars, and overall every segment saw a reduction in retained value except for utes aged 2-4 years.

The AADA also notes the vehicles that are holding their value the best are smaller used cars such as the Toyota Yaris, Honda Jazz and Mazda 2.

The report’s figures are based on data about the number of used and dealer demonstrator cars listed as for sale around Australia at the start of the month, which are compared with the number of those listings that have been taken down at the end.

The AADA and AutoGrab offer the following definitions:

• For Sale: Level of available used and demo cars listed online by dealers and private sellers nationally at the time of reporting. AutoGrab processes and de-duplicates listings to identify and eliminate repetitions, ensuring that vehicles listed across multiple platforms are counted only once.
• Sales: Total vehicles delisted from online marketplaces, serving as a close proxy to actual sales and recorded monthly. The delisting count also reflects unique vehicles, as AutoGrab processes and deduplicates listings to identify and eliminate repetitions, ensuring that vehicles listed across multiple platforms are counted only once.

Best-selling used cars

As with last month, the Ranger, HiLux and Corolla took the podium spots.

While some of the orders changed slightly, all the vehicles in the top 10 are the same as in February.

Used car sales by state

New South Wales saw the largest monthly increase in sales at 7.1 per cent, while sales in the Northern Territory declined by 6.2 per cent.

Sales by vehicle type

While there were more SUVs listed for sale in March than any other vehicle type, in terms of actual vehicles sold passenger cars were in the lead.

Sales by fuel type

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