Rare and sought-after used cars with automatic transmission have seen their prices rise considerably over the past several years. According to Le Parisien, they have increased by almost 21% on average between 2020 and 2024.
How can we explain this trend in a country where manual gearboxes are historically popular (unlike the United States, where automatic gearboxes are the majority)?
In fact, this type of vehicle benefits from a combination of factors that is causing demand to skyrocket. Firstly, more and more young people are opting for a driving licence with an automatic transmission.
“This option allows you to obtain the sesame price after only 13 hours of driving, compared to 20 hours for the manual speed box (traditional offer), and so on, very quickly,” explains En Voiture Simone, an online driving school.
In Paris, one in three licences has switched to automatic transmission
“Training with an automatic gearbox also has the advantage of being less expensive than training with a manual gearbox: 1,000 euros (code + 20 hours) for the classic permit compared to 850 euros (code + 20 hours) for the CPF version of the automatic gearbox permit,” the startup continues.
Thus, while 1.6 million candidates sat the exam in 2022, nearly 220,000 opted for the so-called BEA licence (permsi B with automatic clutch). And this, with strong regional disparities: in Paris, the proportion of the car-box exam is 32.3%, compared to only 9.3% in Haute-France, notes En Voiture Simone.
Why this disparity? The success of the automatic gearbox is closely linked to the success of electric vehicles, which all use this transmission system and are obviously more widely used in large cities. The same is true for hybrid vehicles. More generally, more and more vehicles are being equipped with this type of gearbox.
Ultimately, this favourable context is driving up demand for second-hand cars with automatic transmissions. However, demand remains higher than supply, even if the latter is growing. On Leboncoin.fr, they represent 41% of second-hand adverts this year, compared to 26.5% in 2020, our colleagues indicate.
But at the same time, the electric vehicles accounted for just 2% of used car sales in the first quarter of 2024, far from the performance of this segment in the new market.
A difference of 1,500 euros with cars with manual gearboxes
As these vehicles with automatic transmission are recent and rarer, mechanically their prices are significantly higher than those of classic used vehicles with a differential for a comparable model (and with equivalent mileage) of 1,500 euros.
In short, what is saved on the cost of the license seems to be largely lost when purchasing the vehicle.
Especially since passing this licence can have certain detrimental consequences. The inability to drive a car with a manual gearbox can be restrictive, especially in a professional situation when an employer provides a vehicle with a manual gearbox. Remember that the holder of an automatic transmission licence is not entitled to drive a car with a conventional transmission.
Unless you add additional training on manual transmission vehicles. In addition, a recent decree has eliminated the three-month delay between obtaining a license for an automatic transmission and being able to follow this training to convert your license.
Source: BFM TV
