The shock wave of “diesel bashing” also touches the occasion. While the share of diesel in sales of new cars fell below the 50% mark last year in France (to 47.3%) this once-famous powerplant also loses points in the second-hand market. According to the Barometer AutoScout24, which refers, it sold last year 91,000 diesel cars less than in 2016 (-2.4%), while the market opportunity has itself progressed from 0.7%, at a record level of 5.7 million transactions. Diesel engines are certainly the most popular, but their market share fell again in 2017, to 64.5%. And the fall continued in January, to 63.9%. The share of diesel was 68% in 2012.
Supply-Demand Offset
If the decline in the second hand market is much less brutal than for new cars, it is because the supply of gasoline vehicles does not follow. “Today’s opportunities are new cars from 4 or 5 years ago: 70% of them are diesel engines,” says Guillaume Paoli, co-founder of Aramis Auto, a French tire sales site. used cars online. “There is so much negative communication about diesel that people become reluctant, even if it is economically irrational.”
Diesel is still financially attractive for heavy riders, and recent models are no more polluting than gasoline. But the fear of being denied access to certain cities , or having trouble reselling his car in a few years, the demand for diesel. “On our site, diesel represents more than 51% of searches, but still 78% of the offer,” says Vincent Hancart, CEO of AutoScout24 France.
Decrease in transactions
This shift begins to be seen on prices. At AutoScout24, the diesel did not really move, but the gasoline started to climb. “On some models gasoline has become more expensive than diesel, while in principle it’s the opposite,” says Vincent Hancart. On small urban cars, in particular, diesel has clearly lost its advantage over gasoline since the government undertook to rebalance the taxation at the pump . “At home, the prices of diesel city dwellers have on average lost 12% in eighteen months,” says Guillaume Paoli, who stresses, however, that “on the whole market, we can talk about crumbling, not collapse “.
But above all, the lack of supply on gasoline translates into a decline in transactions. “Buyers prefer to wait, they keep looking rather than buying diesel. Sales times are getting longer, and some models are simply not selling anymore, “notes Vincent Hancart. For the past three months, the second-hand market has continued to fall: -9.6% in November, -13.3% in December, and -7.1% in January, according to the same barometer. Professionals now hope that the conversion bonus, extended since last January 1, will reverse the trend.