Drivelease posted on February 16, 2012 09:40
It is the 10th time prices have increased in the last year and the average annual price since January last year has increased by 2.943%, or £827 from £28,096 to £28,923.
However, the underlying pace of inflation in car prices has slowed down over the past 12 months to 2.943%. It rose by 4.375% between January 2010 and January 2011.
John Blauth, editor-in-chief of DrivenData, said: ‘It’s a curious phenomenon, and defies the basic laws of economics, but while inflation across theUKis slowly falling (as
predicted by the Bank of England), new car price inflation continues to climb. Happily, depending on your viewpoint of course, the rate is still significantly below that of bothRPIandCPI.
‘The converse is that previously consumers could depend on manufacturers adding tasty goodies to standard specifications to ease the pain; those days are, it appears, long gone.’