Causality could be reversed here. In markets where technology advances quickly and prices drop, there is very little market for used goods, because why would you buy a 4-year-old whatever when you can get a new one that's twice as good for half the price? You see this in computers, smartphones, TVs, and solar panels (outside of the U.S, where prices are kept artificially high by tariffs). People almost never buy used because there's no reason to. You can just buy new, for the same or lower price, and get something way better.
Instead of threatening to derail the EV transition, lack of resale value might be evidence of the EV transition, particularly when coupled with quickly growing overall sales of EVs globally.
> You can just buy new, for the same or lower price
But, like the article says, new EVs are selling for about twice as much as a 2-year-old used vehicle of the same make and model. That's a very very far cry from "same or lower price".
EV are progressing fast so they lose value quick, like a laptop of the late 90s. Not quite as bad, but in those times, your computer was worth next to nothing in less than a year.
ICE are stagnant. They retain their value because they're not improving at all.
> EV are progressing fast so they lose value quick,
Are they really, though?
A 2021 Model 3, Mach-e, Polestar 2, Model Y, F-150 Lightning, e-Tron, or ID.4 (to name just a few) are not too different from the ones sold today. Aside from software updates and minor refinements (mostly DFM), I don't see much progress. That's not a problem, since they're all competent vehicles for single-car households.
Several 2025/26 models have even been de-contented compared to their 2021 selves.
Trying to steel-man your argument a little, the only models I can think of with significant progress are the bZ4X/Solterra (widely panned due to initially uncompetitive specs and pricing), Leaf (which has been getting small, incremental improvements for more than a decade) and the now-discontinued Bolt (which was the cheapest road-tripable EV).
I think you really have to be looking compliance cars that entered the market before the Model 3 and/or models that were acknowledged as uncompetitive when new to find significant/fast progress.
No, the real problem is that the true market-clearing price for most of these vehicles was $7500-$10000 less than MSRP (which was set knowing the regulatory environment), combined with the false calculation of depreciation based on MSRP instead of market price.
> No, the real problem is that the true market-clearing price for most of these vehicles was $7500-$10000 less than MSRP (which was set knowing the regulatory environment), combined with the false calculation of depreciation based on MSRP instead of market price.
This seems like it. If you paid $29,000 for something with a $36,500 MSRP because of a $7500 credit and a few years later it's worth $22,000, the amount of depreciation you're calculating by starting from MSRP and the amount that the buyer actually experienced are off by more than a factor of two.
Meanwhile the credits caused more new sales than there would have been otherwise, which means more cars of that model available in the used market, and supply and demand is still a thing.
It's not evidence that people don't want them, it's evidence that if you subsidize something the price comes down.
Presumably you’re in the US, given the models you list. Don’t look there, because the best EVs are not available in the U.S. because of trade barriers. Look at what BYD and Toyota are doing in China.
The article here is about rental car fleets, and explicitly states that consumers (and particularly Teslas) are not seeing the same depreciation. Rental car fleets often buy EVs that are available on the global market (eg Kia or Hyundai models) and sell back into that global market.
Oh, you're in for a surprise. An ID.7, the updated Model 3, Ford Explorer/Capri, plus all the ones you don't have in the US - Nio, Zeekr, BYD, Renault, Skoda, Volvo, Cupra - are significantly better than the EVs of five years ago.
Not the person you asked the question but i can answer this partially.
I see from the EV my parents bought, they got for 22k euro, a car that does 240km on paper. Now a few years later, you can buy a BYD for 26k, that does 450km (ext version) on paper. That same BYD is WAY more fancy, tech gadgets etc...
But that is comparing a lower market segment where this effect is stronger.
On the higher end market, where the Tesla's used to dominate, we see less movement as those cars already came with tons of tech, and large batteries.
Thing is, i am still not buying a EV despite them being better. The same arguments we had with EV disadvantages is still present today. I rather buy a second hand gasoline engine simply because of the convenience of the default 600 a 700km range on most vehicles, the 5 minute tank job, the lack of charging in the city, the prices despite the heavier depreciation in the second hand market are still worse.
Ironically the gasoline car we bought 10 years ago, for 7.5k, still sells today for 8k in todays market (added 50k kms on the car). So even if we take a cut, the actual gasoline engine depreciation is strangely less strong. I track several gasoline cars where i had a interest in from years ago, same phenomenon.
For some reason you expect gasoline cars to drop more in pricing because now in EU 17% of new cars sales are EVs and 36% are hybrid. So more gasoline cars on second hand market? No ... because people are also buying less cars because of the economy, more work from home etc. Resulting in actually less second hand cars as people hold on to their vehicles longer, waiting out this transition periode.
I can’t speak for the rest, but I believe in 2023 Tesla’s all moved from HW3 to HW4.
I went from a 2020 Model 3 to a 2025 and the self driving experience is dramatically better. I’m one of those “I will never use FSD” people and I honestly love driving…but it’s so good I find myself using it constantly and just being awestruck.
> in those times, your computer was worth next to nothing in less than a year.
> ICE are stagnant. They retain their value because they're not improving at all.
This doesn't make sense. As already pointed out, the reason computers lose value is because the same money can buy something that does the job better (faster, lighter, etc). ICE don't retain value because they're not improving; they retain value because they still do the same job X years later.
EVs, meanwhile, are losing value even though the same money as a used EV can't buy anything that actually does the job better, as pointed out earlier in the thread. So there must be something else in play (such as battery degradation lowering value of EVs quicker than engine wear & tear lowers value of ICEs).
that is a bold statement that needs to be backed by an example... while Tesla is certainly the dinosaur with the most outdated lineup of cars others aren't that much better (unless we venture into super-luxury 6-figure price zone...)
The GPU, sensors, trim, motors, and batteries have improved in those 5 years. I have a 2020 X and I am considering when to update. While the S and X haven’t gotten a significant improvement like the 3 and Y have they are still substantially better than before. Despite the memes I’ve consistently tried the other options, and have tried the BYD, Zyker, MG, etc available in Asia, and the Tesla are still far and away the best cars especially if you consider them in combination with the supercharger network. I think they have slowed their pace of improvement surely through a lot of Musks self inflicted fault, but the competition hasn’t yet surpassed them.
For those boosting BYD, etc, the finish is shiny but low quality, and is rife with safety red flags - an example being by in large you can watch YouTube and movies and sturr on the central screen while driving. (It’s scary in Asia with grab drivers watching videos while weaving in and out of traffic) - but the price is good.
I have a 2020 model X as well and I love it. I have no plans on upgrading which oddly is because it doesn't have the interior review mirror cam for FSD to yell at me for silly things like looking at a passenger to talk while on FSD and it still drives like it did on day 1 (60k miles ago, have only done tires and minor warranty calls). Honestly a fantastic car and now that it's paid off I'm like yep I'll keep this for years more. Keep the car it's great!
Actually to edit this comment - the main (only?) reason I bought the car is because if I'm in an accident I want to try to be in safest car possible and if my sig other is driving I want them to be in the safest car I can find. I thought that paying a premium at release in model X 2020 was well worth the premium if people I love are in it.
I can't tell you about Tesla, but BMW for example did shoot themselves right in the foot by announcing literally at the launch of the iX that they are going to bring a new model with updated 800V architecture within couple years. So........why would you buy that first one, knowing that a much improved model is literally right around the corner. Consequently prices of the iX cratered, and you could have it on a lease for the same cost as a VW golf, despite being (at least in theory) 3x more expensive. The first gen cars are now so laughably cheap it's actually stupid to not buy one because they are still perfectly good very capable vehicles - but yeah, why would it keep value if it was immediately replaced by a much better model. With EVs we're in the GPU area where each model immediately displaces the last generation and within few years your top of the line flagship card is worth close to nothing.
Most people don’t want to lose tens of thousands of dollars in value to progress for progress sake… I just bought a car and went ICE in no small part to resale value.
Meanwhile, I don't really care much about resale value because when I buy a car I typically intend to drive it until it dies.
In this sense, EVs depreciating faster than ICEVs is exciting, since if my current Tacoma prematurely gives up the ghost (or I buy a second car) I can add “snag an EV for cheap” to my list of available options.
That's still depreciation, just deprecation until it dies (down to near $0 value from new) vs depreciation until you sell it. If it dies fast, the depreciation is still high.
Just drive it till it's no longer operational or gift it away to a family member at some point and you get full value of what you paid for without a care in the world about second hand market.
Complex driver aid/“safety” systems, outrageously complicated “infotainment” systems that are also used to interact with system functions, sealed/un-serviceable transmissions, exhaust gas filtration and recirculating systems, these are all additional points of failure that represent a degradation on modern ICE cars.
These cars won’t be around 20 years after manufacture in the same way Toyota Camry and Corolla are.
Those complaints are really orthogonal to the EV vs ICE debate, though.
Somebody could claim driver aids and infotainment EVs are "degrading" in EVs in the exact same way - in fact they're even more integrated in EVs.
And although EVs don't have the same transmissions and exhaust gas systems, they have their own unique complexities and points of failure, like batteries and regenerative braking systems.
I recently bought a fancy muscle car with all that crap integrated into the infotainment system. I explained to the sales guy that I WANTED to keep this car for the rest of my life but was concerned that wouldn't be possible. In 10 years it may literally be impossible to find a phone that will connect via the USB/bluetooth to the infotainment system. We may all be using something completely different. Not to mention, no one will be manufacturing replacements for that infotainment system if it ever craps out.
You can go buy a 50 year old muscle car and upgrade the radio to something kind of modern. But that won't be possible with my car 50 years from now. It's too integrated.
The sales guy had clearly never considered this issue before.
I wonder how long it will be before the first EVs get bricked because the manufacturer doesn't want to ship software updates to the old hardware any more.
If it can happen to a $1500 phone or a $5k computer, I'm sure it will happen to a $20k car eventually.
10 years is when you really should do a heavy refresh in the engine bay. Stem the tide of oil leaks, replace perished rubber hoses, tuneup (plugs & leads) because lets be honest you never replaced those unless one was obviously broken, fix exhaust leaks, pray cat is not dead and you didnt luck out on a model with factory defects like for example Ford EcoBoost wet belt disintegrating into rubber debris in oil pickup ($10K job). Tons of brands went for lower tension piston rings in the name of ecology and gas mileage, GM EcoTec, Stellantis Tigershark, even Toyotas end up burning oil like crazy and need full engine rebuilds/new engines. Obligatory they stopped making them like they used to :) 10 years is a very dangerous age for a used car right now.
ICE cars are practically falling apart between service windows when compared to EV.
This is not normal. I have a 10 year old budget ICE car and nothing is wrong with it. When I change the oil every 10k miles, the same amount I put in still comes out. It has about 240k.
But 10 year old ICE is still a perfectly good car, yet 10 year old Tesla is trash. Not because there's a better Tesla now, but because it's no repairable and will soon require a new $20k battery.
Funny. My Tesla has proven itself to be repairable. And has needed fewer repairs than my ICE car. As for the "will soon require", as https://www.motortrend.com/features/how-long-does-a-tesla-ba... verifies, at 200,000 miles a Tesla still averages being able to hold 90% of original charge. The average ICE car does not survive to 200,000 miles.
While some do need batteries sooner, some ICE cars need new engines sooner. It's a wash. Average lifespan is comparable.
(Electric would win hands down if Tesla had better manufacturing quality though.)
The reason the average ice car doesn't last 200k miles is because car purchases are amazingly irrational.
Other than a few unlucky models, basically any Toyota or Honda will go over 200k miles.
I own two 250k mile Toyota/Lexus vehicles and expect another 100k from them easily.
But people buy Dodge sedans and vans, jaguars and range rovers, Audis and Kias.... Because they basically don't care for getting 200k miles.
Realistically if you buy a ice car that is known for lasting 200k, it will easily do it.
I thought the main issue, ICE or not, was that a low energy crash after 10 years makes it a total loss, insurance wise. So drive enough miles in, say, a random US urban highway/stroad environment and you'll find yourself having to change cars regardless.
It's a bigger problem with a Tesla, as there is no sensibly priced repair network, and getting original parts has lead times that will lead to replacing the car.
I suppose, but most people don't crash their cars that often. If they did, insurance would basically be unaffordable for most people just based on statistics of how much they'd have to pay out.
No one in my family has had a major crash in 25 years.. most people I know haven't.
Like all other things, I think it's a pretty skewed distribution. I dated a girl once that got rear-ended several times by age 30... You can tell something about her driving from that. Her record will show she's not at fault ever and gets good rates, but she causes accidents.
It doesn't even have to be particularly known for it. The cars you're listing are the ones well known for not doing it. You can pretty easily get 200k miles out of the median Chevy.
I agree. I've had a 300k mile Silverado and currently own a 210k mile Volt. The thing that's basically hanging over the Volts head is a battery problem you almost can't even test for. The gas motor is doing just great.
It's very well possible to get 500k kilometers out of a Mercedes or Audi. They're mechanically quite reliable as long as maintenance is done religiously.
Maybe on the older models. But I'm a sucker for buying high miles cars, and you simply won't even FIND a high miles Audi A7 for example. You'll find cheap ones sure, for $5k even, with 150k miles and multiple issues the owner can't afford to fix.
I've never even seen a 200k mile Audi for sale near me, and I'm in a huge major metro area.
a lot of this data on battery health comes from california. Not everywhere has California's climate and lithium ion battery packs do not do well in the cold.
Also, the link you shared is just a collection of anecdotes. It doesn't provide evidence of a trend.
Not really convinced the logic is right here. If the battery dies there’s still options before replacing it with a new one from the manufacturer at retail price.
Even then, batteries in EVs don’t have a 100% failure rate. There are still many 15 year old Leafs driving around on the original battery, and I’m not sure the out-and-out failures (I.e. not including gradual capacity loss) are a high number either.
