A buyer looking at a used EV has one question before they get to the price: what state is the battery in? If your vehicle page can't answer it, they won't ring to ask. They'll go back to search and look at the next car.
The confidence gap
The appetite is there. Used EVs were the fastest selling fuel type on Auto Trader in January 2026, at 38 days. But the trust isn't there yet.
57% of drivers say they would only consider a used EV that comes with a battery health certificate, and 77% worry about the battery failing. It matters enough that three EV bodies, Electrifying, New AutoMotive and BatteryIQ, are asking government to consider making certificates mandatory for used EVs sold by dealers.
Meanwhile, stock keeps arriving. Used EV supply grew 33.1% year on year in January, twice as fast as demand, and average used EV prices fell 7.2% to £23,678. More cars, softer prices and nervous buyers is a hard place to sell from.
Selling isn't the problem. Explaining is.
Nobody needed a lesson to buy a used petrol hatchback. A used EV is different. Range, charging speeds, connectors, running costs and battery condition are all new questions, and most buyers don't know which answers are good ones.
So the job of an EV vehicle page isn't only to sell the car. It's to educate first, then sell. Answer the questions in the order the buyer asks them, on the page where they're asking, and the reservation becomes the easy part.
Educate first, then sell. Answer the battery question before the buyer has to ask it.
What good looks like: Hippo Motor Group
Hippo Motor Group tests the batteries on its used EVs through a third-party test, and since June 2026 the result has appeared on its Autonomy site.
Take a 2025 Porsche Macan Electric on Hippo's site today. Near the top of the page, alongside the price and the key facts, sits a Battery Health bar: 96%. It's placed up there deliberately. Hippo's team didn't want it buried further down the page, where buyers on a phone might never scroll to it.
Tap the info icon and a Battery Health Report opens. It explains what the number means and where this battery sits on a scale:
- Excellent: 90 to 100
- Very Good: 80 to 89
- Good: 70 to 79
- Fair: 60 to 69
- Needs Attention: below 60
This one is marked "Your battery", in the Excellent band. In two taps, a buyer who didn't know what a good battery looked like now does.
Further down, the education carries on. The Electric details section sets out the 100 kWh battery, 379 miles of range, Type 2 and CCS charging, and a rapid charge to 80% in 21 minutes. A fuel cost calculator then compares five years of running costs, based on off peak charging. By the time the buyer reaches the finance calculator, most of their doubts have already been answered.
Behind the page
None of this asks Hippo's team to type anything in. The battery test results are pulled into Autonomy once a day and matched to each car by its VIN, so the result sits on the vehicle record just like its mileage or colour. Where a car has been tested more than once, only the latest result is shown.
If a car hasn't been tested yet, the block simply doesn't appear. That was Hippo's choice: they would rather show nothing than a placeholder.
We built this into Autonomy's import tools rather than as a one-off for one retailer. Any retailer that tests its batteries can bring those results onto its own vehicle pages in the same way.
If you test your batteries, show it
Plenty of retailers already check battery health before a car goes on sale. Far fewer put the result where the buyer can see it. That test is your strongest answer to the question every used EV buyer is asking, so don't leave it in a PDF or wait for the phone call.
Put the number near the top of the page. Explain what it means. Then let the rest of the page do the selling.
If you'd like battery health results on your own vehicle pages, speak to the team.
