The shift was starkly illustrated at a late-March auction run by asset sales company Pickles, where insurers sent 40 BYD vehicles that had been splattered with concrete but were repairable. With fuel prices rising sharply in response to the US and Israel war on Iran, the auction drew intense demand.
"We had thousands of buyers trying to bid on about 40 cars, so just the prices we generated were incredible," said Brendon Green, Pickles' general manager of automotive solutions. "The amount of views that we got on those cars, the bidders that registered and the amount of bids that we took were extraordinary compared to what we would typically see."
Salvage EVs with pre-accident values of up to $40,000 fetched substantially higher prices than comparable combustion models, according to the auction house. Written-off EVs sold for spare parts and second-life batteries achieved 16% higher sale results than petrol equivalents, while repairable write-offs generated a 71% price premium.
The trend is being driven by financial considerations as much as environmental ones. More EVs than petrol-only cars were sold in September, according to Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries data, supported by an influx of low-priced Chinese brands. The Iran conflict and associated enduring oil price rise accelerated demand from March and it has continued.
Rob Chan, managing director of car rental marketplace Turo Australia, said customer demand for EVs and hybrids has rocketed, with bookings growing at 28 times the pace of petrol and diesel over the past year. In response, Turo "hosts" are buying secondhand EVs to meet that demand.
The strong resale performance overturns earlier warnings from sceptics that used EVs would rapidly depreciate and become worthless.