Which Cars Hold Their Value Longest in Indonesia? Real Depreciation Data by Brand
6 min read
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6 min read
Buy a Rp300 million car in Indonesia today, and a year from now it could be worth Rp261 million, or it could be worth closer to Rp130 million. Both are real, sourced outcomes for cars bought around the same price. The car depreciation rate in Indonesia is not one number. It depends heavily on the model, and most of all on whether the car runs on petrol or electricity. This article lines up real resale data across popular brands so you can see which cars actually hold their value, and which ones quietly cost you the most just by sitting in your garage.
Depreciation is simply how much value something loses over time. A car is worth less the moment you drive it out of the dealership, and it keeps losing value every year after that. This matters for anyone tracking their net worth, because a car you bought for Rp300 million is not still worth Rp300 million two years later, even if you never got in an accident and the engine runs perfectly. If you record it at its purchase price forever, your net worth is overstated, sometimes by a lot.
The starting baseline: a car sold in Indonesia typically loses 15% to 25% of its value every year for its first five years of ownership. After five years, the average used car is worth only 35% to 50% of what it cost new (Kompas, "Harga Mobil Bekas Bisa Turun 15 sampai 25 Persen," January 2025). Japanese-brand cars, which dominate Indonesia's roads, tend to sit at the gentler end of that range, 15% to 25% a year, while American-brand cars typically depreciate faster, 20% to 30% or more, the same source reports.
That is the average. The real spread across specific models is much wider, and it splits cleanly along one line: what powers the car.
Conventional petrol and hybrid cars depreciate at roughly 10% to 15% a year, closer to the low end of the general baseline (OLXmobbi market data, cited via Suara.com Otomotif, March 2026). Carmudi Indonesia's own comparison of specific 2024-model-year units against their resale price about a year later shows this in real rupiah:
| Model (2024 model year) | New price | Resale ~1 year later | Value lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suzuki XL7 Beta Hybrid AT | Rp297,000,000 | Rp258,000,000 | Rp39,000,000 (13%) |
| Mitsubishi Xpander Ultimate CVT | Rp322,000,000 | Rp275,000,000 | Rp47,000,000 (14%) |
Source: Carmudi Indonesia, comparison of 2024-model-year units against resale prices roughly one year later.
Both of these are mainstream Low MPVs, Indonesia's most popular car segment, and both held onto roughly 86% to 87% of their price in just one year. That is a strong result by any measure.
Even within this same segment, though, the curve is not identical. Toyota's Avanza depreciates the slowest of the major Low MPVs, thanks to huge unit supply and steady demand that keeps used prices propped up. The Mitsubishi Xpander loses value noticeably faster than the Avanza, even though it competes in the same price bracket, and the newer Hyundai Stargazer depreciates fastest of the three in percentage terms, simply because it has not been on the road as long and its resale market is still thin (Suara.com Otomotif, "Harga Avanza, Xpander, dan Stargazer Bekas di 2026: Siapa Paling Jatuh?", January 2026). Popularity and years on the market, not just brand reputation, are doing real work here.
Electric vehicles depreciate far faster than petrol or hybrid cars in Indonesia today, typically 35% to 60% a year against the conventional car's 10% to 15% (OLXmobbi via Suara.com Otomotif, March 2026). The clearest example is the Wuling Air EV, Indonesia's best-selling electric car. Carmudi's same 2024-model-year comparison found a Wuling Air EV bought new for Rp320,000,000 was worth only about Rp130,000,000 roughly a year later, a loss of nearly Rp190,000,000, or about 59%.
Why the gap? EV battery technology is improving quickly, so newer model years arrive with better range and lower prices, which pushes down what buyers will pay for last year's model. Resale demand for used EVs is also still immature in Indonesia compared to the decades-deep market for used petrol cars, and buyers price in uncertainty about battery health and replacement cost. None of that means an EV is a bad car to drive. It does mean an EV is a much worse choice if you are also thinking about it as a store of value.
If you already own a car, or plan on buying one, the number that matters is not what you paid for it. It is what it is actually worth today, and a realistic guess at what it will be worth next year. A petrol Low MPV like an Avanza or an XL7 is a reasonable asset to hold at a slowly declining value in your records. A recently-bought EV needs a much steeper markdown, particularly in its first two years, or your recorded net worth will be quietly wrong.
NetWort's manual assets on your Holdings page let you record a car under the Vehicle category and update its value as it ages, the same way this article's own tables would, so your net worth reflects what the car is actually worth rather than what you paid for it. If you are weighing a car purchase against other ways to hold value, our piece on the hidden carrying cost of owning physical gold, art or collectibles covers the same lesson for a different kind of physical asset: the sticker price is never the whole story.