Used Aston Martin’s $114,500 Price Tag Attests to Chip Squeeze

(Bloomberg) --

Most Read from Bloomberg

• Google’s Biggest Moonshot Is Its Search for a Carbon-Free Future

• The Biggest Public Graveyard in the U.S. Is Becoming a Park

• Google’s CEO: ‘We’re Losing Time’ in the Climate Fight

• Hate-Speech Case Forces Japan to Confront Workplace Racism

• Why Buying a Second or Even Third Home Is Becoming More Popular Than Ever

Used-car sellers are enjoying a boom in demand in the U.K. as the pandemic puts a squeeze on the supply of chips for new vehicles.

Average prices were up 30% in September compared with a year ago, according to Motorway, a London-based start-up that connects consumers with dealerships. A top performer was the Aston Martin Vanquish, which jumped 37% from the third quarter of last year to a price of 84,000 pounds ($114,500).

Soaring appetite for used vehicles underscores how supply-chain shortages of key components such as chips are changing consumer habits across the world amid the Covid-19 crisis. And that’s providing a windfall to individuals offloading old cars. Prices globally rose 19% on an annual basis through August, according to the Atlanta, Georgia-based Manheim U.S. Used Vehicle Value Index compiled by Cox Automotive Inc.

“There are very few new cars being made and delivered, so there’s a huge problem with new-car stock and that’s driving tons of demand into the used-car space,” said Motorway Chief Executive Officer Tom Leathes. “The chip shortage is here for a while.”

Motorway, which runs daily auctions and sells more than 8,000 cars a month, said it clocked up 306 million pounds in sales in the third quarter this year, a more than 300% increase from the same period in 2020. It expects annual sales on its platform to top $2 billion over the coming year.

Alongside the Aston Martin Vanquish, top sellers included the Vauxhall Agila and Ford Focus, ahead of the Volkswagen Eos, according to Motorway. Tesla’s Model S trailed behind several other models, rising 14% over the past year.

More than 3,000 dealers use Motorway’s platform, on which over 100,000 used cars have been sold since its launch in 2017, according to the company.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

• How Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Gwyneth Paltrow Short-Circuit Your Ability to Think Rationally

• These Out-of-Work Americans Tell Us Job Market Turmoil Is Anything But Transitory

• What My Brain Scan Revealed About the Science of Persuasion

• Homeopathy Doesn’t Work. So Why Do So Many Germans Believe in It?

• MLB Is Testing Ways to Fix Baseball’s Boredom Problem

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.