Japanese brands top list of used vehicles' value in China

Four out of the top five carmakers in terms of their used gasoline vehicles' retention value were Japanese ones, according to a J.D. Power China report released on Tuesday.

A vehicle's retention value refers to the ratio of its price sold as a secondhand vehicle to its price sold as a new car.

The findings were based on a survey of over 250,000 used gasoline and electric vehicles sold from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the third quarter this year in China.

Three-year old vehicles from Toyota's premium arm Lexus were sold on average at 68.5 percent of their prices as new cars freshly off the assembly line, according to the report J.D. Power China released in collaboration with industry website 58che.

The other three Japanese brands in the top five list were Dongfeng Honda at 63.9 percent, GAC Honda at 60.8 percent and GAC Toyota at 59.7 percent.

German premium carmaker Porsche was the only non-Japanese brand in the top five list, seizing the third place at 63.5 percent.

Over one third of secondhand vehicle sales were in the sub-compact and compact segments, primarily because of their better value for money as well as affordability, according to the report.

Electric cars have a much lower retention value compared with gasoline cars because used ones usually have a shorter driving range resulting from the batteries' deteriorating performance.

Tesla topped this year's list, with its one-year old vehicles fetching 76.4 percent of their original prices. It was followed by China's startups Xpeng and Nio, Warren Buffet-backed BYD and SAIC's Roewe.

Statistics from the China Auto Dealers Association show that 1.47 million used vehicles were sold in August, up 1.69 percent month-on-month. Their total sales reached 10.5 million units in the first eight months this year.