While new electric car sales have remained relatively stagnant, the sale of used electric vehicles are gradually increasing. The lowered prices of such cars account for the increased attractiveness to consumers. Used electric vehicles are clearly moving much faster compared to the standard gasoline-fueled vehicles. These findings were obtained from a study highlighted at iSeeCars.com website. This study considered the time that these used cars remained on dealer lots. About 2.2 million used vehicles were included in this study. The vehicles were less than 3-years old with the sale period being January to May, 2016. Among the ten top-selling used vehicles, two of them were hybrids, two battery-electric cars, and a plug-in vehicle.

Also, the average costs of these vehicles reduced faster compared to the prices of gasoline-fueled vehicles. Over the study period, the average time that electric cars remained on market was 29.2 days with the price dropping by 15.2 percent in comparison to the same time in 2015. Comparatively, gasoline-fueled cars remained on dealership lots for approximately 42.5 days with the prices dropping by only one percent. For plug-in hybrids, the price decrease was 5.1 percent with the average time they remained on the market being 40.7 days. Hybrid cars stayed on market for an average of 38.2 sales and their prices went down by 3.7 percent compared to last year.

The fastest used-car seller was Toyota’s Prius plug in, which stayed on market for an average of 19.7 days. Within the same period last year, the Prius remained under dealership for approximately 38.1 days. This is a clear indication that the demand of the car has increased. Most of Prius sales were recorded in California, despite the fact that it no longer distributes green stickers granting authorization for solo carpool-lane use to plug-ins or hybrids. This information was confirmed by Phong Ly, the CEO of iSeeCars.com. The access to high-occupancy car lane has for a long time attracted California residents who have to tolerate jammed rush-hour highways.

Several years down the line, a study conducted to investigate the importance of carpool-lane stickers on used hybrids indicated that around $1,500 was added to the sticker alone to the car’s overall value. A comparable second-hand model that lacked this sticker was cheaper. The second and third best second-hand car sellers were Nissan’s Leaf and Tesla’s Model S, which stayed for about 24.3 days and 26.1 days respectively on market. The 7^th and 8^th fastest sellers were Lexus’ CT 200h and Toyota’s Highlander. The lower costs of these cars indicate that it is the best time to purchased used hybrid, electric or plug-in hybrids.