# Used EVs always at the dealers



## rmay635703 (Oct 23, 2008)

After 2009 the number of private party car sales dropped to 3% of sales

The fact of the matter is very few cars sell private party.

From personal experience when trying to sell a car outright you couldn’t get much over $1000 no matter how new or nice, CARMAX offered more than I could get locally 

Not sure what the reason is but private sales are pretty much impossible to pull off for the average Joe


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## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Private sales are not anywhere near "impossible" in most places, but perhaps the BC government insurance and registration system makes it particularly difficult there.

I don't know if EVs are more commonly leased than sold outright, but it would make sense for buyers who are cautious about the risk of a unusual vehicle, and for the makers of cars that they might want to withdraw from the market. Leased vehicles can usually be bought out by the lessor at the end of the lease, but are more commonly turned back in to the leasing company, which could be the auto manufacturer... that would leave them with dealerships, or in auctions which supply dealerships.

EVs are relatively new in the mass market, and the newer a used car is, the less likely it is to be sold privately. 

A quick check of AutoTrader.ca shows 513 Leafs at dealerships in Canada, 241 of them in B.C. (an even higher B.C. proportion than I expected). At the same time, they list 36 for sale privately in Canada, only 12 in B.C. This is just AutoTrader ads and I don't know how much that affects the dealer/private balance, but it appears that private listings are only a few percent of dealer listings, and B.C. is aligned with the rest of the country.

The totals for all Nissan models in Canada show higher fraction of private than the Leaf, but still mostly dealers; it may be that there's nothing special about the situation with EVs, but EVs are just still relatively uncommon.


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## macosie (Oct 1, 2014)

Thanks. The logic sounds, uhm, logical. 
I thought it might be a way for them to keep the prices high. I might go to Washington when I'm ready to buy one. 
Cheers

Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk


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## Olphart (May 25, 2017)

I've found that most of the used EVs in the pipeline locally are just lease returns coming from California, thus not many private sellers.


When I bought my last car I found the dealers more willing to negotiate the price, thus I bought from them. However, they offered me an insult for my trade in so I sold it very quickly with an online ad for full ask. (Probably could have gotten more, but it went to right buyer)


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## GoElectric (Nov 15, 2015)

Hi. I own an EV only Dealership (one year) and am surprised by how willing folks are to sell me their older EV for wholesale, rather than go to the effort of selling it themselves. They are usually upgrading to a Tesla.

The world changing.


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## macosie (Oct 1, 2014)

GoElectric said:


> Hi. I own an EV only Dealership (one year) and am surprised by how willing folks are to sell me their older EV for wholesale, rather than go to the effort of selling it themselves. They are usually upgrading to a Tesla.
> 
> 
> 
> The world changing.


How's business? I recall reading that you import your vehicle's from California. Do you get many Calgary-based car traded in/sold? How about Canadian lease-backs? 
I was pleasantly surprised that the first 2nd-hand EV shop in western Canada was in Calgary, not Vancouver. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)


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