End-of-season car sales?
"Manufacturers sometimes give incentives to car dealers to ensure that the prior year models are sold out before the year is up.  However, dealers are usually pretty smart on only ordering the cars they know they can sell before this happens.  Also, manufacturers are usually pretty good about only producing enough vehicles to cover demand.   Honestly, you aren't likely to see these incentives materialize unless the manufacturer really screwed up.   If that happens then three things occur.  First is that manufacturers give a hidden incentive to the dealers.  Dealers won't publicize this, even internally.  If the cars are still not moving after a month, then the dealers will tell the salespeople that those cars have a specific ""bonus"" on them.  If those cars still don't sell, then the bonus inflates quite a bit and dealers begin advertising that car at a deep discount on the radio.  It's pretty much guaranteed to sell at that point. Barring those circumstances, the deal you get on a brand new car, late in the model year, is likely to be the same you could have gotten early in the model year.   Honestly, if you want the best deal possible, look at the date of the inspection sticker on the car.  If it is close to the 3 month mark then the dealer will bend over backwards to sell the car as the finance costs are racking up on it.  They'll often sell that one at heavy discounts." It completely varies by manufacturer, dealer, and time of year, but in general yes, you can get a (sometimes significant) discount on brand new last year models.  In general though, it comes down to supply and demand. As an example, in April 2016 I was looking at a brand new 2016 in which the 2017 model had come out that week (I thought April was a little early for next year's model but sometimes that's a marketing tool). The sticker price of the 2017 was only $100 more than the 2016, but the 2016 was selling for $3K under MSRP, and the 2017 was selling at exactly MSRP since they only had 2 in stock.
I can think of a few good reasons: A company, especially public, usually wants their fourth-quarter earnings to be the strongest of the year. That ends each fiscal year on a high note for the company and its investors, which helps public sentiment and boosts stock prices. So, travel agencies and airlines usually like ending their year in October or March, in the lull between the summer and winter travel seasons with a large amount of that revenue falling within the company's fiscal Q4. Oil companies sometimes do the same because fuel prices are seasonal for much the same reasons. December is a really bad month to try to close out an entire year's accounting books. Accountants and execs are on vacation for large parts of the month, most retail stores are flooded with revenue (and then contra-revenue as items are returned) that takes time to account at the store level and then filter up to the corporate office, etc etc. It also doesn't tell the whole story for most retail outfits; December sales are usually inflated by purchases that are then returned in January after all the hullaballoo. As a result, a fiscal year end in January or even February keeps the entire season's revenues and expenses in one fiscal year. "I'm going to look just at purchase price. Essentially, you can't always claim the whole of the purchase price (or 95% your case) in the year (the accounting period) of purchase, but you get a percentage of the value of the car each year, called writing down allowance, which is a capital allowance. It is similar to depreciation, but based on HRMC's own formula. In fact, it seems you probably can claim 95% of the purchase price, because the value is less than £1000. The logic is a bit involved, but I hope you can understand it. You could also claim simplified expenses instead, which is just based on a rate per mile, but you can't claim both. Note, by year I mean whatever your account period is. This could be the normal financial year, but you would probably have a better idea about this. See The HMRC webpage on this for more details.  The big idea is that you record the value of any assets you are claiming writing down allowance on in one of a number of pools, that attract the same rate of writing down allowance, so you don't need to record the value of each asset separately. They are similar to accounts in accounting, so they have an opening balance, and closing balance. If you use an asset for personal use, it needs a pool to itself. HRMC call that a single asset pool. So, to start with, look at the Business Cars section, and look at the Rates for Cars section, to determine the rate you can claim. Each one links to a further article, which gives more detail if you need it. Your car is almost certainly in the special rate category. Special rate is 8% a year, main rate is 18%, and First year allowance is essentially 100%. Then, you look at the Work out what you can claim article. That talks you through the steps. I'll go through your example. You would have a pool for your car, which would end the account period before you bought the vehicle at zero (step 1). You then add the value of the car in the period you bought it (Step 2). You would reduce the value of the pool if you dispose of it in the same year (Step 3). Because the car is worth less than £1,000 (see the section on ""If you have £1,000 or less in your pool""), you would normally be able to claim the whole value of the pool (the value of the car) in the first accounting period, and reduce the value of the pool to zero. As you use the car for personal use, you only claim 95% of the value, but still reduce the pool to zero. See the section on ""Items you use outside your business"". This £1000 is adjusted if your accounting period lasts more or less than 12 months. Once the pool is down to zero that it you don't need to think about it any more for tax purposes, apart from if you are claiming other motoring expenses, or if you sell it.  