Modern EVs (2016-present) have even lower failure rates again (below 1% within 200k miles including those replaced due to capacity loss)
I love my Chevy Volt. But I can't recommend a $5k volt to any of my friends wanting a cheap car. Because when you buy a $5k Toyota, it's basically never a random sensor glitch away from costing you $5k+ even at an independent. But volts are inside their battery pack.
It also doesn't require the same person to be using the car.
Someone has a 90 mile round trip commute and buys a car with a 120 mile range. Having it drop below 90 miles after a decade isn't working for them anymore, so they sell it. Works fine for someone with a 30 mile commute.
My dad had to make the same decision and he was too vary because of the battery. He talked about his phone and that it doesn't last a day anymore while at 84% health after three years and translated it 1to1 to the car. Its hard to argue with people if they have a reference point but don't understand the differences. I guess most people just want that initial warranty for now. Are there any manufactures that give long warranties on the battery yet?
> Tesla for example garuntees >=70% capacity for 8 years or 100k miles.
If you're used to buying used vehicles - that's not sufficient.
For context, all the cars I've bought in the last 20+ years have been at least 8 years old when I bought them. I can get an 8 year old Toyota/Honda and know I'm good for the next 5-7 years.[1]
Buying an 8 year old used Tesla with only 75% capacity? No way.
[1] Likely a lot longer. I'm right now driving a 22 year old vehicle that only started showing issues a year ago.
I'm in the same boat, or was until I finally caved last year and got my wife a 5 year old vehicle, everything else has had >150k miles and >10 years.
I will say that my '03 Pontiac Vibe GT, at 280,000 miles, no longer has all the horses it did when it was younger. There's still a kick from 6000 to 8200 RPM, but I'm increasingly reluctant to hit that redline once a month to "keep it fresh" like I used to. The gradual compression loss and increased leak-down rate aren't that bad, but it might be 25% fewer horses, I guess. Man, I love that car and that engine. I ought to get it a new set of rings, get the cylinders bored out smooth, and give it fresh bearings. Sadly, the rust that's appearing on the body like a cancer probably makes that not worthwhile...
The good news for electrics is that those older motors will remain almost exactly as powerful as they day when they were new for decades.
Obviously, the fuel tank is still the same size it's always been, but range is not as much of a concern on a gas vehicle because gas stations are everywhere and you can fill up rapidly.
I personally hope that this becomes less of a concern as charger density improves year over year - in particular, as EVs become ubiquitous, landlords will start including L2 chargers in apartment parking complexes. Once everyone can charge in a garage overnight, range anxiety is hugely less important.
The warranty doesn’t suggest the battery will be at 70.00001% on the first day of year 9. It says if it goes below 70% it will get replaced.
That 8 year old Toyota you bought came with a 6 year/60k mile warranty. If you are comfortable driving that to 2.5x the initial warranty then a used Tesla should be good to 250k and 20 years.
> The warranty doesn’t suggest the battery will be at 70.00001% on the first day of year 9. It says if it goes below 70% it will get replaced.
The point is that they're not confident enough to say it won't be in that range. Put another way, why don't they just make the warranty 80% instead of 70%?
If Tesla's not confident in it, I definitely am not.
> That 8 year old Toyota you bought came with a 6 year/60k mile warranty. If you are comfortable driving that to 2.5x the initial warranty then a used Tesla should be good to 250k and 20 years.
We hope so, but we don't know, which is the point. Toyota has a track record. Tesla hasn't been around long enough to have a track record.
That aside, the real point is that ICE cars don't have any particular component that costs that much to replace. How much will a new EV battery cost me? Sure, on occasion you may have to rehaul your whole engine, but that's really rare. I've only known one Toyota owner who had to do that, and it cost (in today's dollars), about $6K.
When I buy an 8 year old car, I don't expect perfection. I know things will break - soon. I buy it with the confidence that repairs will not be too expensive, and even after all the repairs I'll still save a ton of money.
The other blocker is the private party market. So far I've never bought a car from a dealer. I always go private party. The standard procedure with that is you take the car to a trusted mechanic who will examine it and inform you of any potential problems. With electric vehicles, those mechanics can't do much. I've asked them. They can look at a few things like the brakes, but stuff related to the engine is beyond their ability. So whereas I may be comfortable spending a lot of money buying an ICE car from private party, I'm not for EVs.
Why doesn’t Toyota make their powertrain warranty 80k miles? Or 200k?
The warranty is there to cover failures. If a pack has a defect it will drop under 70%. If it doesn’t then it will continue working beyond the warranty term.
You’re assuming linear decay and that Tesla has fit the warranty coverage tightly to that line. It seems more likely to me that Teslas warranty is designed to address unexpected exponential decay. This is consistent with ICE powertrain warranties.
The inconsistent part is the assured decay, as opposed to a low chance of catastrophic failure.
Your ICE car will either continue working basically the same, or it will fail catastrophically. I don't have to worry about my gas tank getting smaller over time, and even if it inexplicably does, gas stations are plentiful and stops are short.
It also makes resale rough, as people are talking about. You can salvage a power train from another scrapped car of the same model (or not, a lot of that is shared nowadays). Salvaging batteries is a bigger issue because so many will be worn down and materially worse than new, and they can be re-used which keeps their value high. Very few people have a use for an engine out of a 1983 Silverado, but a lot of people have uses for lithium ion cells.
I could probably get 2 ICE power trains for a decade old car for less than the price of a new battery pack, and I'd wager they'll go farther.
> Your ICE car will either continue working basically the same, or it will fail catastrophically.
This simply isn’t true. Fuel injectors decay. Catalytic converters decay. O2 sensors decay. Oil decays. Air filters decay. Spark plugs decay. Piston rings decay. All of these things affect fuel economy which directly translates to range.
Additionally the ICE related accessory pumps and sensors decay and fail and need replacement. Individually these are all cheaper than a battery pack but ICE vehicles absolutely have repair costs. They just spread those costs out across the entire complex powertrain.
You're not wrong, but none of this answers the question I have: What will the capacity be at 15 years?
My current car is 22 years old. I paid a whopping $3.5K for it, and have not spent much in repairs.
My prior car - used it till it was 17 years old. Would have used it longer but someone totaled it. I paid (in today's dollars), about $12K for it. Spent very little in repairs.
The car before that - used it till it was 16 years old. I know the person who bought it from me and he used it for another 3-4 years. I paid $5.5K for it (today's dollars). Spent very little on repairs.
So anyone who's buying a 6-8 year old EV needs the following answers:
Anyone buying a 6-8 year old ICE needs the following answers:
1. How long will the engine and transmission actually be good for?
2. How much will replacing it cost?
You don't actually know for any given car. You can look at analysis of failure rates over time and make some kind of guess about an average for that model, but who knows about that particular one. At least with a battery you can get some pretty detailed state of health readouts, BMS technology can tell you a good bit more about battery health than what your ICE will tell you about transmission and engine wear without tearing it down.
We have a pretty good idea how EV packs decay. This isn’t a new technology. Google searches suggest 1-2% decay per year. So a 15 year old car would have 70-85% of original range.
For pack replacements I don’t know, however it seems unlikely you’d really need to. The battery will almost certainly outlast the car. Range will be degraded but I don’t see a lot of 2005 vehicles doing cross country trips either. Even a degraded EV will be useful in town. Many people only drive a few tens of miles a day.
The cost per mile is a simple calculation. It’s a function of your local electricity prices.
"In our 2023 reliability survey, 17 percent of 2013 Tesla Model S owners told us their cars needed battery pack replacements at a cost of $15,000 each."
This is 11-12 years in.
Granted, perhaps batteries were just crappier back then, but 17% is a scary high number for me.
Also:
"This is in line with data from Recurrent, a firm that analyzes and measures EV battery performance, which found that 13 percent of EVs older than 2015 needed battery replacements. By comparison, only 1 percent of EVs newer than 2016 needed new batteries. "
The source of some of the data. What happened with 2020 vehicles?!
> "In our 2023 reliability survey, 17 percent of 2013 Tesla Model S owners told us their cars needed battery pack replacements at a cost of $15,000 each."
What was the remaining range for those replacements?
> Granted, perhaps batteries were just crappier back then,
Tesla makes its own batteries right? When did that start?
> but 17% is a scary high number for me.
Is that high? I have no idea. How many ICE powertrains got replaced at the same time and what did it cost?
This completely ignores the relatively high initial range of ICE (especially hybrid), and the poor real world state of the EV charging infrastructure, compared to petrol.
A 30% drop in range would be an extra 5 minutes at the nearest gas station, almost guaranteed to be within a couple miles.
And, that 30% is usually cheap to get back, usually just by some combination of changing the spark plugs, running a bottle of carbon removal/fuel system cleaner through, or changing the fuel injectors.
I have an electric, but I also understand why people are avoiding electric, and why 96% of people with EV also have an ICE car [1] (including me, with my newest being ICE)!
Batteries are getting cheaper, and I think there is a perception issue here as well as perhaps a real issue of used parts availability.
A brand new Model 3 battery pack, for example, is in the neighborhood of 10 or 11K installed. Or at least it was about a year ago, I don't closely track prices. Blow up an engine, and you won't be far off that in an ICE car. I know someone who just dropped $18K because they blew up both the engine and the transmission in a single shot. Oops.
But the ICE car has cheaper used options, for sure, where you can probably fix a 15 year old car by dropping in a reman or used engine for under five grand. Options for used Tesla battery packs definitely exist but are nowhere as plentiful. Yet!
100k isn't all that many for a modern used car and that's a pretty sizable hit on the range given that it's by far the biggest limitation of an EV. Given those numbers it's reasonable that a used Tesla with say 125k miles might not be able to do a 150 mile round trip on a full battery. That's a pretty big limitation for some people.
You're going off the minimum for a warranty replacement, which is pessimistic. Most Teslas with 125K miles have not lost anywhere even close to 30% of the capacity. Typical will be more like 15% or a bit less. And even less than that for the LFP cars, IIRC.
Some cars I expect to do much better, due to manufacturer decisions. Ford, for example, put a pretty big battery in my Lightning, and then made the top 10kWh or so unusable. So far, this means that Lightnings with 100K miles (there aren't a huge number of them yet, but they do exist) often have 0 apparent degradation, or very low single digits.
100k is a regulatory minimum. E.g. Toyota had to certify the original Prius traction batteries for 100k because they were considered part of the emissions control system.
I think the numbers of those early leafs (a lot were sold), their horribly degraded batteries, and their consequently low sales price make the numbers appear a bit more dire for resale EVs as a whole than they are in reality (breakdown loss of resale value by model and other EVs are doing much better). However, I think it is also true that EV resale values are lower than they perhaps should be due to used battery fears.
There are a bunch of California-only compliance cars that were essentially given away that would depress the values in the sector. I considered picking up a used Fiat 500e, but even though it was electric, FCA still managed to mess it up and a common recommendation was to keep a few specific tools in the back that enabled quickly disconnecting and reconnecting the battery.
Eh, its kind of mixed. Some manufacturers like Hyundai have essentially a baked in extended warranty (10y 100,000mi) that is non-transferrable, only the base warranty (5y 60,000mi) gets transferred.
All well and good but 8 years isn't that old for a car. I don't even look at cars that new. I start at 10+ years old. The drivetrain on any car should last 20 years if it's not abused and given reasonable care and even if you end up needing to replace the engine or transmission that's a few thousand dollars on an older car. What would a new battery on a 10 year old Tesla cost you? Can you even buy one?
Average lifespan of a car in the US is 16 years, warranty covers half of that.
Given the lowest acceptable threshold for capacity under some warranties (70%) and assuming linear degradation, a 16 year old EV would have 40% capacity (worst case). Given a typical range of 250 for EVs today, that would put you at ~110 miles on a charge.
Seems like it would be a fine car to me given the age. I'd also expect battery swaps to become more common as the industry ages, which will drive prices down.
The last part of OP's statement is the key. In a field that's rapidly advancing technologically, used prices are depressed because the new product is that much better than the used product.
Think back to the early smartphone days - every year phones multiplied in performance, in screen resolution, etc. In that environment a used item is less attractive because you feel like you're missing out on features/capability. This keeps used prices down. Nowadays used smartphones are more competitive because the rate of advancement (that buyers care about at least) has slowed.
For example there's another post later in this thread that points out that the Nissan Leaf has been the same price forever - except the current-gen Leaf has literally double the range of the last one. Effects like this depress used prices.
> ... because the new product is that much better than the used product.
This starts reading like a hallucination after a while. How much in a Tesla had changed over past 5 years or so that makes 2020 model completely obsolete and unappealing relative to 2025 model?
The range hasn't doubled, internal volume hasn't, acceleration or braking hasn't. They may have changed implementations under the hood, but none has been clearly communicated to potential customers, so they might as well be the exact same car.
Meanwhile, 2020 Prius is that ugly one with quirky dashboard, and 2025 is that mustard yellow thing with the HUD-like dash.
So what in an EV is so "rapidly advancing technologically" so much that it perfectly rule out much more simpler explanation that people just aren't interested in EVs, in favor of more hand-wavy one that the newer EVs are just constantly enormously more appealing to the customers that older ones tend to lose the appeal faster?
Look to BYD instead of Tesla if you want to find rapid advancement. Tesla has not been well managed for a few years, BYD recently passed them to become the biggest EV seller
I bought Hyundai, which charges 2x faster than the Tesla
Another thing to consider is the Tesla likely makes up the majority of the used EV inventory, and Tesla has become a toxic brand
I've seen more lamborghinis than privately owned BYDs at this point. Maybe it's just where I'm from, but consumers definitely aren't switching to BYD, around myself.
I don't think that's true. Afaik Tesla (except Cybertruck) have 400V charging limited to 250kW while the other vehicles have 800V charging allowing 350kW or so.
Sweet Jesus 1000 miles of range per hour is incredible. It might not technically solve the road trip problem but that's fast enough to make a not even five minute pit stop to get you home. Any range anxiety for intra-city travel is just gone.
