Imports of used cars to the Czech Republic rose by 21 percent year on year to 153,742 in ten months this year. By about 2,000 cars, imports exceeded the same period in 2019 and were also higher than in the whole of last year. This follows from the data of the Association of Car Importers.
The average age of imported cars is around 10.4 years, which is a quarter of a year less than last year. However, the share of imported used products older than 15 years increased by two percentage points compared to the period before coronavirus to 21.2 percent.
The most imported brand is still Škoda with 33,592 cars. It is followed by Volkswagen with 31,484 imported used cars and the third with 12,940 Ford cars. Other places include premium brands BMW, Mercedes and Audi. The Czechs also brought 24 used Rolls-Royce and 87 Ferrari cars this year, as well as a one-year-old Bugatti.
If the year-on-year growth rate is maintained, according to the CEO of the AAA Auto network, Karolína Topolová, this will be the strongest volume of imports in the last 13 years, since the introduction of the environmental fee. “This is a logical development that responds to the lack of used cars on the domestic market. However, the strong influx of imports has many dark sides – it increases the age of the domestic car fleet, increases the risk of buying low-quality cars and is also an ecological threat to our environment,” added Topolová.
Sales of new cars in the same period rose by about six percent to 174,494 cars. In October alone, however, it fell by a quarter.