It gets more complicated if the car is more expensive. I'll go through an example for a car worth £2,000.  Then, after Step 3, on the year of purchase, you would reduce the value of the pool by 8%, and claim 95% of the reduction. This would be a 160 reduction, and 95%*160 = 152 claim, leaving the value of 1860 in the pool. You then follow the same steps for the next year, start with 1840 in the pool, reduce the value by 8%, then claim 95% of the reduction. This continues until you sell or dispose of the car (Step 3), or the value of the pool is 1000 or less, then you claim all of it in that year. Selling the car, or disposing of the car is discussed in the  Capital allowances when you sell an asset article. The basic idea is that if you have already reduced the value of the pool to zero, the price you sell the car for is added you your profits for that year (See ""If you originally claimed 100% of the item""), if you still have anything in the pool, you reduce the value of the pool by the sale value, and if it reduces to below zero (to -£200, say), you add that amount (£200, in this case), to your profits. If the value is above zero, you keep applying writing down allowances. In your case, that seems to just means if you sell the car in the same year you buy it, you claim the difference (or 95% of it) as writing down allowance, and if you do it later, you claim the purchase price in the year of purchase, and add 95% of the sale price to your profits in the year you sell it. I'm a bit unclear about starting ""to use it outside your business"", which doesn't seem to apply if you use it outside the business to start with.   You can claim simplified expenses for vehicles, if you are a sole trader or partner, but not if you claim capital allowances (such as writing down allowances) on them, or you include a separate expense in your accounts for motoring expenses. It's a flat rate of 45p a mile for the first 10,000 miles, and 25p per mile after that, for cars, and 24p a mile for motorcycles. See the HRMC page on Simplifed Mileage expenses for details. For any vehicle you decide to either claim capital allowances claim running costs separately, or claim simplified mileage expenses, and ""Once you use the flat rates for a vehicle, you must continue to do so as long as you use that vehicle for your business.you have to stick with that decision for that vehicle"".  In your case, it seems you can claim 95% of the purchase price in the accounting period you buy it, and if you sell it you add 95% of the sale price to your profits in that accounting period. It gets more complicated if you have a car worth more than £1000, adjusted for the length of the accounting period. Also, if you change how you use it, consult the page on selling selling an asset, as you may have disposed of it. You can also use simplified mileage expenses, but then you can't claim capital allowances, or claim running costs separately for that car. I hope that makes sense, please comment if not, and I'll try to adjust the explanation." "Yes you tell them.  I can say that I pay cash for all my cars and always get cars for lower than the TrueCar low-end.  There are basically two steps: go test drive, negotiate fully, leave (unless you are given a mind-blowing offer).  This may take you one to many dealerships.  It depends on how well you know what car you want and how much a dealership will negotiate.   you pick a night that another dealership that specifically has the car you want (or multiple - even better) is open and you go in 30-45 mins before they close.   Paying cash is key for this to work.  By the time you get to numbers they will be almost closed.  Their finance guy might be gone so you will get your salesman and a manager.  I will use my last car as an example.  Toyota Highlander 2015 with MSRB 32,995.  TrueCar at 29,795 with a good deal at 29,400.  I simply talked to my sales guy said I would like to walk out with the car tonight.  I have already talked to XYZ dealership and they offered me 28,500 - which is already below TrueCar low price.   I asked for $27,900.  Boom 10 minutes later car bought at 28,100. Cash is king.  The sales guy and manager will bite the bullet on profit for ease of sale.  Going in late is the key to using the cash.  You don't have the finance guys jumping in and you have less people to move through.  Also they know they have limited time to deal and if you walk off the lot there is less than 10% chance of you coming back - they want to close.  They are making minimal profit but doing minimal work.  With cash your sales guy is on your side because you are basically throwing him a couple hundred dollars at the end of a shift (where most would just be sitting around watching TV). Some other tips: be fair.  If they would have said 28,300 is our lowest that we can go and that's it.  I probably would have still got the car.  Dealerships will tell you their lowest price if you are close and you are still below it. since they didn't show me their lowest price I didn't budge much but still budged a bit to show good sport.   They brought their invoice number out to show that at 28,100 that they were going to lose $1500 on the car.  I made the manager laugh because my response was to bring up KBB and show the used car price for the car, which was minus $2000.  