> BYD recently passed them to become the biggest EV seller
Well when your government subsides every sale, and your the cheapest product on the market this is a natural outcome.
Mass strikes by workers (in china). Fires (a lot of them). Recalls (several this year). And now massive tariffs for them in a lot of markets don't paint a picture that they have a sustainable business.
We all know that subsidized growth is a great way to build a business (see ridesharing, delivery, in the US) but it doesn't make consumers happy in the end when prices go up and service quality goes down.
Having ridden in a lot of BYDs when traveling overseas I think you paint too bleak a picture. They're everywhere and reliable enough to seemingly be the preferred cars for uber drivers. Some markets might tax them out of existence but I expect others will gladly take perfectly serviceable cars on the cheap.
Tesla is still kicking and they had all the same problems at one time or another. I mean until this year we also massively subsidized every EV sale so pot calling the kettle black.
> The last part of OP's statement is the key. In a field that's rapidly advancing technologically, used prices are depressed because the new product is that much better than the used product.
And 2 years old EV is not twice as bad as current one
> For example there's another post later in this thread that points out that the Nissan Leaf has been the same price forever - except the current-gen Leaf has literally double the range of the last one. Effects like this depress used prices.
The previous gen is 8 years old. It took 8 years to "double" the quality, not 2
> And 2 years old EV is not twice as bad as current one
The new-vs-used price difference in equipment comes from multiple factors, of which "better features" is one part.
Consider what would happen if you gave someone this choice:
1. Keep your 10-year-old car. (No major upgrades from stock.)
2. Pay $X to trade it for its identical factory-sibling which was made the same day but was stored in a timeless stasis-bubble until today, so that it still has its original new-car smell.
I can't imagine anyone saying: "Well, there are zero new features, so I'll swap them for $0."
P.S.: The issues are even more obvious if the person is choosing between buying someone else's 10-year-old car versus paying an extra premium for the time-warp one, because there's uncertainty about the first vehicle's history and maintenance.
Yeah, because a car has tens of thousands of parts that age with both time and usage. The core drivetrain is just a tiny bit of that.
Everything is falling apart and that makes and old, used car... Used and old. Now queue the people who show up to say they haven't changed a tire or wind screen wiper blade on their 2012 Model S/Camry and can't perceive a single difference to when they were new from factory.
Listen, I'm literally just describing basic market dynamics here - my post is not intended as an endorsement of plainly observable phenomena.
The depreciation/utility curve has always been aggressive no matter what product you're buying. Is a 2 year-old ICE car twice as bad as a new one? Is a 2 year-old TV? Clearly not, yet they are all worth that in the open market.
For EVs the depreciation curve is especially aggressive because of perceived advancements. Are the advancements worth buying new? I dunno! You tell me - but this is clearly being reflected in the market.
From a strict utilitarian standpoint, optimizing your depreciation/utility function should mean you're buying almost every single thing used. But yet lots of people don't do that. Humans are empirically not very good utilitarians!
>For EVs the depreciation curve is especially aggressive because of perceived advancements.
And many comments disagree with this statement. There are few perceived advancements. Used EVs are not trusted, particularly because the used battery fear.
What part of EVs is "rapidly advancing technologically"? The battery is the only thing that comes to mind and they should be replaceable if that was the bottleneck. Self-driving is also advancing, but that hasn't stabilized as a feature yet. EV motors have been around for a long time and the rest seems like general car stuff that would be common with ICEs.
Following that logic it seems to come down to old batteries which aren't as good both due to technological advances and battery aging. If so, why aren't used dealers just including a battery swap in the price?
> If so, why aren't used dealers just including a battery swap in the price?
I think that is the main thing that needs to be figured out. I suspect the problem is that you need to get OEM battery replacements for older model cars and those aren't yet readily available or cheap. We are going to need aftermarket batteries to drive price competition in the market. The current car manufacturers aren't incentivised to support a secondary market when they are still focused on primary sales. Also not in the ICE market there is much more ability to scale capacity. The supply chain constraints for EVs, and batteries are much tighter, though that keeps getting better.
Battery swaps are never going to be a thing long term, even with Nio rolling it out in areas. It adds huge amounts of weight and complexity. You have to build electrical and coolant connectors which can handle large amounts of connects and disconnects, in areas that get mucky and interact with rain, salt, snow and ice. You have to build a chassis strong enough to take an impact but also support the additional weight and space that a removable battery takes up - think of how much bigger phones with removable batteries.
I have done 900 mile road trips in EVs with 150Kw charging (low by standards of newer EVs) and charging has been a complete non problem. In fact I have more problems with plugging my car in, going to the toilet and coming back finding that I've put more power into the car than I wanted.
Batteries are lasting 200k+ miles with 85-90% original capacity in so longevity is not a problem and charging is becoming a solved problems in an increasingly large portion of the world too.
You put this in the wrong place. "Battery swap" in this context should be read like "transmission swap". Hours of work replacing a permanent part. Nothing to do with detachable batteries.
Hybrids keep their value remarkably well. If each engine isn't spinning half the time they will obviously last longer. They could have a small enough battery that make hot swapping a lot more realistic.
> "What part of EVs is "rapidly advancing technologically"?"
Battery capacity, motor efficiency (getting more range out of the same battery), charging rate (800V architectures for example that let you charge > 150kW), battery chemistry (wider operating temp envelope, affects charging and driving efficiency depending on environment)... the list goes on.
The batteries are also getting cheaper - which is to say for the same $ you're now (generally) getting a larger battery.
> "If so, why aren't used dealers just including a battery swap in the price?"
Because the batteries are in fact not swappable from one gen to the next, because the power electronics around them are different, peak current draw is different (and that depends on the motor it's mated with!).
Like I know it's tempting and attractive to imagine EVs like regular cars with some giant-ass AA batteries installed on them, but that's not how they work! The battery is specced as a unit with the entire electrical system and drive motor options!
> Like I know it's tempting and attractive to imagine EVs like regular cars with some giant-ass AA batteries installed on them, but that's not how they work!
Come on, we all know the big Christmas toys would always use those fat C batteries that we never had enough of.
The 50% off the lot was always exaggerated, but it is nearly not true now at all - used prices for all cars have skyrocketed such that buying used is not nearly the deal it used to be.
In fact, buying new is almost always the way to go now over lightly used (e.g., less than 5 or even 10 years old).
Even 20 years ago after I got out of college the advice to "buy a couple year old Honda Civic for cheap" had stopped working because everyone knew those cars were solid so the lightly used ones already barely cost less than new and the new ones often had cheap financing deals.
2024 Corollas around me are like $20k. If you need financing, the rates can often be worse for a used car than a new one. You then also have less warranty time left.
I recently bought a used 2023 Camry with 29K miles fully loaded, for 29K. New for the same features which I wanted comes out to 42.6K according to the Toyota configure website, and I assume there might even be some extra fee on top of that possibly...
However, saving more than a dollar a mile is pretty good, in favor of used. It's when you're saving less than 25 cents a mile that used probably isn't worth it.
Almost. Mine has the premium sound system which I really wanted, and ventilated seats, and the 360 camera view, front cross traffic and rear cross traffic monitoring, full lane centering for the full speed cruise control.
It's not hybrid but I don't want hybrid. That's more parts to have issues and I keep for 10 years and the hybrid batteries don't usually last that long, and I don't drive enough for the gas mileage to really make a meaningful cost difference.
Cash for clunkers destroyed mountains of cars which increased pollution and forced a bunch of people up the food chain with regard to competition for used cars.
> There's a saying that a new car loses 50% when you leave the lot.
New cars in no way lose half of their value when you drive them off the lot. The saying is that a new car loses ~10% of it's value when you drive it off the lot [1].
Right or wrong, the _saying_ is that "a new car loses half its value as soon as you drive off the lot." I've heard that repeated from many people across multiple regions in regards to buying a new vehicle. I've always heard half, never 10%, even if 10% is the more demonstrable amount.
That saying has always been a huge exaggeration, though. The price of a barely-used car is usually single-digit percentage points lower than an actually new one.
That current EVs just depreciate faster than ICE cars (in the US).
The article's chart is about used ICE vs EV prices in the US...
New EVs are definitely not 2x as good as a few years ago at half the price. Not sure if you've seen the price of new EVs in the US without subsidies.
ICE cars don't have a ~20% range depreciation after 5 years. EVs do. One would expect them to depreciate faster, until there's a solution for that.
That's not really a problem if they depreciate faster if the total operation cost is lower - which it almost certainly is for the Chinese EVs (relevant to most of the world).
This entire argument relies on new EV prices declining like other technologies, but this doesn't seem to be the case. E.g. the Nissan Leaf is ~$30,000 and has been for almost a decade. (Guess you could make a case with inflation... but nowhere near the technology price curves.)
It is the case globally. BYD sells EVs starting at $7800 [1][2], and Toyota sells an EV for $15,000 in China [3].
This may also be why Teslas are holding their value better than any other EV. Teslas are usually bought by U.S. consumers, who are forbidden from buying any of the cheaper global EVs by import restrictions. For fleets that buy models that are sold globally, they compete in the global market and are subject to global price declines.
The Chinese Tesla's are also dropping in price if you live in a country that hasn't got massive tariffs on Chinese made cars which is basically everywhere in the world except North America and Europe. Tesla literally won't sell you a Model S in Australia for example since it's made in the USA and there's no way they can sell it for a reasonable price.
It's a little damning for the US car market since Tesla's seen as a success of US manufacturing. Globally they are a Chinese made car.
The actual reason why you can't get a Model S in Australia is that Tesla does not manufacture a right hand drive version any more. You're equally out of luck in Japan, the UK, etc.
Maybe not that surprising, in large part the Germans built up the Chinese auto industry, and Tesla went to China to tap into that manufacturing knowledge/talent and backported it to their US factory.
The 2012 Nisan leaf had a 73 mile range. The 2025 leaf has a 300 mile range. 4x range at the same price (~30% less with inflation) is a pretty good improvement.
We've reach a point of price stabilization and longevity for smartphones now that didn't exist for the first 10 year ramp. When every new model added fundamental capability, you always want to upgrade, with the sweet spot often being every other year. But now, with better build quality, batteries, and stabilization of features people will keep their phones for much longer. Or buy "new" models that are of older versions since the price/features have been acceptable to run most of the apps they care about for years now. Plenty of people still want the top end for similar reasons to why people buy design clothing, but we've reached a feature plateau. We hopefully are getting close to that with EVs. Seems like around 300 mile range standard was the key thing. Though improved AI driving could change that again.
The main issue with smartphones is software support, as it essentially acts like a built-in time bomb.
Buying an older-generation flagship model to get better features than a current-generation midrange model of the same market price isn't very attractive when it'll have to be replaced after 2 years instead of 5 years.
Could be part of it, but the US just doesn't have cheap cars anymore. The days of the Geo Metro and the Dodge Neon with a 5 speed and crank windows is over. Car companies have decided to relegate people (in the USA) with either low income, or who cant stomach the type of depreciation every car suffers from, to the used market.
The reality is that there's no margin in cheap cars. You need to look at numbers instead of vibes.
The difference between 4 crank-up window regulators and 4 power window regulators is less than $100. 4 power lock actuators cost less than $20. Switches for all the above are, what, maybe $10?
The same math applies to power mirrors, auto climate control, heated seats, cruise control, and all the rest.
The production cost of a car with "power everything" vs. "manual everything" is a few hundred dollars at most. But consumers expect a much bigger discount for the inconvenience of missing those features (or, conversely, are willing to pay a much larger premium to add those features to a baseline car).
That the US doesn't have cheap cars is simply the reality of what the market demands. Cheap (new) cars don't sell (for more than what it costs to produce them).
A friend of mine bought a used car in 2007 for ~$4500 in 2025 dollars.
In my mid-20s I bought a 3-year-old Accord for $16k (using a $12k loan) and that was a big stretch for my finances at the time, despite having a good early-career tech job.
Your $17k figure is a lot of money for most folks in the US.
MSRP of an internal-combustion-powered Civic or Corolla is up 30ish percent in the same time period. The 2025 Nissan Leaf is a lot better than the 2015 model too. Range has nearly doubled for one.
What are the ranges across that decade. If the inflation adjusted price is lowering and the main technical limit is improving, it’s exactly what you’d expect from a technology improvement.
Car prices are tough too because how much subsidies, tariffs etc play into it.
But theoretically if you used a US made car you could limit some of that bias.
No, you completely missed the point. The new model is still ~$30,000 but it has better range/charges faster/drives better.
That doesn’t really happen as dramatically with gasoline cars. The powertrain and driving experience of a 5 year old gas car isn’t noticeably different than a current one.
If you buy a 5 year old EV you might get one that charges slow, doesn’t have a heat pump, has worse battery chemistry, battery health management, and the list goes on.
Heck, the Leaf is a perfect example because you’re stuck with chademo fast charging charging instead of CCS or NACS. I wouldn’t touch one with a 9 foot pole unless I planned to exclusively charge at home.
Also, don’t take my comment to mean that I think used EVs are a bad choice, many of them can work very well for many years and use cases as long as you are properly informed.
This argument seems right to me. Old ICE cars are basically the same as new ones. EVs are getting better quickly, so fast depreciation makes sense.
I avoided a used Leaf for exactly the reason you cited...2.5 years ago, and have been very happy with a last-of-its-generation 2023 Chevy Bolt (~ $22K new after tax credit).
But if you don't care about new features, e.g., really fast charging, a used Bolt (55kW max) is a great option!
>>Old ICE cars are basically the same as new ones.
I'm not sure that's totally true. The rate of change might be lower, but new ICE vehicles have higher efficiency (directly correlating to longer EV range) and are safer, more comfortable, and quieter.
I am definitely on the pro-EV side, nearly an evangelist I suppose, but ICE vehicles do improve.
How are ICEs quieter than EVs? Are you talking about the artificial noise EVs put out at low speeds so they don't sneak up on people?
