Used EVs Now Sell in 25 Days in Britain, and Tesla Takes Three of the Top Ten

The used electric car has stopped being the awkward item on the forecourt. Auto Trader's latest retail data has used EVs selling in an average of 25 days, five days quicker than petrol and four days faster than the same point in 2025.

The speed numbers

The three-to-five-year-old band is the striking one. At 20 days it is the fastest-moving stock in the entire used market, of any fuel type. These are cars registered around 2021–2023, bought new at the top of the market, and they are now priced where ordinary buyers can reach them.

Six of the ten fastest sellers were electric, drawn from MG, Tesla and Polestar.

Prices are going up, not down

The more consequential half of the data is what is happening to money. Used EV values rose 3.3% year on year in July to an average of £24,946, against 1.0% for petrol. Within that, three-to-five-year-old EVs strengthened by 10.2% — record annual growth for the segment.

That cohort now averages £20,037, above the £18,731 of comparable petrol cars. A used EV commanding a premium over an equivalent combustion car reverses the story of the past three years.

"Record annual price growth for used EVs, alongside faster stock turn, shows a segment that has moved decisively past its post-2022 correction," said Marc Palmer, head of strategy at Auto Trader.

What it means for Tesla owners

Tesla accounts for three of the ten fastest-selling used cars in August — the strongest showing by any single brand in the ranking, though Auto Trader does not break the entry out by individual model.

For a Tesla owner this is the residual-value question answered from the other end. TeslAnt has covered the collapse in used Model S prices and the first fall in Dutch used EV prices since March; Britain is currently running the opposite way, and the cars doing the running are the volume Model 3 and Model Y years now entering the three-to-five-year band.

It also travels. The Model Y has been Sweden's best-selling used EV again even as new Tesla registrations there fell, which is the same signal: demand for Teslas is migrating from the new market to the used one.

The volume behind it

This sits on top of genuine scale rather than a thin sample. Britain bought 110,761 used electric cars in the second quarter, a record, and the SMMT put used battery-electric transactions up 45.7% across 2025 within a total secondhand market of roughly 7.8 million vehicles.

Bottom line

If you are selling a three-to-five-year-old Tesla in Britain, the market is the strongest it has been. If you are buying one, the discount that made used EVs obvious value in 2024 has largely gone — they now cost more than the petrol equivalent, and they sell before you have finished thinking about it.