Thanks, very useful information. Will have a good read.

My view is while some folk will embrace hybrids and electric cars, the initial outlay and lack of charging infrastructure is not an encouragement, and many stick with diesel or petrol.

Where I live - a town of nearly 50,000 - the nearest charing point is 5 miles away in the next county ! How would the country cope on a bank holiday weekend with thousands of cars queueing for a charing point at motorway service area.

As someone who enjoys driving, and leaving aside emissions - I cant see the appeal of an electric car with a limited range coupled with depreciation that dives off a cliff, or driving hybrid dragging around a heavy battery that dents the petrol performance over and above the same non-hybrid car. Battery technology has advanced, but is not quite at the level to provided a comparable equivalent to fossil fuel.

If a manufacturer had produced a mid-size family/SUV with a 500 mile electric range for under £40k, it would be a whole new ball game.

While aware of green issues, the total lack of direction and mixed messages from Government don't help people making the right choice - such as reducing electric car subsidies and cancelling major rail electrification plans. It sends the wrong messages.

It may upset some, but to me electric cars are a novelty.

A lot of electric cars, Teslas in particular, hold their value much better than equivalent petrol/diesel models and all the Toyota hybrids hold their prices well.

However, at the smaller car end of the market it is more of a mixed bag. A lot of this is down to some of the weird ways some manufacturers have sold the cars with batteries being leased and not owned causing a lot of confusion on the used market. Ungenerous warranties from manufacturers doesn't help either.

Newer hybrids are not,old enough to show solid depreciation data but the industry seems to be predicting 50% retained value at three years old compared to 30% for a standard ICE car.

The last car we sold at 3 years old was the Nissan Note in May this year. It had a retail price of £16000 (inc white paint) and we got £6400 from Evans Halshaw under their "we gaurantee to beat WBAC" scheme. That is a retained value of 40%.

But we did not pay full retail, no one should. After discounts and contributions we paid £12000 so the retained value was actually 53%.

Prior to that it was the Leon. We kept that car almost 4 years so the figures would need adjusting back to 3 years, let you lot do that. £17800 new, got £7200 basic trade from the local dealer (no trade in sweetner since the Suberb was heavily discounted), 40% retained value. But just like the Note we did not pay full retail, after discounts and contributions we paid £15000 so the retained value was 48%. Factor these back to 3 years old and they would surely beat the Note and comfortably beat the 30% the poster is suggesting.