ICEs have longer range, some of them are really fuel efficient, especially hybrids. But they drive relatively more poorly unless you opt for a sports car that is cramped and expensive. It isn't the worse thing in the world to drive an ICE, but it is noticeably less fun than driving an EV.
> How are ICEs quieter than EVs? Are you talking about the artificial noise EVs put out at low speeds so they don't sneak up on people?
I think your second sentence answers your first. Car noise = tire noise + motor noise. EVs have very low motor noise compared to IC.
EVs also tend to have better cabin dampening on average, but that likely has to do with price-band consumer expectations, and not inherent to the method of propulsion.
You know you can disable that. It might be against the law though, and it isn't the EVs that demand noise, it is the society that demands them not to be silent killers. Even Hybrids have to make this noise when they are running on their electric drive trains.
But let's say ICEs were made as quiet, they would be demanded to make noise as well. Also, no one has done anything about tire noise yet, so at high speeds, EVs and ICEs are about the same.
That wasn't the point being made. The point was that newer ICE cars are quieter than older models, and thus ICE vehicles have improved (at least to some degree) over the same period as EVs.
> That doesn’t really happen as dramatically with gasoline cars. The powertrain and driving experience of a 5 year old gas car isn’t noticeably different than a current one.
Depends. I recently went from a manual car to a mild hybrid with an eCVT. Feels pretty different to me.
Er, yeah, but that’s kinda analagous to the situation with EVs - there’s a big difference going from a 2015 Nissan Leaf to a 2025 Models S - there’s not nearly as much of a difference going from a 2015 Models S to a 2025 Model S.
I see Tesla Highland models (<1 year old, current gen) selling at significantly larger depreciations than nearly new gas cars. This holds across other EV manufacturers.
This makes a ton of sense considering the recently expired tax credit. The moment you drive an EV off the lot in September or earlier it’s worth $7,500 less than the normal depreciation.
I think if we give the used market a few years without the tax credit it’ll start to look more normal.
I think that only explains some of it, but definitely not all. The difference between gas models is massive. Look at Audi e trons for example which are regularly hitting 70% depreciation in 3 years with relatively low miles.
I think it’s a lot of things: demand is weakening because people are seeing that the attempt to force them on us faltering so we don’t have to switch, trust in reliability is lower, trust in battery durability too.
Also I think some of the myths of EVs advantages are being uncovered: the cost of batteries and tires takes a lot of the cost benefits away. EV charging stations are past 50% of gas station costs, when they used to be subsidized to be free. The complexity of battery, and the immensely complex heating and cooling systems means they aren’t as simple as many thought. There’s also environmental stuff - 2010s was peak climate change anxiety, you got a lot of social credit for an EV then, even more so because they were novel. The novelty factor and lack of cultural emphasis on environment both are degrading prices too.
e-Trons are definitely among the best deals right now in used EVs, but it's down to a confluence of factors specific to that car:
1. It had fairly good charging, but only so-so range. 250 miles seems to be a big psychological barrier for a lot of people and the e-Tron is on the wrong side of that line.
2. It's a luxury car and should be expected to have luxury car depreciation as a baseline
3. It's a luxury car with luxury car maintenance costs
4. It's a luxury car that had (maybe has) some reliability issues which incur luxury car repair costs
5. Audi had very good lease deals when they were new ("trunk money" was a common phrase)
6. Fuel economy is fairly bad when compared to anything other than an EV pickup
All these combine to make it a used car that only appeals to a very specific buyer.
I don't think that's a realistic transaction price for the Nissan Leaf. For most of that decade they were all but giving them away on leases as low as $79/mo. There are probably streaming video channels that cost more than a Nissan Leaf.
I'm an upper middle class person who could buy everything new if I wanted, but I still choose to acquire many things used. I have a new TV but my AVR and most of the speakers are second hand. I bought a four year old car. My CPU and RAM are new, but the motherboard and GPU are from FB marketplace. My monitors are new but my desk and office lights are cobbled together. My laser printer is almost twenty years old. I buy a lot of my clothes and almost all of my sporting gear second hand.
I partly don't own an EV because even used they still cost a lot upfront and I'd rather maintain the personal incentive to take mass transit or ride my bike, but when I do eventually go electric, it'll almost certainly be preowned, assuming I can get a reasonable discount off of new.
Depending on how far back you want to look at electric cars you can find them for pretty cheap. Sub $5k versions from 10 years ago were tempting recently when my partner needed a repair on the current (ICE) car. It looked like sub $15k there were many options. For use around the city it would be a good fit, but I ditched the ideas since we're in the process of dealing with partial house rewiring. That might be an update for later.
I think it’s hard to draw any conclusions about the auto market. The cost escalations of cars and the bizarro economy have changed the market fundamentally.
The weird gaps of supply in model years because of the pandemic and prices are just nuts. The value of my 2016 SUV has gone up $4000 since last year. EVs are super volatile — my brother has netted profit from trading them. My girlfriend sold her 14 month old Subaru for $1000 under her cost - the pretax value appreciated.
Hard agree. A drunk driver hit our parked 2015 Mazda CX-5. We paid about $27,000 for it in 2016. The car was totaled and we received about $17,000. That figured out to just about $1100 in depreciation per year for 9 years.
You're right, but it still sucks that my car now depreciates as fast as my Macbook. I don't think batteries will ever hold their value though, and those things constitute at least $10k of an EV's sticker price.
Hopefully as EVs become less ugly-looking, the body and interior hold their value, even if the value of the battery depreciates rapidly.
If somebody made an EV that looked like a 1980s Rolls Royce Corniche- something tasteful- I would buy an EV.
But _why_ would the battery depreciate so much? My 4 year old EV can drive the same distance as it could when it was new. The data we have on EVs just doesn’t support the idea that their range drops a cliff at some point. And if they do, you’re mostly able to have it fixed by swapping the faulty cell module. Which more and more places are able to do. And even when it reaches the end of life, it’s still good for grid applications.
So the way I see it, the EV resale value is really due to two factors. One being that, yes, the typical EV buyer is able to buy new. And the other being knee jerk reaction to used EVs that’s mostly emotion-based.
I expect the resale value become better in some years. And I fully expect end of life EVs costing more than end of life ICE cars, because the battery will definitely be more valuable than a scrap pile.
I think it's also in large part due to the demographics of ev buyers today. Still a lot of wealthy early tech adopters who specifically want the newest thing.
Not yet driven by utility value ( not that cars ever really are, lower end but ICE vehicles are much closer to that)
This isn't car specific, it's new technology specific.
You are spot on. New car EV prices are dropping and tech is advancing.
EVs inherently depreciate less; they're simpler, few moving parts. The motor is sealed. Batteries are lasting longer than expected.
So 'depreciate' in the title is misleading. It may be technically true in that they lose resale value, but they are definitely not less road-worthy than a similarly aged combustion vehicle.
I would absolutely buy a second hand Tesla, they're great value. Probably other EVs too.
The EV car market is rapidly evolving which tends to make people skittish about purchases and tend to the latest innovations. I decided to lease my first EV because I figured it would be outdated pretty quickly.
I was wrong. In reality the main innovation driver is the battery. The car is great and EVs are much less maintenance. I think used sales would be better if there were better aftermarket options for batteries.
I buy used all the time. It is way cheaper and new things are usually not much better (sometimes new things are worse).
For example a lot of new TVs are worse than old TVs, because new TVs have ads in their UIs, and increasingly new TVs don't even come with remotes anymore.
Maybe $30k or $40k are nothing for the average car owner in the USA but that's 3 or 4 times what a small car used to cost here in Europe, even 5 times. Small cars are going extinct or their price doubled because they are transitioning to electric too. The result is that they are selling few EVs and a lot of used combustion engine cars. The EV transition is derailing here because of price, not because of second hand market value.
Exactly. There is such a gap between brand new EV and regular cars that for someone doing 10000km per year it needs on average 8 years before breaking even to account for the price gap. It’s too expensive right now it does makes sense to invest in an EV, except if money isn’t a problem
I'm pretty sure it's a mixture between this and the fact that EVS don't really break down. You have the same amount of them for sale a few years later. Versus gas cars. You have half of them around being parted out. So they do go up in value oddly.
They've pretty much just saturated their own market. Everyone needs a car. Not everyone needs an EV. If you have a garage then yes it makes perfect sense to have an EV. But if you don't and you live in an apartment or you live in a shared house. It's not really going to work for you. People who have their own house don't want old cars. So they basically just have a bunch of older car sitting around that nobody really wants even though they technically do have better value. A $30,000 Tesla and a $30,000 BMW? You'd have to be biased to think that it makes logical sense for the BMW. Sure! It's 40. It's fun but the cost of maintenance. The reliability.... It's not really a family car in the same way. It appeals to more people, but it's not more logical. However, you don't need a garage to charge your BMW. I don't care how fast the car charges. I don't want to go to a charger. I've had my car for 4 years and I've only been to a supercharger twice.
But I fully understand why not everyone has them. Every time I pass by a mechanic shop an oil change place like gas station. I just think of how much wasted time that people use on their cars thinking that it's more convenient.
But but for them in fact it may actually be. Imagine sitting at a charger for 20 mins 2x a week if you drive a lot and use sentry.
Actually EVs break down a lot, more so than ICE or hybrid cars. It turns out that having fewer moving parts doesn't compensate for incompetent engineering and shoddy manufacturing.
Old cell phones and computers are fine from a performance and features point of view. The lack of support, repairability, and durability affect the resale value more than anything.
Tires, summer and winter, are also very expensive. ICE weighs a lot less and generally have much cheaper tires.
I actually think that the used market for EVs just is going to have more apartment dwellers (who lack home charging infrastructure) and people who only have access to one car (and thus more strongly prefer something that can easily do long trips without much planning). New EVs are new cars which are expensive as hell and primarily going to be purchased by well off people that have houses. And as you said, these people probably aren't getting much work done at the dealership even if we assume the dealership services EVs.
I've noticed in discussions about EVs a lot of people feel range anxiety if overblown, which is probably true. But the "I have nowhere to charge it at night because I don't own a house" problem is usually just ignored even though it seems like a much bigger problem to me.
That’s what I always thought, not having the proper infrastructure is a greater problem because not every apartment has private garage with electricity. In the hyper center of big towns they will never dig the streets to install chargers for every few parking spots and superchargers are rare for the amount of cars there is compared to 3min for gas with ubiquitous infrastructure. Where I live there is often parkings with 50+ cars and no or 2 chargers
I purchased an EV this year, my highest priority was range per dollar, and the vehicle I selected happened to be new because of current market conditions. (Equinox EV for under 25k otd after incentives)
That would make leasing the better option because at the end of the lease the leaser has to take them card back....no worry about selling something on one wants to buy.
I think a lot of that is economies of scale. The parts needed are not cheap in small quantities, but we finally got to the point that they are popular enough that they are made en masse.
Yeah at the top end there is still a ton of progress, but on bottom end it just recently turned into commodity, to the point they are sold in more general stores.
Hopefully EVs are being purchased to replace existing ICE cars, in which case the falling price is a good thing since it makes them more available at lower price points. Replacing a car with one that is cheaper to run and produces less emissions is usually a good thing.
If people are buying (and storing, and fueling) EVs in addition to their collection of ICE cars, that's probably a separate issue about overconsumption.
Consequently, why are used sellers so out of touch, for cars or anything else? I love the idea of buying and selling used, but people ask too much relative to the new price.
1) A large segment of people make purchase decisions based on payment schedules rather than the total cost of driving or even residual value.
2) Today 2/3 of car loans are are 72 months, meaning that even for lower depreciation rate cars, private sellers are often under water, and may not have the resources to pay off the gap with current market value. [0]
3) Banks have responded with 1/5 new-vehicle loans being 84 months or longer, adding to the problem
4) For around the ~40 years I have been paying attention, private sellers almost always think they should get the dealer price and not the private party price.
There are other reasons, but we are in a situation where it would be amazing of we avoid another 2009 like crash in the market.
If they are out of touch, then the cars aren't selling, right? Because if they are selling for that price, then by definition you are out of touch and the sellers know what the market will bear.
My friend told me that his in-laws absolutely refuse to buy a new car, as their whole lives they’ve been told it’s an awful deal. Instead, they’ll get something a couple of years old and save maybe a few thousand dollars on a $40,000 vehicle.
It drives him batty.
So, I’d say there’s a potential the used buyers are the ones out of touch, and that people like those in-laws probably aren’t buying EVs.
I've told this story before, but I like telling it, so here goes.
I once went shopping for a Mustang Cobra, back when they were cool and I was young and into those kinds of cars. The local Ford dealer had their new car lot next door to the used lot, literally separated only by a driveway.
I went to look at the 2004 Cobras they had a half dozen of, and they were marked down (IIRC) $8000 off MSRP. I thought "Cool, the 04 is no different from the 03, so I wonder what I can get one of those on the used lot for." And walked over to look. The 03s were priced higher than the marked-down price on the 04s a couple hundred feet away. At the same dealer.
I brought it up with the used car manager, incredulous at what he was asking for the used ones. His response was "Yeah, go buy one of the new ones, these will sell just fine." I asked why and he said there is a whole class of buyer that won't even look at new cars. That the new car market and the used car markets are not in fact sharing the same space, even if it seems like it would make sense for people to cross-shop. So he priced his used cars at whatever the market would bear, which turned out to be higher than Ford would unload the new ones for.
Does this happen often? Perhaps not. But over the years I've bought new cars on several occasions where the used equivalent was going to save me a whopping $3-4K for a car that was two or three years older and with some miles. It did not make any financial sense whatsoever to buy the used one for such a small discount.
I was literally in this situation this year. My parents needed an upgrade, and as I was researching it, the 2 year old used cars were just 1-2k EUR cheaper than the same model new with a slight discount. Of course we got the new one, if only for having the full warranty period.
>> people like those in-laws probably aren’t buying EVs.
> A used 2 year old Ioniq 5 is selling for about $15-20K less than MSRP...It's not a "few thousand dollars".
