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Welcome to The Independent EV Price Index, your new monthly guide to the real-world costs of buying and running electric vehicles in the UK. Launched in partnership with E.ON Next, this innovative resource – the first of its kind in the UK – will help you understand how EV prices are shifting, what’s driving those movements, and crucially help you if shopping, trading in, or simply tracking where the market is headed. Combined with the expert reviews on The Independent’s EV channel, we’ll help you decide what to buy and when is best to buy it. Built on data from Insider Car Deals, the data reflects actual discounts, finance deals and incentives available at retailers right now, giving you a valuable insight into the evolving electric vehicle market every month, all curated by our electric vehicles editor, Steve Fowler. With September one of the biggest months for new car registrations, and electric car registrations up nearly 30 per cent year-on-year, it’s no surprise that dealers aren’t working quite so hard for buyers’ business than they were last month. The EV Price Index has shown a typical increase of £207 (0.5 per cent) month-on-month at transaction level across all EVs. That doesn’t mean that the incentives have dried up – far from it. The standout deal of the month is on the Vauxhall Corsa electric with total incentives – including discounts and finance offers – worth up to 36 per cent of the list price. In the case of the Corsa Ultimate we saw a total of £11,570 worth of incentives. GWM and Cupra joined Vauxhall in the top three brands for overall incentives on their EVs in September. We might have seen a slight month-on-month increase in transaction prices, but prices are still way down year-on-year. The EV Price Index shows that buyers are typically paying £3,259 less than they were this time last year – a 7.7 per cent drop. The EV Price Index is also monitoring the prices of used cars. We’ve seen an average increase of £491 (or three per cent) across our basket of ten of the most popular used electric cars from August to September. We look for like-for-like used car prices each month, with the biggest price increases showing for the Audi Q4 e-Tron and Nissan Leaf. Both saw increases month-on-month of well over £1,000. There are lots of things that can affect used prices, particularly supply and demand, so it could be that supply of those two EVs dropped or the number of people wanting to buy them increased, which is why advertised prices appear to have risen. However, with September a busy new car buying month, it’s also a busy used car month. It will be interesting to see how those prices change over the coming months when showrooms and forecourts won’t be quite so crowded. There were more EVs on sale in September than there were in August, further boosting choice for consumers. Seven new models were registered on the EV Price Index in September, while year-on-year we’ve seen an incredible 35 per cent rise in total derivatives across 118 EV models compared with just 89 last year. That’s set to increase again with a host of new brands like Changan coming to market in the coming months, while some recent arrivals such as BYD, Jaecoo and Omoda are set to expand their ranges rapidly. Buyers love SUVs, so they’re not necessarily the place to look for the biggest bargains. Over the past month we’ve seen our Median target prices for small SUVs and Medium SUVs edge up by £140 and £1,426 – which have both contributed to the overall month-on-month increase of £207. However, every other category is showing a month-on-month drop, with small cars, family cars, large SUVs and prestige cars all showing drops from August to September – the biggest being prestige cars at an extra £712, a drop of 1.1 per cent. As our overall figures show, incentives have dropped overall across the EV market in September as the new registration plate drives more people into dealers. That means most of the monthly PCP costs have gone up – but not by much. Across the whole market, the rise is just £9 per month, with the only drop being small cars which would typically cost you £10 per month less during September than during August. It’s medium SUVs again that have gone up most – typically £26 a month more than last month – surprisingly followed by prestige cars and the expected small SUVs at £16 a month more in September than August. Car finance can be a bit confusing, so our guide to car finance will help you navigate the options you’ll be faced with.
