For example, money-off incentives inevitably run the risk of de-valuing the product in the used market by forcing nearly-new values down to remain competitive with the new offering.

The same issue can arise with the other incentives often offered, including wholelife cost packages with subsidised finance, deposit contributions and maintenance tied in.

There is probably some benefit in not relying on bald ‘money off’ incentives due to the perceived impact of these potentially ‘cheapening’ a brand.

Some brands choose to offer incentives through marketing support behind the scenes via contract hire/PCP offers.

These are frequently affected by high discounts to fleet customers and often actually end up in bucket shops.

The damage this kind of new car sales incentive has on brand perceptions and used values serves only to keep the cost to change increasing.

Of course, the job of manufacturers is to keep the factories going, employing people and building their businesses by pumping as many new cars into the market as they can sell.

So it would be naive to suggest they should not incentivise sales.

But when the list price is meaningless nobody really benefits.

The current crop of incentives doubtless helped to deliver March’s best monthly increase in private registrations for two years, at 7.4%.

But the rapid acceleration of list price increases over the past three years can surely not be sustained without the introduction of ever more incentives that cheapen the image of many brands.

The challenge to dealers and manufacturers is to acknowledge the potential threat of continuous retail price increases and their inevitable impact on the consumer’s perceived cost to change.

We can also be sure that ‘wholelife cost’ information for consumers will be increasingly available in the very near future.

If this is based on list prices, without taking transaction price into account then unrealistic new prices will make many cars seem considerably less affordable on paper than they really are.