The Ioniq 5 is an electric vehicle. The whole point of this article is that EVs depreciate significantly faster than Internal Combustion Engine vehicles. A brand new ICE vehicle depreciates quickly but not to the point of losing 50% in 2 years.
Plenty of people must find this worthwhile, otherwise sellers wouldn’t be able to find buyers and they’d be forced to reduce price if they want to sell.
Plus, the listed price is often aspirational. Savvy buyers will typically negotiate the price down.
I have to admit that I’m not a savvy buyer and always buy new though. But I know people who do this very successfully.
That's how it goes in my experience with the used market, for anything, really. People go online, browse around the listings to get a feel of the prices, and post a price based on that. That's a mistake. The prices that are easy to find and most common are for the items that aren't moving. When someone finally posts an item at a price that buyers are willing to pay it usually gets sold in a few days, if it's something in demand.
I've only ever found good deals on used stuff by pure chance or by watching the market over weeks. It takes both patience and decisiveness, otherwise someone else swoops in before you.
All of this is just a way of saying that the market does not agree with someone's personal opinion on value. "That's a mistake" sounds right but if the market is willing to pay, then was it really a mistake?
> I've only ever found good deals on used stuff by pure chance or by watching the market over weeks. It takes both patience and decisiveness, otherwise someone else swoops in before you.
That sounds like it is exactly how things are supposed to work. If the average price were a good deal, it would by definition not be a good deal. It should take some work or some waiting, if you want that price.
>"That's a mistake" sounds right but if the market is willing to pay, then was it really a mistake?
But it's not willing to pay. That's my point. That's why those postings sit unsold.
>If the average price were a good deal, it would by definition not be a good deal.
Let me clarify: I mean "good deal" in comparison to just buying new. Take headphones, which is something I've bought used a few times. I found a pair of SHP9500s for like 20% of the price of new ones; they had some visible wear, but they weren't broken and they sounded perfect. That's what I'd call an excellent deal. Another time I found a pair of HE400ses for 60-70% of the price of new, and they looked mint. That's a good deal and how the used market should work. The buyer pays a little less with the risk that the item might have some latent defect that's building up, and the seller gets to recoup some of his money.
A bad deal is paying 90% for that same risk and uncertainty, which is what I see most often. Yeah, maybe the product is even verifiably in good condition, but at that point the difference is so small that why would someone even bother?
You don't see what sells because it's no longer on the market.
A vehicle that sells in 1mo is on the market 30x longer, seen by 30x more people, etc, etc, than one that sells in 1d and only takes 1/30th as many of them on the market to fill up your FBMP feed.
Now, not a lot of cars are priced to sell in 1d, but also 30d is a comically low upper bound as well. Adjust the numbers as you see fit.
Sellers might be out of touch with your sensibilities but they are not out of touch with their own market. Used sellers ask that much because buyers are willing to pay that much.
It's difficult to decouple your knowledge of how much you paid for something. Even if you intellectually know the fair market value of something is now 0.1x what you paid for it, it can still feel like you're just losing all that money by accepting that price.
Yeah. This is called "anchoring" in behavioral economics research. People can't let go of the price they last paid for the good as the "correct" price, and so are reluctant to drop to the true market-clearing price.
This is also why cereal makers rely on shrinkflation to raise prices, and why home prices are sticky downwards, and why companies resort to layoffs rather than wage cuts. In an individual consumer's mind, prices should stay the same.
I think this is also a baby step away from one basis for hoarding behavior. The hoarder cannot see the many cases where the loss of value has already happened whether you retain the item or discard it. They think the full loss is realized the moment it is discarded.
My data point: old Kona Electric vs new Ioniq 6.
Acceleration is faster, but not twice as fast. It does charge 40-50% faster though, and that is life-changing.
Not twice the range but 360 mi vs 220 mi is a huge improvement.
More than twice as comfortable, and that’s switching from the top of the line to the base model. Mostly due to better climate controls and a huge amount of legroom.
Both have 5 star Euro NCAP scores. But now the lane keep assist now works at any speed and there are more warnings about cars and other obstacles, so there’s a safety improvement.
And it’s not twice the price: the MSRP was cheaper!
Exactly ^^^ This situation reminds me of the 90s with the PC market, where PCs were changing so fast, and getting cheaper every day - I think Weird Al put it best: "My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks / But it was obsolete before I opened the box".
What a reference. Thanks for taking me back to the 90s. I have fond memories of memorizing Running with Scissors :)
Yeah, tech for this stuff is moving super fast. It's hard to know what will endure, what will be upgradeable, and what will be cast aside.
I recently bought a low mileage used EV for relatively cheap. I'm hoping I'll be able to drive the battery into the ground. Then I'm betting that, in 6-8(10?)yrs when I need a new one, there will be better battery chemistries so I can extend the car's life even further.
If that were true than the market would value used goods as essentially free, so there wouldn't be a reason to buy anything new. The reason there is not a huge used market for technology is because they are no longer supported or are deprecated on purpose by the producer.
Sub-Headline from this article: "Plummeting resale values are threatening to derail the world’s transition to electric transportation."
Alternative take: "EVs now easy to afford for the 80% of Americans who don't have $50-90k to spend on an EV!"
This year I bought a 2022 EV with 16k miles. A luxury brand. The sticker price when new was $79,000. I paid $35k. It was an off-lease vehicle so if anyone took a bath, it was the bank. I would never in a million years spend 80 grand on a car but now I have a great EV.
Battery life is not a huge concern. Any more than timing belts/chains, transmissions, etc. can be dauntingly costly repairs for cars with 150k miles or more.
I also have a gas car which I love (spouse drives the electric for a much greater commute) so I'm no EV absolutist. But this whole premise is stupid. EV adoption has had 2 main blockers: 1. only rich people had justification to buy them until recently, and 2. Charging space for people who don't have their own private garage.
Now #1 is no longer a factor. This is a GOOD thing.
Picked up a 10 year old Fiat 500e with 50k miles for $5k as my daughters first car. She and my wife love it. Way more power than the gas model, and a super fun drive.
Fun fact -- three years after the first 500e went on sale, they were going through auction off-lease at $4K (in the US, at least). Ouch! I remember this vividly because a coworker of mine's wife had purchased one brand new for over 30 grand.
FUD about battery life and having to spend over $10k to replace one was a large factor in EV depreciation. Some people assumed car battery life was like that of a cell phone or a laptop, perhaps 3 years. There is increasing evidence that EV batteries with good battery management systems will last 15+ years (see https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/). Once the general population understands an EV will outlast a gas car and needs less maintenance, resale value should improve.
lol, I was looking at fun cars for my most recent purchase, and Audi E-Trons are available for 50% off if you buy them just a year old. Apparently they stabilize in price after that, but GOODNESS GRACIOUS that's a big dropoff in a single year. It was crazy to see Audi's newest top-of-the-line offering (not their RS offering, to be clear) for the same price as an entry-level BMW M.
> For Tesla owners in the U.S., their 2023 Model Ys are worth 42% less than what they paid two years ago
I want to suggest that there are recent reasons why Tesla, as a brand, has specifically gotten a bit less popular that are unrelated to the entire EV category. (It's Elon. He's the reason.)
That said, to the extent the result holds true for the entire category, I'd suspect it's because EVs are still fairly immature. It's like "resale value of desktop PCs falling rapidly" back in the 90s, when the field was advancing quickly enough that buying used was genuinely a bad idea.
There are other factors, too. As an owner of a 2023 Model 3, I am acutely aware of them. It's not just image, but prices. The 2023 Model 3 & Y were expensive, and Tesla started slashing the prices in 2024. This absolutely destroyed the resale value for people who paid near the high point.
I suspect people don't really notice this as much because if you are familiar with regular manufacturers you are used to the price (well, the MSRP at least) staying rock steady for a year at a time. Tesla moves their prices around quite a lot by comparison, which can be very detrimental to the used market when it drops quickly.
This got me curious about tesla prices over time. Turns out someone has a nice spreadsheet of this. I don't know about the accuracy, but it's a cool spreadsheet.
> This absolutely destroyed the resale value for people who paid near the high point
This is definitely true, but it's funny how much hand-wringing is being done about those people, who already bought EVs and really don't need to replace them like 3-4 years into ownership (they might want to for vanity, but if so they're either rich or love wasting money).
"Destroyed resale value" is just another word for "provided amazing prices to a great used market." These "destroyed value" cars are great almost-new cars available at prices competitive with gas cars. In California with horrific electric rates, if I charge my used EV at the "non-peak" time it's like buying gas for my old car at 2.50/gal. In places with much better rates it's more like $1 a gallon. And these are cars that are now available for the same price as a comparable gas car. I'd say this is a huge win for everyone.
Well yes, it's a matter of perspective, and good used prices are better for society as a whole. You're welcome :). Someone who buys my Model 3 for 35 grand less than I paid for it a few years ago is getting a pretty good deal. But despite my wife wanting something in a different form factor, we're keeping the Model 3 a while longer because selling it would realize what is just a theoretical loss right now. It's just psychological, but it definitely influences our choices.
Me neither. My fuel costs went from £1000 a year to £100. And I don't even do that many miles. Why isn't everyone jumping on this? Meanwhile a lot of moaning about the "cost of living crisis". People are strange.
Electric and internal combustion cars do not cost the same though. Even a plug-in hybrid which only has ~50mi range before the ICE turns on was a +$8k feature (in practice, $10k - $12k after dealer shenanigans and taxes) when I last bought a car. I'd have to drive 8+ years without ever using a drop of gasoline for that to make sense, by your numbers. A full EV was $20k - $30k more than similar ICE models.
That's in the US where we have a bunch of tariffs to protect the local auto industry.
In the UK, you can get really cheap EVs because the china ev and battery market is open to them and their importers.
Further, because of the nature of both public transport and the city layout of the UK, there's much less of a need for long range EVs. Almost everything there is both walkable and within walking distance. It's very unlike the US.
I survived in the UK for 2 years on foot. It was really not that bad.
The Hyundai Kona Electric starts at £32,400. Which is ~$43,500 freedom bucks.
But there's very little reason why the majority of brits couldn't survive with the Dogood Zero which starts at £5,500 (and has a 50 mile range).
Those comparisons were from the same manufacturer, so tariffs should be similar.
I ended up going with the RAV4. I just looked and the gas powered RAV4 is $29k, while the plug in hybrid model (toyota doesn’t do full EV) is $45k, so there is still a very big difference in price.
I don't think I could understand not getting an EV in the UK. Everything is so close together and public transit is really good. You can practically survive in even the most remote regions with just a bike alone.
You're right, I was off by a year. We have a 2023, but we bought it in December 2022. Not at the high point, exactly, but still before a big slash in prices, and before the credit. We mistakenly thought the credit wasn't going to happen.
If I sell the car anytime soon it will definitely be the most I've ever "lost" on a car purchase. Oh well.
That's unfortunate. I also had a few cousins buy a Tesla just before the price changes and credit happened. I paid $25k or so less than them at the end of 2024 for a better car. Early 2020s in general was an awful time to be a car buyer.
I bought 2023 April after first price drops and EV rebate at its highest point (this is in NZ). I was looking at used ones which were about 3-4k usd cheaper at the time. After some timewaster I figured savings are not worth it and bought new. Tesla did another drop next week and refunded me about 2k USD without me realising.
Fast forward to now it’s worth about 30% less but thats what I saved on fuel.
A friend of mine sold their Model S recently because a)Elon and b)their neighborhood where Elon is not popular. They got a Lexus hybrid instead. They were bummed out because they loved the car. They don't tickle me at all - I like his Lexus better - but hey to each is own.
Not in my neighborhood. I’ve seen strong sales of the new models and tons more used Teslas on the road. The competitive used prices have helped expand their audience tremendously.
has TSLAQ ever been right? Maybe short term but never long term.
> has TSLAQ ever been right? Maybe short term but never long term.
Any rational view of TSLA's business and future prospects suggests that TSLAQ is right, but that the timeline for proving it out may be extended (and there's a saying about that, right? Something about the market staying irrational longer than you can remain solvent). TSLA is a meme stock at this point. I wish it were not part of the S&P500, because I hate to be exposed to that volatility.
But I'm often wrong, so maybe this is yet another example.
I think I would eventually win the bet. I just don't think my timeline or funding is in a position where I want to wait it out. I think TSLA is detached from the fundamentals and I haven't heard a good rationalization that explains what I'm missing. I get that the stock market is aspirational, the price you see is the collective hopes & dreams for the future, but at some level there needs to be an explanation, a vision that seems plausible. What is Tesla doing today that leads to their current valuation, what does that path even look like?
The other reason is that Hertz was dumping most of their large inventory of Teslas on the used market. No one wanted those cars as rentals and they cost too much to maintain.
It doesn't present any such data. Only this one vague quotation from the manager of Polish vehicle history report website autodna.pl:
"Premium brands consistently retain higher resale value than mass-market brands, for both ICE vehicles and EVs. No one knows what entirely new Chinese marques will cost in the secondary market – for instance, what a 5-year-old Omoda will fetch"
Everything concrete in the article is about how Teslas, specifically, have precipitously declined in value, except for one paragraph about how nobody wanted to buy used vehicles from BluSmart (an Indian company that "collapsed in April amid financial fraud allegations").
Yeah, that Tesla fares better than a Chinese brand we've never heard of doesn't mean much to me. Are there 5 year old ICE Omodas to compare their expected value loss? For Americans, I think it'd be interesting to put compare against several year old Rivians, Ford F-150 Lightnings, etc.
I think there is really not enough good data to draw conclusions yet. The EV market is so young, and Tesla was basically the only non-compliance EV for several years. At this moment the expected value on my 2024 Lightning is way closer to what I paid for it than the expected value on my 2023 Model 3 is compared to what I paid. But that could just be situational.