So I just said, ""Well you lost $1500 but I lose $2000 driving this off the lot.""  I then went back to $27,850 to meet in the middle of ""losing"" money.  This actually closed the deal.  Anyway don't ever believe any piece of paper they show you with numbers.  These dealerships get monthly bonuses on sales and that is a lot of their profit past selling your trade-in. If you actually value your money you would never be trading in a car to a dealer so if you are paying cash, sell your own car or at least take it to a place like CarMax which I don't endorse but better than dealer." "This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://about.bnef.com/blog/electric-vehicles-accelerate-54-new-car-sales-2040/) reduced by 92%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; London and New York, 6 July 2017 - Electric vehicles will make up the majority of new car sales worldwide by 2040, and account for 33% of all the light-duty vehicles on the road, according to new research published today.  &gt; The team now estimates that EVs will account for 54% of all new light-duty vehicle sales globally by 2040, not the 35% share it forecast previously.  &gt; BNEF sees them accounting for nearly 67% of new car sales in Europe by 2040, and for 58% in of sales in the U.S. and 51% in China by the same date.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6p1zel/electric_vehicles_to_accelerate_to_54_of_new_car/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~173744 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **New**^#1 **vehicle**^#2 **BNEF**^#3 **Energy**^#4 **Bloomberg**^#5" IIRC correctly there was a report posted to reddit recently that Teslas are  the most popular seller in Norway, which has incentives for the first 50,000 buyers of EVs. They sold 1,493 in one month, which equates to almost 18,000 in the next 12 months in Norway alone. "So this has been bugging me for a while, because I am facing a similar dilemma and I don't think anyone gave a clear answer. I bought a 2012 kia soul in 2012. 36 months financing at 300/mo. Will be done with my car loan in 2015. I plan on keeping it, while saving the same amount of money 300/mo until I buy my next car. But, I also have an option of trading it in for the the next car. Question: should I trade it in in 2015. should I keep it for 2 years more? 3 years more, before I buy the next car? What makes most financial sense and savings. I tried to dig up some data on edmunds - the trade-in value and ""true cost to own"" calculator. The make and model of my car started in 2010, so I do not have historical data, as well as ""cost to own"" calculator only spans 5 years. So - this is what I came up with:  Where numbers in blue are totally made up/because I don't have the data for it. Granted, the trade-in values for the ""future"" years are guesstimated - based on Kia Soul's trade-in values from previous years (2010, 2011, 2012) But, this is handy, and as it gets closer to 2015 and beyond, I can re-plug in the data where it is available and have a better understanding of the trade-in vs keep it longer decision. Hope this helps. If the analysis is totally off the rocker, please let me know - i'll adjust it/delete it. Thank you" "last day of the month is a ""seasonality test' ?  what do you mean by "" Is there an actual relationship or are you uncovering a relationship of noise?""  what would you recommend me doing now ?  what numbers are you interested in seeing to further investigate such strategy ?" A premium car rental agency will sell a car which is working very well and quite far from the verge of breaking apart. They don't want to take the risk that one of their premium customers paying premium rates receives a worn-looking car which runs less than absolutely perfect (or even breaks down). They need to keep up their premium reputation. These premium agency also have a major marketing impact for the car industry. That's probably the main reason why they receive such massive discounts (see thelem's post). Obviously, the Mercedes Benz AMG Edition rental car will have a lasting impression on the driver (and the people not renting it, but seeing the boastful ads of the car rental company). So both the car industry and the rental company want this lasting impression to be a perfect one. A holiday car rental agency may have much lower standards. They often don't have recurring customers. They don't rent premium cars to premium customers but cheap cars to cheap customers.They don't receive the discounts the premium agencies receive. And they will milk their car to the max. You will notice that they windows fall out of the car when you bang the door shut. You will find that opening the door will be more difficult than breaking into the car. The seats may be stained - at least in the spots where some of the upholsters is still present. On the plus side, if you are lucky, the heating still works. On the minus side, you might not be able to turn it off. Water might leak into the car when it's raining, but that's not much of a problem as it will drain out through the holes in the bottom. No fear that water might rush in through these holes when driving though a puddle - the engine will not start during humid weather, so that's a non-issue. In any case, car rental customer might have mistreated the car. The engine has most probably not been run in. However, this appears to be less than an issue with modern car than it has been in the past. And very very few rental car drivers think that they really have to absolutely emulate Michael Schumacher just because they drive a car which is not their own. And anyway, that is a risk you take with about any used car.