Trust your instincts: Woman facing €22,000 loss as electric car price takes a hit

A mother-of-three contacted me recently quite distraught at the fact that she faced the loss of up to €22,000 on an electric car.

It is a long and sad story and it is tied indirectly – though not wholly – into the recent decision by Volkswagen here (and abroad) to slash the price of some of its electric models as part of a market realignment generally.

A key point in the saga is that she never felt 100pc right about the ID.5 she bought from a thoroughly reputable outlet.

Up to recently she had changed her car every 12 to 18 months.

She paid €62,000 for the ID.5 and carried €13,500 PCP equity from the Tiguan that she traded against it.

She claims she was assured the electric vehicle market was not “going down in price”.

That was last March.

In July she went back to the dealer because she “ realised the EV car was not for me”.

The car was valued at €50,000 – €12,000 lower than what she had paid a few months earlier.

“I burst into tears” at being told the reduced value, she said.

And then last month she was told her ID.5 was worth just €40,000 – a whopping €22,000 below the purchase price.

“So now I am in negative equity. If I want to trade in I have to clear the negative equity plus find a new deposit to restart a PCP plan,” she said.

Volkswagen headquarters are dealing with the issue and hope the matter can be resolved. I do hope so.

There are two bitter lessons to learn from this obviously distressing story: If you have a doubt about a car, the chances are that your reservations or instincts are correct.

And if you trade in your car every year or 18 months you will suffer a bigger hit of depreciation than if you did so every three years where the fall in value tapers less savagely because it is spread over a longer period.

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