I have been telling people, though, on the Model 3 forum that they should be leasing unless they are extremely sure they'll keep the car for a lot of years. Tesla's residuals have been way more optimistic than what the used car market suggested reality would look like. Only a problem if you sell at about three years, but maybe worth hedging your bets.
I completely support voting with your wallet. Where the anti-Tesla people lost me was when they decided that anybody who owned a Tesla was nazi/fascist/whatever by extension, and it would be totally okay to abuse them or their car.
Fortunately that has subsided a bit, I haven't heard as much chatter about it in the last few months. And anecdotally, there are still quite a lot of "just got my new Tesla" threads on the Model 3 subreddit -- I think sales totals have still been a disappointment, but they haven't tanked.
Yes, all the anti-Tesla people went to a meeting a decided that abusing cars was on the menu.
(hint: if even a small majority of them felt that way, there would have been many many orders of magnitude more incidents. more than any gap in reporting could cover. figure out where that narrative was born though.)
Point taken, it was just the loud ones ruining it. Though in my mind, when I think "anti-Tesla people" I am casually excluding the people who are not vocally so. Arbitrary, yes, but how I tend to think about it. I know a lot of people who are anti-Tesla in the sense that they will never buy one, but aside from that you will never hear anything from them.
If you decide to define vocal as willing to damage cars, that's your prerogative.
There a many (many) more people who are vocally anti-Tesla and not willing to damage cars, again, evidenced by the ratio of vocalized anti-Tesla sentiment to real incidents.
The normalisation of the word "Nazi" really is a scourge in modern society. An actual, real life Nazi, would want the extermination of the Jewish people. Let's reserve that word for such monsters.
You may not like a lot of Elon's opinions (myself included), but he is far from a Nazi.
He did the Nazi salute twice on stage. He shared anti-semitic propaganda on X, unbanned known nazis, openly campaigned for AfD, a party that has actual Nazis in its ranks, renamed his AI chatbot Mecha Hitler. The list goes on.
He is very much a Nazi sympathizer just like Ford was.
In an attempt to keep this conversation about technology, all I'll say is that Elon is a self described free speech absolutist, which is what he's enacted on X - and hence the unbanning of "known nazis". I have to agree with this (a position I've not always held). It's better to bring out and allow speech to be held and more importantly: challenged. This at least is something to treasure in the US, as we are losing here in the UK.
Elon may describe himself as a "free speech absolutist", but his actions betray his insincerity in saying that.
The man isn't even mildly pro free speech. He is only "absolute" about defending the speech that he likes and agrees with.
With that in mind, it really says something about his beliefs when he defends and even boosts actual nazis.
Tesla will also be fine once Musk goes away. The problem right now isn't the actual car, its that you are handing money to a company that directly affects his wealth, even if you buy second hand.
Which is really weird isn't it? He did his best to help reduce America's debt while the Democrats do everything they can to increase it. Instead of showing appreciation, far left assholes attacked the Tesla brand, factories and Musk himself...for trying to help us get out of the deep debt hole we are in.
Considering that independent analyses all find that DOGE's efforts didn't really accomplish much of anything in the budget department, his best wasn't very good. Which isn't surprising? He was aggressively slashing the tiniest little sliver of the US government's total budget. (Visible, yes. Significant, no.) As the saying goes, premature optimization is the root of all evil.
Folks really need to quit looking at these things in such a heavily politicized light. Because when we are biased toward thinking something is definitely good or definitely bad based purely on the party affiliation of the person who proposed the idea, that fundamentally undermines our ability to discern what is and is not actually working.
And also, frankly, all this stupid name calling is fucking stupid.
Well, except he directly caused the debt to go up, and killed hundreds of thousands of people, while being really awful to everyone. I know it is tempting to think this isn't true if you're in an info bubble, but unfortunately it is! Wish I could buy another Tesla, they're great cars.
Say the govt wanted everyone to buy more Rubik's Cubes (cause they help you become smarter).
Their plan to do this is not to pay the Rubik's company to make them cheaper, but instead to give everyone $5 spendable on Rubik's Cubes only. The cost of a cube prior to this was $8.
The day that decide that, the Rubik's company ups the price of a Cube to account for this incoming onslaught of buyers and get more profit. They can safely up the price without losing sales because A) everyone wants to get smart and B) The overall cost of a cube is still cheaper than before. You can get a $10 cube for $5, which is less than $8.
More cubes are sold than ever before.
Now the market is flooded with cubes.
Now the govt says "Great! Everyone has cubes. Let the intelligence revolution commence!" So they remove the subsidy.
$10 Cubes are now QUITE expensive, so the Rubik's company reduces the price back to the $8 it was before. But wait a second, now the market is flooded and people are used to paying effectively $5 for a cube.
I think you're right that contributed, but at least the federal EV subsidy was trying to mitigate that effect by also subsidizing used EV purchases. I just bought a used PHEV and got a subsidy right before the cutoff. So the effect might get worse now that the program has ended, though I suppose new EV prices should come down too.
Yeah interestingly, Hyundai recently cut prices on their EVs in anticipation of this. To me, it was confirmation that they had inflated prices in recent years.
Solving them is a question of knowing the algorithm and applying it. It makes you better at pattern matching.
> everyone wants to get smart
In most social situations people want to have fun. They'll intentionally consume substances which reduce their "smarts" in an effort to achieve this more easily. They will lie to your face about this because _appearing_ smart is all they actually care about.
> Now the market is flooded with cubes.
That are lower quality than what was being made prior to the subsidy.
> This is what's happened with EVs.
Inflation also halved the value of money. The story seems simple but it's obviously more complex than a simple analysis would allow for.
The battery uncertainty is real, but I think the bigger issue is information asymmetry.
Looking at actual market data, the spread on used EVs is wild - a 2022 Tesla Model S ranges from $57 to $112k depending on trim/condition (https://cardog.app/tools/valuation/tesla/model_s/2022). That's a $60k spread on the same year vehicle. Compare that to ICE vehicles where the range is typically much tighter.
When buyers can't confidently price an asset, they discount heavily. The depreciation problem might actually be a data problem - we just don't have the standardized battery health reporting and historical comps that exist for ICE vehicles yet.
Not even just the battery (although that probably is the biggest one), but maintenance in general.
If I buy a 5 year old Corolla with 50k miles on the clock, I have a pretty good idea of what maintenance is going to like for the next decade, and I know a mechanic who can do the work.
I have no idea at all what will happen with a comparable Tesla over 10 years.
Everyone likes to focus on the battery, but in my experience with Ford, Honda and Nissan, there's more frequent expensive surprises in gas engine sedans.
Replacing the passenger occupant detection sensor for the airbag system in my 2007 Ford Fusion cost $2K. After a series of other issues with things like the transmission and fuel injector, I ultimately traded it in for $500.
I got a used Nissan Leaf with low mileage for $18K a few years ago and haven't taken it in for anything yet. Battery health is still at 90%, and I could get that replaced for around $6K if I needed to.
I feel a palpable sense of relief that the surprise maintenance bills have stopped.
Obviously we don't have ICE levels of data, but as far as available data that we do have, that battery uncertainty is probably unwarranted. Battery life seems to be dropping much slowly than early estimates predicted (and this is including vehicles with >100,000 miles, and >10 years of driving history). Risk acceptance is not a thing that has one right answer, so I won't try and say that people are wrong for how they are assessing this risk, but I know that I personally had zero compunctions at all when I recently bought a used EV, and just appreciated the price I was getting.
Now is probably the golden age for buying used EVs, because eventually this notion that the batteries are untrustworthy is going to go away (you can argue about whether this will occur because the technology improves vs. people will better realize where it already is, but it will happen).
This is including the Model S Long Range (decent performance, more focused on efficiency) with the Model S Plaid (fastest accelerating street-legal car in the world?). It's really not realistic. The median is $68k, which is probably much closer to the typical price you'd pay.
The article is making a huge mistake though, comparing apples to oranges.
Resale value of EVs doesn't depend on mileage nowhere near as much as ICE cars. EVs are just much simpler machines and electric motors can do a million miles with no maintenance, and the only maintenance you have is the oil in the differential, which is often simpler because it is single-speed. Compare that to thousand different mechanical parts that all wear out in a ICE engine. Which is why ICE cars resale value is determined by the odometer.
What drives EV resale value is the health of the battery, which is influenced more by recharge cycles and straight up passage of time.
And the anecdotal evidence of a commercial fleet going bankrupt and not getting much for their EVs... Well yeah, would you buy from such a source? I wouldn't. They usually don't follow longevity advice for battery charging, because they have to optimize for time-in-use.
As an anecdote, I bought all my ICE cars second hand, and would usually sell them 3-4 years later just before major maintenance was needed. My EV is now 8 years old, runs like the day I got it and had 1 repair, when the motor that drives the window up and down broke and battery capacity is still the same, or if it changed it's such a small change I didn't notice. I don't expect to sell any time soon, if ever. I expect I will just do a battery swap in 5-10 years.
> What drives EV resale value is the health of the battery, which is influenced more by recharge cycles and straight up passage of time.
The resale value drops much faster than the battery health. Hyundai has been tracking the degregation rates of the batteries in their Ioniq 5 vehicles and they've been holding up surprisingly well. Most of them have >90% battery capacity at over 100k miles. Their data was sparse for 250k miles, but half of them were still over 90% capacity.
The article is comparing 2 scenarios that have other explanations: a fire sale of a large fleet and Tesla which has an image problem because of its leadership.
I’m not saying the article is wrong I’d just like to see broader representation (Chevy bolt, lucid air, etc).
Worse than that, the main vehicle it compares everything to is the Model Y. There may have been one or two things related to Tesla this year, and not other EVs, that might have hurt resale values for some reason...
My battery is starting to get to unacceptable degradation; I have a 7 year old EV and my top battery percentage is 78% of the purchase.
I inquired about a battery swap and it's around $10->12k. I'm seriously considering it in the next couple of years as I see that as buying another 9->10 years of life for my car.
I might grab a used EV instead, though, as the one thing my car lacks is a heat pump, which kinda sucks in the winter.
Your warranty should cover the battery swap. I know my Chevy Volt's warranty is 150,000 miles or 10 years. It may only be 100,000. The length of the warranty depends on whether you live in a CARB state.
If a dealer charges you between $10K to $12K for a swap out, that's the "fuck you for not buying a car that makes the dealership more money" price. Several third-party vendors refurbish and sell EV batteries for much less.
I know what you mean by not having a heat pump sucking. The Volt has resistive heating for wintertime, and it definitely drains the battery. I dress warm and use the seat heaters when I'm driving by myself.
Lithium-ion batteries have fallen in price at least 40% since you bought your car in 2018 (https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/charted-lithium-ion-ba...). Assuming there's some correlation between that decline and the replacement price you're facing, which is unfortunately not a given, it would be worth it to hold out as long as you can.
We can only dream of a day when battery packs are a standardized commodity, and as easy to change as motor oil. But modern industry is far too extractive.
Newer battery technology is cheaper, but for a battery swap you'll probably need to buy the same battery tech you already have -- which is probably why a battery swap might not be cheap.
If you put 170k miles on a gas car, wouldn't you have paid for $10-12k in maintenance over that time? At that point you've done 20 oil changes, replaced the spark plugs & air filter 5 times, replaced the timing belt and transmission fluid twice, replaced the brake pads 3-4 times, replaced the brake rotors, water pump, alternator, and maybe even a head gasket, starter motor, and fuel pump.
Assuming you averaged 30mpg, you also put $20k in gas through it. At the current US average retail electricity price of 17 cents per kWh and EV efficiency of 250Wh/mile, recharging would be $7,200 for that same distance. The fuel savings alone are more than the cost of replacing the battery.
In the future, it might be worth it to have the interior of an EV refurbished and updated. What I'm really nervous about is the infotainment system, eventually it is out of date but unless you are maybe driving a Tesla, only the original model will work in your car! It would be nice if some of the electronics could be easily upgraded after 10 years. That isn't even counting failure (mine failed and had to be replaced in the first six months, but hopefully that was a product defect that usually hits quickly rather than slowly over time).
If solid state batteries actually come out, they probably won't be retrofitted into existing EVs. That's a bummer, but I guess by the time I'm ready to change cars self driving will be a real thing (the Waymo kind, not the Tesla kind).
> What I'm really nervous about is the infotainment system, eventually it is out of date but unless you are maybe driving a Tesla, only the original model will work in your car!
tbh, it's kind of baffling to me how it seems like nobody else is interested in offering software updates to infotainment without needing to take it to a dealer's service bay, if it's even offered at all.
When I bought my Tesla, at the time, "Streaming" (Which was silently powered by Slacker Radio) was the only music streaming integration, but Spotify was added shortly after my purchase. They've since added YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Tidal integrations.
Map data is fetched on the fly. No need to manually install updates. Hell, how many cars even make that an option? My in-laws have an old Prius (I think first gen, maybe second gen?) with built-in Nav, but has never received a map update. Their nav doesn't even know their home street exists.
It doesn't help that so many cars have lackluster infotainment systems. I had a Subaru BRZ in 2016 and was kinda stoked that I could play MP3s from a USB drive, since back then I actually somewhat maintained a collection. I figured I'd get a thumb drive with all my MP3s on it. But the interface completely flattened the directory structure and put them in alphabetical order. There'd be no way to play a single album in sequence if I had multiple albums by the same artist. My folder organization became worthless.
But I've digressed...yeah, more car manufacturers should offer software updates for their infotainment.
Maybe this explains one reason the OEMs hate CarPlay so much! If Apple would start arbitrarily cutting off cars over 5 years old from CarPlay, I bet suddenly GM, Rivian, etc would be all about CarPlay. Of course Apple would only do that if the carmakers agreed to give Apple 30% :D
Tires, brakes, and windshield washer fluid are the only regularly replaceable parts on an EV. My last ICE car, also that age, required oil, tires, coolant flush (100k miles), transmission (100k miles), water pump, thermostat, timing belt, and tensioners. And lots and lots of filters.
