While Black Book shared its usual wholesale price trends, perhaps what intrigued analysts most during the second week of 2023 was the quick impact Tesla’s price decision involving new models left on the OEM’s used electric vehicles.

Black Book said in the newest installment of Market Insights released on Tuesday that “the big news will be what happens to used Tesla values after Tesla shocked us all with their announcement of price reductions, some models dropping as much as 20% last week.

“Used electric vehicle values were already feeling the pressure before this news of the price reduction,” Black Book continued in the latest report. “Values for EVs soared earlier last year when fuel prices were high but have fallen hard recently as fuel prices have come back down and interest rates have gone up, making those higher MSRPs compared to their equivalent ICE vehicle harder to afford.”

Perhaps if a dealership’s potential customer can’t or won’t stretch enough to get a deal done for an EV, maybe one of those ICE models will become more attractive, especially with wholesale values and auction sales rates still soft.

Black Book said the estimated average weekly sales rate came in at 45% again last week, as the reading has been at or below 50% since Thanksgiving.

And wholesale values dropped by another 0.79%, according to Black Book’s calculations.

“With two weeks of the new year now behind us, the trends that we ended 2022 with are continuing into 2023,” analysts said. “Sales rates at the auctions continue to be less than ideal and weekly depreciation continues at a rate that exceeds what is typically experienced this time of year.”

Looking closer at the data, Black Book found that overall car values on a volume-weighted basis decreased 0.88%, with all nine car segments dropping.

Three car segments posted price declines greater than 1%, including prestige luxury cars (down 1.76%), near luxury cars (down 1.28%) and compact cars (down 1.18%).

Perhaps with an inkling toward spring already, Black Book mentioned sporty car depreciation has been slowing in the new year, only declining 0.19% last week, compared with an average weekly decline of 0.60% during December.

In the truck department, Black Book’s volume-weighted data showed overall truck segment values decreased 0.75% last week.

While all 13 truck segments sustained price declines last week, a trio softened by more than 1%, including sub-compact Luxury SUVs (down 1.42%0, full-size SUVs (down 1.09%) and sub-compact SUVs (down 1.04%).

“Inventory at the auctions remains lower than typical,” Black Book said. “But despite conversion rates remaining flat, the overall sentiment at the auction was more positive last week.”