Almost all dealers (97%) surveyed in June’s Startline Used Car Tracker say that more support is needed from motor finance providers for electric vehicle (EV) funding.
In the research, 52% say their lenders are less keen to finance EVs, 45% charge higher finance rates and 21% want higher deposits. Also, 14% say their lenders won’t finance EVs at all.
“We’ve moved from a situation where EVs were something of an unknown quantity for lenders to one where the information that became available about their performance interms of risk was almost all bad. Many have had a bad experience with EVs.
However, Paul said, it was clearly a situation that needed to be resolved, with increasing numbers of EVs starting to appear in the used sector.
“The fact that essentially all the dealers in our survey believe that there are issues around EV funding almost certainly indicates that there are problems that need resolving. Arguably, this will happen naturally over time as the EV market matures with values becoming much more stable and predictable as a result.
“However, more may need to be done in the shorter term. As commercial businesses, there is a limited amount that lenders can do in this area but there has been discussion of increased government support in this area. Notably, interest free loans are already available for used EVs in Scotland.”