So, either you were really lucky with ICE or extremely unlucky with EVs.
Yes, my ICE required those things, but not including tires, those other things were only like 1/3 of the total maintenance costs. The ICE components ran under 5 cents per km and the non-ICE components ran over 9 cents per km.
I don't see that I was especially lucky with the ICE components, I did all the scheduled maintenance plus some other misc things (water pump x2, bad transmission bushing, etc.) (Oil and filters just don't add up to all that much - I followed the maintenance schedule using high mileage synthetic and high-mileage filters and the total cost was under $100/year at a dealership.)
I also don't see that I was especially unlucky with the non-ICE components, I've got a 13-year sample size of steady, unremarkable maintenance to tires, paint, brakes (these always corroded from salt before they wore down, so no real EV savings to be had on brakes), misc trim pieces, etc. Looking at my Excel sheet of maintenance, I'd expect these costs to be higher on nearly any EV, just because the ICE was a cheap econobox with cheap parts (e.g. tires were small, TPMS sensors were cheap, only 4 lug nuts, etc.), and any newer vehicle is going to have more parts that need replacement/repair, and those parts are going to be more expensive.
Brakes are almost never used on most EVs, you're likely not going to need a single replacement before the battery dies. I've only ever change tires and cabin filters.
Some EVs do have maintenance items beyond tires/brakes/washer fluid. The maintenance schedule for my Lightning, for example, has the first real maintenance at 125K -- for flushing the battery coolant. Fortunately it's the same standard coolant they use for all their cars, and trivial to flush.
Belts, brakes, coolant system hoses, spark plugs, spark coils, various turbine valves if you have turbine, eventually turbine itself, gearbox fluid, oil + filters, fuel filters - shitload of things that need regular maintenance on ICE vs EV
Yes, I'm aware of that, and I'm saying those things only added up to 1/3 of the maintenance costs for my ICE. I responded to a sibling comment to yours with some additional details.
Man when you list all of that, plus constant stink and poison from tailpipe, horrible performance, time wasted in gas stations. Why anyone puts up with this? It’s insanity.
"which is influenced more by recharge cycles and straight up passage of time" would seem similar to "mileage" since both increase in general the passage of time and driving. But yes, driving two cars equal amount of time presumably the ICE will wear down far more than the equivalent EV so the title is quite misleading to those looking at a glance.
Isn't one "recharge cycle" a full discharge / recharge? So charging from 68% to 75% at work would just be 7% of a cycle, and about the same amount of wear as if you'd skipped that top up and just fully charged at home.
With a battery how fast you charge it, how "full" you charge it to, how deeply you discharge it, the temperature at which you keep it, etc., all affect the degradation rate of the battery. So, because charging a battery from 68-75% is better on the battery than charging from 93-100%, storing the battery full is worse, etc., it isn't necessarily true that "7% charging is the same as 7% charging".
My EV is 3 years old, but I have no hope of being able to swap the battery every, at least not in any reasonable way. That said, it'll be fine for my use case for at least 15 years, so whatever :)
In a situation when we're being told to completely give up on apples (ICE cars) and switch entirely to oranges (EVs), I am afraid we'd have to make exactly the comparison you find so distasteful for some strange reason. They are both vehicles, sorry, fruits, after all.
I think the phrasing was imprecise and they were referring to the transmission and differential. Most EVs use a single-speed gear reduction system - one gear mesh from motor shaft to a compound gear, another mesh from that gear to the ring gear of the differential. In contrast with ICE drivetrains, there is no clutch or torque converter (the electric motor can operate from a standstill), no reverse gearing (the electric motor can operate both CW and CCW), and no synchronizers and dog-clutches (as in manual transmissions), no hydraulic logic and clutches of automatic transmissions, nor the hydraulically operated sheaves found in CVTs. We've been hobbing gears to operate at those power levels for roughly a century.
I think Porsche has done a 2-speed EV transmission and Lucid moved the differential inside the motor and has two-reduction gear sets on either side, but those are both unusual designs.
Most EVs aren't enough heavier for this to be a big factor. The only reason some people burn through tires faster is because when you have all-the-torque-all-the-time and can use it silently, it is addicting to do so. This is hard on tires. Boring drivers routinely get the same wear life from tires as they did before.
The differential on an EV is the same as on an ICE car. It does the same job either way, it doesn't care whether the power source is gas or electricity.
But on an EV, that's basically the only thing that needs somewhat regular "oil changes". Whereas ICE motors & transmissions also need fluid changes regularly.
Regardless of drivetrain type vehicle repair is absolutely dominated by brake/wheel/hub/steering/suspension components (i.e. the drive force bearing bits between the car and the road).
The EV needs less regular maintenance because it has less fluids though.
> As an anecdote, I bought all my ICE cars second hand, and would usually sell them 3-4 years later just before major maintenance was needed. My EV is now 8 years old
I mean, that sounds quite poor on both counts TBQH. I bought a used 2002 Honda Accord in 2004 and drove it until last year with little more than regular oil changes. I expect to get the same kind of life out of the Mazda 3 I replaced it with. Anything less than 10 years out of a car sounds like something went terribly wrong to me.
Yeah I expect to drive my Lightning for at least 10 years. Probably a lot longer since it's a pretty simple body-on-frame truck. I'm secretly hoping that since the battery just hangs between the frame rails, someone will come along in a few years and offer upgrades.
Suspension and tires are the biggest items for EVs. The twist is cheap owner can neglect those and keep driving past service window with ripped bushings and clapped out tires until hitting that magic 3 year goal, then you buy used EV in need of 4 of everything.
You can see the tires, at least, so that will just come off the value. And if you turn in a lease at three years with clapped out tires they'll make you pay for new ones.
One nitpick on the article is comparing a passenger sedan or passenger SUV to a light truck like the F150 when you're discussing depreciation is a bad comparison. Light trucks hold their value better generally for a variety of reasons including because the parts that get used are heavier and are more designed to be maintained with lubrication schedules and such. SUVs are not light trucks and have more in common with a minivan or a sedan. A better comparison would be to compare the depreciation of say a Tesla SUV to like a Ford Escape.
"Light truck" is slightly more formal way of saying "pickup truck." And is meant to differentiate the class from commercial trucks like moving vans, dump trucks, and semis.
Smaller pickups like the Ford Ranger and Chevy S-10 are in the "compact pickup" class. (And unfortunately these are not sold in the US anymore. For those with genuine need, we either have to resurrect some old heap headed for the scrapyard or import them on the gray market from Asian countries.)
The Maverick fills that space but has limitations (less towing capacity than a 90's Ranger). I've seen it used by a ton of service folks that need a pickup but not for towing (1500 payload).
I've always found that to be a silly distinction, like it's a thing that matters to use cases in the same way that axle type matters, but it's not the sole distinguishing marker of whether something is a "truck". There are various non-trucks that are body-on-frame - BMW i3, Ford Crown Vic, Suzuki Jimny, etc. (The highest-spec Jimny tows less than the lowest-spec Honda Ridgeline.)
I'm a little surprised it isn't a regular cab with the 2.7L V6 that gets the highest payload. But they manipulate the suspension components a fair bit between different models so it's not just going to come down to the weight of the engine. The Lightning weighs as much as a gasser F250 but still has a payload in the 1650 pound range; my guess (without doing any research to prove it, mind you) is that the Lightning has the highest GVWR of any F150. I think even the HDPP only gets an ICE F150 up to 7850 GVWR.
On a related note, we have some real candidates on the Lightning forums for being the modern "Danger Ranger" trucks -- turns out you can load a Lightning with well north of 2000 pounds and it still isn't squatting anywhere near the bump stops. Stiff suspension.
You're confusing SUVs with Crossovers. Most sales are crossovers and they are a taller sedan or minivan but SUVs like the land cruiser, 4runner, escalade, or armada are body on frame and built like a truck including being able to tow several tons.
That's not true from a mechanical perspective. Most SUVs use the same frame and parts as trucks by the same manufacturer (which is why they handle so poorly compared to sedans - it isn't just center of gravity)
How much is due to the tax credits, at least in the US? Last time I looked, a big chunk of the expected first year depreciation on my F150 Lightning could be explained by the credit. The expected depreciation in the years following tracked very similarly to ICE F150s.
The EV market is just weird, anyway. Manufacturers have to price to what the market will bear, which may have little resemblance to MSRP. So a good evaluation of deprecation has to figure out how to account for that. My Lightning had an MSRP of 72K but I got it for 51K, which was a very normal price that anyone could get. If I evaluate resale based on the MSRP, it looks pretty bad. If I use my out-the-door cost for comparison, it does not look bad at all (compared to any other new car purchase, of course, which are never going to be the most cost-effective choice for an individual).
Yes, you can safely ignore any article about the U.S. EV depreciation where it doesn't mention subsidies, etc.. I recently purchased a 2025 Nissan Leaf and got 42% off the MSRP. So the first 42% depreciation doesn't have an effect for me, the buyer.
Anyone who has comparison shopped new and used Teslas over the last few years can tell you that the price of <1 year old, low mileage Teslas runs very close to the new price minus $7500.
Exactly what I came here to post. I bet if you subtracted $7,500 from the “new” price then the numbers would be a lot more similar.
In any case, individual buyers shouldn’t worry about it too much. The most financially prudent decision is to keep the car for a long time anyway. My 10 year old Tesla still drives just fine. Its value at the two-year mark wasn’t relevant.
I have a 2018 Model 3 dual motor long range that I bought new right before the first tax credit expired. I never considered another manufacturer because they didn’t have NACS for supercharger access. Only just this year has that started to change. I never considered another Tesla because 1. I didn’t want to repay for FSD and 2. I would lose on the depreciation while there has not been a killer feature that separates my current car from the new ones. Now I wouldn’t even consider a Tesla.
Since owning my car I’ve had to service it only twice. My battery depreciation has been at least to me completely unnoticeable. I basically only charged on superchargers till late 2023 till I got a charger in my garage. I’m sure my battery has lost some small amount of range but honestly I would have to do the calculations to know what it is. It can’t be much.
I will say only this year have I even considered for even just a moment of getting something new. I’m pretty interested in the Lexus steer by wire technology that will come as an upgraded feature on the new RZ. I know that car is not on anyone’s radar and I can understand someone being very hesitant of steer by wire technology. I genuinely believe it’s an interesting feature though and could be a noticeable enhancement to every day driving. It actually makes a yoke style wheel make sense.
Not a surprise when the tech is improving so quickly still.
Why would I pay a significant fraction of the original price for a 2020 EV if a same tier 2025 EV has better batteries and drivetrain that'll probably have a longer lifetime, almost double the range, heat pump and faster charging? That doesn't mean the 2020 is bad, but it's only worth it if you can get it at an enormous discount over the current model.
Meanwhile, a 2020 ICE is pretty much the same as a 2025 ICE aside from the wear and tear.
Once the tech stabilises, so will the resale market.
2025 EVs aren’t double the range of 2020 EVs. The batteries and power electronics are on a learning curve but it’s 2-3% per year, not 10-15% like microprocessors.
Is this born out by real life examples? Is a 2025 Model 3, for example, significantly different technologically from a 2020? Definitely does not have double the range, and the technology has evolved only slightly in that time. The heat pump was introduced in late 2020. (and to be honest, heat pumps have turned out to be less of a slam-dunk than we hoped, they have a minor effect on range for most people)
Not double the range. But you could get one with an LFP battery now that probably has about double the life time in terms of cycles. Closer to 3K cycles rather than 1200-1500 cycles for the NMC batteries common in 2020.
Fun fact, the 2020 model 3 would still have its battery under warranty. That's true for most model 3s with the exception of those that did more than 100K miles or the ones that were sold in 2017. Those would have just started coming out of the eight year warranty. But most of the second hand model 3s are still covered by warranty for their drive trains.
Mostly, second hand buyers can get some decent deals on their cars now and don't have to worry that much about their cars depreciating massively when they sell them on five years later. With EVs most of the depreciation happens in the first few years.
I will say, when you get far enough to worry about only having 1200-1500 cycles, you have extracted a lot of life from the car. It's a good problem to have.
The resale market isn't shaped by technology but market demand which you frame it narrowly to what you place value on.
Otherwise there is no reason for old Porsches and 90s Japanese cars to demand the sticker price they do now.
The people who are willing to pay more for a used car down the road aren't interested in EVs or mass produced ICE cars, if unique enough will continue to be in demand over EVs
"Meanwhile, a 2020 ICE is pretty much the same as a 2025 ICE aside from the wear and tear."
One would think and hope so, however numerous ICE manufacturers, even long-term reliability experts like Honda, have been adopting "wet belt" timing belts.
These run submerged/immersed in engine oil, which tends to degrade the belt, often resulting in clogged oil pickups, galleys, etc.
EVs are simply immature products. The first truly mainstream models (car manufacturers making EVs their flagship model) outside of Tesla were released this year, or maybe last.
The first few generations of smartphones didn't last very long either (1-2 years). But now they last much longer (5-7 years). EV lifespans will expand in the same way as they mature as a product.
I don't know where this idea comes from. I had a Fiat 500e when it first came out, about a decade ago, and it was fantastic even though unloved by the manufacturer, and it had to go in for a recall for two days once which was a hassle. Still better than the BMW that I bought when the 500e lease expired, because the BMW was in the shop for a whole week for some sort of tail light recall. I only bought the BMW because I was waiting for the Model 3 to come out, and switched to that eventually, and it is far far more mature than any other car of the era.
I bought a minivan when I had kids, and it's such a huuuuuuge step backwards on every front from the Model 3. There's so much ridiculous maintenance for a gas car, it really really sucks. And Toyota's build quality is absolute shit compared to Tesla, which supposedly gets dinged for build quality. All the plastic in the Toyota is falling out, the window seals are terrible, the whole thing is terrible in comparison to Tesla's supposedly bad build quality.
I've taken EVs on thousand mile road trips with an infant, and it was fantastic.
