With electric vehicles’ range and cost issues likely to be overcome in the short term Glass’s director of valuations, Rupert Pontin, says  Hybrids will be a passing phase in car technology.  He warned that a new hybrid vehicle being bought today could be effectively obsolete by the time it reaches the end of its normal life.

Rupert Pontin commented: “Hybrids are designed to solve two of the problems that EVs have faced in recent years – high cost and low range. However, there are very clear signs that these issues are being resolved very quickly. For example, the revised Renault Zoe announced at Paris Motor Show has a 250-mile range and costs £17,000.

“Similarly, the new battery in the BMW i3 lasts around 190 miles and Volkswagen is claiming that its IQ, which will come to market in 2020, will go up to 373 miles between charges and be priced competitively.

“The fact is that vehicles such as this effectively remove the rationale for hybrids. Within a few years, hybrids could be seen as little more than a curiosity and this will undoubtedly affect their values.”

The company car market, supported by low CO2 figures translating into minimised tax bills for drivers, will also dry up according to Pontin:“These vehicles make a lot of sense in the fleet sector but not so much on the used market, where buyers tend to view them as more complicated than a diesel but with few compensating advantages.

“As viable EVs start to become available in larger numbers, this will only become more acute and it is difficult to foresee a situation in which demand is likely to increase. Our view is that, unless manufacturers find it difficult to bring the price of EVs down to somewhere near family cars, then hybrids will simply be seen as a passing phase in the history of the car.”