Record Quarter: The Used EV Market Just Passed a Milestone

The most important electric car numbers of the summer were not the new registration figures. They were the used ones, published this week by the SMMT, and they show the second-hand market quietly passing a milestone. Between April and June, 110,761 used battery electric cars changed hands, up 67% on the same quarter last year, taking a record 5.5% share of the used market. More than one in every 18 second-hand buyers chose fully electric, against around one in 30 a year ago.

That is the number that matters most for the transition, for a simple reason the SMMT itself is quick to point out: the used market is where most people actually buy their cars. New car headlines are written about a minority of transactions. If electric cars only sell new, they are a curiosity; if they sell used, they are the market.

The wider picture: growth, of the modest kind

The overall used market returned to growth in the second quarter, up 0.7% to 2,009,318 transactions, the first Q2 above two million units since 2021 and just 1.2% below pre-pandemic levels. That recovery offset a marginal decline in the first quarter, leaving the half-year total at 4,025,550 transactions, up 0.2%. Steady rather than spectacular: Cox Automotive's insight director Philip Nothard called the market's outlook "steady rather than transformational", with affordability the dominant influence on buying decisions.

The fuel mix underneath that flatness is changing fast. Petrol transactions fell 1.2% to 1,121,243 and diesel fell 7.2% to 620,045, the latter reflecting the shrinking supply of new diesel cars feeding into the second-hand pool. Plug-in hybrids, interestingly, went the other way from their battery-only cousins, with transactions down 6.8% to 22,856. Almost nine in ten used buyers, 86.7%, still chose a conventionally fuelled car, so the electric share remains small in absolute terms. The direction of travel is not in doubt.

What drove the surge

Two forces stacked on top of each other, one temporary and one structural.

The temporary one was fuel prices. Growth was strongest in April, when used EV transactions more than doubled with a 110.9% rise, followed by 57.6% in May and 37.8% in June, a trajectory the SMMT notes coincided with fuel price rises linked to the conflict in the Middle East. Dealer research points the same way: August's Startline Used Car Tracker found dealers naming the fuel price shock as the number one reason for the surge in used EV interest. The comparison base was also weak, with April 2025 depressed by buyers holding off ahead of VED changes on electric cars. Some of Q2's growth was borrowed from timing; not all of it.

The structural force is supply and choice finally arriving in the used pool. The record new EV sales of the past three years are now feeding through to the second-hand market exactly on schedule, which means more models, more battery sizes, more price points and more dealers willing to stock them. This is the mechanism by which electric cars become normal: each strong new year becomes a strong used year two or three years later, and the Q2 numbers are that arithmetic starting to work.

Price is the third strand, and we covered it separately in our piece on EV depreciation: after three years of falling values, used EV prices recorded their first annual rise since 2022 in June, and three-to-five-year-old electric cars are among the fastest-selling stock on forecourts. Cheap enough to be attractive, scarce enough to move quickly, is a healthy combination.

The models and places involved

The used market's best-sellers remain defiantly familiar. The Ford Fiesta topped the Q2 table with 73,570 transactions, followed by the Vauxhall Corsa on 59,247 and the Volkswagen Golf on 55,786, a top three with not a single current-production car in it. The electric growth is happening around the edge of that establishment rather than through it. Superminis remain the best-selling used car type at 31.7% of demand, while dual purpose cars, the segment where much of the electric growth sits, recorded the strongest growth at 7.4%.

Regionally, the South East led with 291,069 transactions, followed by the North West on 219,022 and the West Midlands on 209,293. The electric share is not a London-only phenomenon; it is spread across the country in step with where used stock lands.

The cautionary notes

Two things keep the celebration honest. First, the SMMT's own warning about where this supply comes from. Mike Hawes, its chief executive, pointed out that increasingly unrealistic new-market targets "risk constraining that supply and pushing up costs", since used EVs are the downstream product of new EV sales. The mandate gap we have tracked all summer, most recently in our reading of the July registrations, eventually becomes a used-supply question three years out.

Second, the growth rate itself will calm down. A 67% quarterly rise is the arithmetic of a small base doubling; the used EV share cannot keep compounding at that pace, and June's 37.8% already shows the deceleration as the weak comparison months pass. The meaningful number to watch is the share, 5.5% and climbing, not the growth rate.

What it means for buyers

For anyone considering a used electric car, the practical read is that the market has matured noticeably. Choice is wider than a year ago, dealer familiarity is better, prices have stopped falling, and the strongest demand is concentrated in the three-to-five-year-old bracket where battery warranties still have years to run. The days of the extraordinary distress-price bargain are fading, as rising demand meets levelling prices, but total running costs remain strongly in electric's favour. If you are weighing it up, our checklist for buying a used EV arrives later this month.

The honest read

A record quarter for used EVs is the most encouraging car-market statistic of the year, since it measures what ordinary buyers do with their own money rather than what fleet managers do with someone else's. The 67% rise has temporary fuel-price wind behind it, and the share is still modest. But the mechanism underneath it, new EV sales feeding a growing and healthy second-hand ecosystem, is now demonstrably working. The transition's hardest test was never persuading early adopters to buy new. It was persuading the used market, eight million transactions strong, to follow. That test is being passed.