Europe's Used EV Price Gap Is Far Smaller Than It Looks, Study Finds

Talk of collapsing electric car values has shaped much of the debate around used BEVs in Europe. A fresh analysis suggests those headline depreciation numbers are misleading once the fine print is stripped away. Once inflation, purchase incentives and acquisition taxes are factored in, the residual value gap between battery-electric and petrol cars in 2025 shrinks from 12.9 percentage points to 7.7 points.

Going a step further, when used EVs are measured against the prices of today’s new cars rather than against what first owners originally paid, the gap narrows to just 2.6 percentage points. In other words, the depreciation penalty often attributed to electric motoring is largely an artefact of fast-falling sticker prices and subsidy-driven purchase math, not evidence that shoppers are turning their backs on used EVs.

Europe’s used EV market is also far from uniform. Spain has held steady, France has proven comparatively resilient, and Italy has suffered steeper declines. Smaller, cheaper electric models are weathering the storm better than large premium ones, and European marques are generally holding value more firmly than their rivals. There are also signs of a market settling down: the erosion in EV residual values slowed to 0.7 percentage points in the second half of 2025, down from 2.3 points a year earlier.

The study points to battery health certification, manufacturer-backed approved-used programmes, longer transferable warranties and better-targeted financing as the tools that could build lasting buyer confidence. Certified EVs already resell for roughly 1.4% more and move off forecourts about 2.7 days faster, while some automakers now bundle multi-year battery guarantees into their used schemes.