ONE of the biggest contributing factors of depreciation is mileage. The further a car has been driven, the less amount of money you’ll be able to gain back when trying to sell it.
This is because the mileage gives a good indication of a car’s mechanical wellbeing. The more miles it’s done the more likely it’ll need parts replacing/updating. With this in mind, LeaseLoco decided to take a deep dive into mileage and see just how much it affects car prices in today’s market.
To do this it analysed a popular online car marketplace and compared the prices of the UK’s most popular used cars against the number of miles the car had done. What it found was that overall the average internal combustion engine (ICE) depreciates around 67p per mile. This means that today, the average car will depreciate £4,669.90 per year, based on a recent study that stated the average annual mileage pre-COVID was 6,970 miles a year.
EVs depreciate slower than ICEs
LeaseLoco also investigated what this meant to the growing electric vehicle market. As more and more vehicles come onto the market, and many motorists are opting for electric over ICEs, the used car market for EVs increases, which means today, we’re able to analyse this market a lot more accurately than we could have done before. We discovered that EVs depreciate at a slower rate than ICEs, overall averaging a depreciation rate of £3,833.50 per year, £836.40 less than ICEs do. This means that EVs depreciate at around 55p per mile compared to ICE’s 67p.
But what about individual cars? Which, out of the UK’s favourite used ICE and EV cars depreciate the least?
MINI Hatch Electric found to depreciate the most
After analysing the UK’s favourite ICEs and EVs on the used car market, the study found that the MINI Hatch Electric depreciated the most, losing £1.82 per mile. Using that study that states that the average annual mileage is 6,970 miles a year, that means over a 12 month period, the MINI would depreciate around £12,657, around £264 per week.
At the other end of the scale, where the cars depreciate the least, the best three cars are all electric, with the Vauxhall Corsa EV depreciating the least, only dropping 16p per mile, which translates to £1,128 per year and only £23.50 per week.
Aside from the MINI Electric, the next three cars are all internal combustion engines. The BMW 1 Series comes in 2nd, depreciating £1.58 per mile. A total of £11,010 per year and £229 per week. Then comes the Ford Focus, depreciating £1.19 per mile, £8,294 per year and £173 per week, followed by the BMW 3 Series, depreciating £1.03 per mile, £7166 per year and £149 per week.
The UK’s favourite used ICE car, the Ford Fiesta, sits close to the bottom of the pile, only depreciating 24p per mile, £1672 per year and £34.82 per week. Then, surprisingly, despite the MINI Hatch Electric topping the leaderboard, the ICE version fares relatively well, depreciating the 2nd best at only £4 more than the Fiesta.
LeaseLoco’s research analysed a popular online car marketplace and compared the prices of the UK’s most popular used cars against the number of miles the car had done, keeping every other factor the same. The annual mileage is based on pre-lockdown data (2015-2019 data that projects the average annual mileage for UK drivers in 2020).
