New research from DoneDeal has found that electric vehicles drop in value at almost twice the rate of petrol cars because of the speed at which the technology is advancing.

The study reports that electric cars drop in value by 41 per cent over the first three years, compared with 43 per cent for diesel, 24 per cent for petrol cars and 26 per cent for hybrids.

The Irish company’s research also revealed that the Nissan Leaf remained the top selling electric car in Ireland this year. In total, 944 were sold in the first half of this year compared with 566 in the whole of 2018.

Martin Clancy, from DoneDeal, said: “The biggest impact on electric car resale value appears to come down to technology, which is changing rapidly. Electric cars produced even in 2016 have a much shorter range and fewer features than the newer models.”