In focus
Left: Aston Barclay resells a huge range of vehicles from its fleet customers.
Potter says that although the average age of cars has not moved much since Q2, mileage is on a trajectory downwards. “Average mileage is now in the late 30,000s,” he says. “It did have a slight increase in Q4 from Q3, but I think all that is, is the creeping up from contract extensions.
“The average age profile will change over the coming months as new car supply comes out. I don’t think we’ve yet seen the cars that have been extended, because of the new order. I think the cars we’re seeing are still coming
sector was down by 30%. “While it’s only 4% overall, I’d say it’s common now for fleet customers to have somewhere in the region of 15–20% of their mixes that are hybrid or battery electric. I can see that happening very quickly, in the next 12 to 15 months, becoming close to 50% of their volume.” Previously, the company’s Insights Report lumped the alternative fuels together, but, for the first time, in Q4 it split up battery electric and hybrid. “This is because the hybrid stock has been out there since 2009,
“There were 1.4 million fewer vehicles registered just in the last two years.”
in on a normal cycle, and they’ve been able to get new supply to replace them. So, it wouldn’t surprise me if the average age crept up to 42, 43 or even 45 months.”
Potter tells me Aston Barclay is looking at the mix now, with all the news about battery- electric vehicles (EVs) and alternatively fuelled vehicles, from a new car registration point of view. “In the wholesale market, diesel represented 48% of our total mix, with battery electric and alternative fuels still only 4%,” he says. “EV-only was 0.8%, and 3.2% were hybrid models. Our fleet volumes in terms of mix went down by about 12% last year as 2019 and 2020 were just the same really.” Potter is pleased with this, bearing in mind that the fleet
and the average profile is very similar to fleet,” Potter explains. “It’s 40 months old, 30-odd thousand miles, and it has an average price of £18,500. Battery electric on its own is a totally different profile. It is 15 months old, around 10,000 miles and it has about £28,500 to £30,000 worth of average sale price. Putting it all together, was really distorting the overall pricing. You’ve got a longer standing hybrid market, that’s been about for a while and then you’ve got a new emerging battery electric market that we’re showing in two separate areas.” Aston Barclay took a very different approach in April last year, when everything opened back up. “We’re very grateful to our
equity owners. We told them we wanted to add 25% to our overheads to employ more staff for us to run physical sales again, which our customers wanted. This was when our competitors were going the other way.” The company is still taking on the cost of prepping the cars for fleet. “I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the buyers coming to see those vehicles and it’s mainly been interest from car supermarkets. By viewing them, several buyers have reported back to us, they’ve bought at least another 20 or 30 cars that they would have discounted if they had just been online. Our leasing customers have said, when they compare us against our peers, we’ve consistently converted 12% more in our fleet sales this year.” Another area in which Potter feels Aston Barclay succeeded over the past year is the development of its timed auction platform, allowing it closed capability. “Late last year, we digitised the PCP return process for Vauxhall finance – one of our customers. “Now we’ve done that for Vauxhall, we’re working on similar platforms for other manufacturers,” he says. “We’re also running closed sales for them, exclusive to the network and utilising that product for some of our major dealership clients too. They can serve themselves with potential retail stock.
“So, what has changed is that we are running four or five bespoke remarketing strategies for fleet customers – rather than just one or two remarketing opportunities for them.”
www.businesscar.co.uk | March 2022 | 23
140,000 fewer ex-fleet
vehicles were in the marketplace in 2021
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