My EV is going to outlast my ICE by a long long time. The amount of fake FUD around EVs is mystifying to me. I can not understand why anyone would want a gas car wheee you have so much maintenance and always have to stop to fill up. So much wasted time and money on that BS.
you know what they say, the plural of anecdotes is not data. The poor quality of Tesla's cars is well known. The high quality of Toyotas is well known as well.
How much of this is due to a high level of pre-purchase excitement followed by buyer's remorse? Anecdotally, I know several people who were gung ho about getting an EV, fully willing to pay its cost premium, who initially loved their EVs but sold them within a year or two after encountering issues that only become apparent with semi-long-term ownership:
— In the US, charging infrastructure is still quite poor, with a high amount of disabled or damaged chargers that aren't apparent on maps. Nothing worse than planning a route around the only charger within a few dozen miles and arriving to find it broken. The overall overhead of having to plan driving/parking around chargers is also too onerous for some people.
— Similarly, people underestimate how much harder long road trips are on EVs, especially when fast chargers are damaged and don't actually supply anywhere close to the advertised amount of current.
— People underestimate how much range degrades in cold weather. One person I know bought their EV in the spring, loved it until winter came around, and then promptly sold it the next spring. In a similar vein, people don't realize how poor and battery-hungry climate control can be in an EV, especially in models without a heat pump.
It would be interesting to rigorously study this, examining whether people buying EVs are more likely to sell them within the first couple years of ownership versus people buying comparably priced ICE cars.
From personal experience over ~6 years of EV roadtrips, the first two really aren't much of a problem with a Tesla or a vehicle that can access Tesla's network.
Other chargers can definitely be a bit more hit-and-miss although they are improving.
These days if you stick to the big networks (Tesla, Electrify America, Rivian, IONNA, etc.) you're going to have a pretty good time. The one-off chargers in municipal parking garages are a different story, I don't really on those unless there is a recent PlugShare review showing that it actually works.
I agree that Tesla's network is universally pretty reliable. For the other networks, I've found it can be quite location-dependent, likely proportional to the density of EV drivers. Bay Area or LA? Pretty solid. Orlando? Not so much.
Now that basically every car can access Tesla Superchargers and vice versa for Teslas, this is really not a problem anymore. We’re at the « sometimes I’m grumpy the best stop for my car does not have the exact amenities
I want » stage now.
I guess is worse than the « the stop with the exact amnenities I want is not the provider with the cheapest electricity that I wanted » stage that we are in say, France.
Oh for- who the fuck is putting resistive heating in an EV?! What brain-dead PM greenlit that pants-on-head jackassery? Was it GM? I can see an American OEM getting that close to the goal line only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Really though, that's just disappointing; I had earnestly assumed every EV that made it to market (in North America at least) would be using a heat pump.
Tesla, Honda, Nissan, Chevy, Fiat and Volkswagen have all produced cars with resistive heat in the past decade (not an exhaustive list, just a list that I could find on the first page of search results). So no, not an exclusively American thing.
Heat pumps are expensive, complex, prone to warranty claims, and subject to additional regulatory control (refrigerants). Resistive heating is cheap and simple.
I'm guessing that the development costs for a heat pump that is good enough for automotive use is well into 8 figures, and would probably take at least a year to fully test.
Given all those constraints, it makes a tremendous amount of sense that many cars were built with resistive heating.
heat pumps are not magical technology. Pretty much every car sold in the West in the last three decades has one. There is only one reversing valve worth of difference between a standard auto AC and a heat pump.
Heat pumps aren't free to run, they still require a decent amount of energy and and on shorter trips resistive heating (which is required for other reasons anyway) is quicker.
How did they find F150’s selling for $35k new in 2023? If they’re comparing fleet model F150s either roll up windows to model Ys, that’s an incredibly unfair comparison. You would need to compare similar trim levels with comparable features to a model Y. An F150 with a higher trim has depreciation values similar to an electric vehicle.
So much of this, but not all, could be mitigated with a guaranteed battery "refurbishing" program. Large part of an EV's value is tied up in the battery, which is a (longer term) consumable. So when an EV hits the second hand market, and there is no battery guarantee (or clear and trusted state and history reporting), the estimates on battery value will have to be on the low side, and the overall car value depreciated accordingly.
Traditional gas cars also have wear and tear with parts on the "consumables" spectrum, but these are considered more open to state inspection by a semi knowledgeable amateur, and the car's value is less tied to one specific black-box item.
Initial studies show that EV batteries typically last longer than the car. Making a car 10% heavier so the battery can be replaceable will put a lot of strain on our roads, our grid and our wallet for little benefit.
An average mid-size EV weighs somewhere in the ballpark of 2000kg. Surely making the battery replaceable would not add 200kg, that claim makes no sense.
Are they not replaceable already? Older Teslas could literally change the battery in a few minutes. Newer ones aren’t quite so easy, but it’s a fairly quick matter of lifting up seat cushions, undoing some bolts and connectors, and connecting the new one. If your battery dies under warranty, they’re replacing the battery, not giving you a whole new car.
The issue isn’t that the batteries can’t be replaced, it’s that a new battery is quite expensive. Substantially more than a new motor for a typical ICE car.
> 10% heavier so the battery can be replaceable will put a lot of strain on our roads
No it won't. Road wear scales as the fourth power [0] in relationship to axle load, so even a modest increase in weight is still hugely outweighed by the damage done by a fully-loaded semi tractor-trailer (80k lbs). Cars, even EVs, are negligible in terms of road wear.
That could be done if manufacturers went with some "standard battery factor" like on PCs is 3,5" slot and you can put there HDD, SSD, or whatever fits.
Now you could just exchange battery as a module and replace NCA for Solid State in the future like HDD in the computer and car would be driving just fine.
We're at the laserdisc part of the evolution of EVs. It's too early to standardize now, and besides, there are a lot of real performance advantages that can be gained from customizing battery packaging to the vehicle chassis.
I think modular and replaceable battery regulations are desperately needed. The sheer volume of waste from used ev batteries even through non battery issues like insurance write offs is likely to be staggering otherwise
This story doesn’t really gel with my understanding as an EV owner in Europe.
The post says that Tesla hold their value better than Chinese newcomers but that absolutely isn’t the prices I’m seeing in Europe.
In Europe Tesla resale value has plummeted due to brand destruction. Tesla was super popular when they launched as the first realistic EV to hit the main time. But they quickly got a poor reputation for build quality and never delivering on self-driving, and that was before the political damage the owner did which seems never recoverable in at least a generation.
Meanwhile comparable Chinese entrants are so new they aren’t yet at the 3 year mark where fleets sell off to second hand market.
Another interesting thing about non-Tesla EVs is that there aren’t a lot being resold; if you got one, you likely hang onto it. Personally I’ve just not yet let go of my Kia EV6 even though it sailed past the normal trade in point recently.
Tesla mostly focused on the American market anyway. In my understanding there are a lot of facilities for Tesla's that we don't have in Europe like the program where you can buy a refurbished Tesla from Tesla.
Additionally there is a political drive to not trust Chinese manufactured products so those EV's are probably harder to maintain, get support for and in general it is socially considered less status to have a Chinese EV instead of a Tesla. Where in Europe this cultural drive is not as present in Tesla vs Chinese . In my experience in the EU the drive is more about is it EV and the Chinese EV's often offer more features/value for less money.
> Tesla mostly focused on the American market anyway.
Not true at all. In 2023, before the brand became toxic, they sold more cars outside the US than internally. They were a huge percentage of the market in parts of Europe, especially Scandinavia. There was a lot of noise about the manufacturing centres in Germany as Tesla fought around labour laws and traditions, too.
They also bet big on China where they almost got to the point where they were selling as many cars as in the USA. Elon fell hook, line, and sinker for the classic Chinese government move to invite them into the market and then steal the tech and flood the market with domestic brands (this is not to say that they haven't improved on it, though).
> A $25,000 used EV with 80,000 miles is not a good deal if you're going to have to spend $20,000 to replace the battery.
What makes you think that you would have to do that?
1) that car would still be under warranty until it is older than eight years or drives more than 100K miles. So if it needs a replacement at 80K miles, you might get it for free because it's not supposed to fail.
2) There's a lot of data that suggests batteries last a lot longer than their warranty period both in miles and years. There are plenty of EVs with 150K or more miles on them that are still fine. And define fine, is it such a bad deal when the battery has 75% of its original capacity instead of 85%?
3) It's hard to get numbers on when they actually do fail on average for the simple reason that the overwhelmingly large majority of EVs ever made are still driving around with the original battery they left the factory with. They've only been on the market for about 15 years. And the majority of them is much younger than the eight years of battery warranty they left the factory with. Most of the EVs on the road have been sold in the last few years only.
Sorry, my original post was originally formatted correctly. Some readers are reading the inverse what I was trying to say. The link shows that EV's are lasting up to 300,000 kilometers on a single battery.
I'm going to buy a used EV, and I don't expect to replace the battery.
The Volt I bought a few years ago is worth a small fraction of what we paid for it, 30% maybe?
Its also turned into a mountain of problems recently. It was great until about a year ago, then the battery started acting up. With 10 miles of charge left it will drop to 0, go into limp mode, and require dealership software to disable the thrown code and restart the car. Now it has a phantom battery drain going on, killing the 12v battery after being parked for a few days.
I really liked the car until these issues cropped up. Now I wish I hadn't saved the ~$2,800 in gas while the car depreciated by 4x that amount.
They compare the Model Y to an F150, but don't indicate if the 0-day prices are MSRP or actual sales (because F150s are usually discounted from list price and EVs have various subsidies). While each is best-selling by some measure, they're also different products - a truck VS a near-luxury wagon/crossover. I wouldn't expect them to depreciate at the same rate - they should have included a near-luxury gas-powered wagon/crossover as well (Lexus NX, maybe).
Their argument relies heavily on data from India, where a bankrupt ride-share service flooded the market. If Enterprise went out of business and flooded the US market with Toyota Camrys, I'd expect some pricing irregularity for that model.
Similarly, the US EV market (and probably some others?) is heavily impacted by federal and local rebates and tax benefits. Those surely skew the used car values as well - nobody actually paid $50,000 for a new Tesla (or whatever), they paid $50,000 - some subsidy (and that amount varied based on model, price, and the income of the initial buyer - my neighbor could by the exact same car as me for $7500 less than I could). Some of these subsidies also incentivized leasing vs buying, which then means more of those cars go on the market in 2-3 years (vs a typical ~8 year ownership for a new car).
Long story short, EVs are a nascent market, there's bound to be pricing issues. I'm not convinced we can extrapolate long-term used market values based on the last ~5 years of data.
You have to remember that the market for new cars skews heavily toward wealthier households. These households are generally the ones that can afford a place to charge a car at home.
The market for a used EV is much smaller than for a used gas powered vehicle. People buying used vehicles are much more likely to have housing situations where they can't charge a vehicle.
This factor doesn't apply to gasoline vehicles because everyone, rich or poor, fills up at a gas station.
This is analogous to why houses listed for sale are so bland. Realtors and sellers stage the property to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Even if you could elicit a stronger response from a niche of buyers who love a certain amenity it's a surer bet to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
I think this is spot on. I bought a new EV 6 months ago. I brag about paying less than $0.03/mile even with a large EV, but it's completely dependent on charging in my garage and being on a plan that reduces my night-time electricity cost down to $0.07/kWh. At cheaper DCFC stations ($0.39/kWh) it's about breakeven with a similarly-sized ICE vehicle and at higher cost stations ($0.59/kWh) it's more expensive per mile than the ICE vehicle.
I don't think most people are caught up on the cost per mile, but the inconvenience factor. If you can't charge at home, you going to have to go exclusively to a public charger, which is already pretty inconvenient for a lot of people, and for people of average or lower incomes, they might not even have one in their neighborhood.
We'll probably see a lot more adoption once infrastructure is equitably available to everyone.
Comparing with Tesla is bad as there is a political aspect why people, especially in EU, do not want to buy it after 2024. Which means the statistics might falter. Also when I look at other sources the data say different. I mean if I look at data from the biggest reseller in Sweden KVD you have EV's that has ~80% of the original worth after three years.
This is mostly a function of the markets for used EVs and used ICE vehicles being the same and the used EV purchaser is not a target market for EVs in general.
Not that many people can afford a new car now at all, and of those who can, they're getting luxury end cars, generally. Luxury vehicles depreciate faster than non-luxury vehicles, generally. People who want used cars are frequently people who can't afford new cars, thus they want something that works in their area in their situation with their stuff as it stands. Many of these people live in places with poor charging networks or rent and cannot install a charger. Used EVs don't come with a free charger like new ones often do. EVs were also being priced and purchased based on the tax credit for quite a while, which meant that price was a little... soft? On top of that, many EVs that fit into this data are selling for less for real reasons, like the uninsurability of Cybertrucks and the range loss on the Bolt EV. This all drives demand down or shifts the curves and lowers prices. It's just a small market for now.
> While an electric vehicle is ideal for shorter trips in urban areas with moderate temperatures, they aren’t as effective as traditional cars for long-distance travel or when the temperature is very high or very low
On long trips, I plug in at bathroom breaks about once every 2-3 hours. I don't wait for a full charge because (surprise surprise), I'm going to need to pee before I deplete the battery.
Now that I've adjusted, I actually prefer it to gas, because I can just plug in and walk away instead of needing to babysit the car at the pump.
Happy owner of a 2017 Tesla Model 3. I couldn’t care less about resale value. I’m driving it, that’s my value, and will do so until it can’t. I’m just glad my garage doesn’t smell like gasoline, I never have to do an oil change, and I never have to go to the gas station. Eight years of no gas stations, it fills up overnight every week in my garage. Stop reselling your car and you won’t have to worry about resale value.
> Stop reselling your car and you won’t have to worry about resale value.
I mostly agree, but not-at-fault collisions throw a real wrinkle into this.
There's a non-trivial chance that even if you were planning on keeping your car for 15 years, you get rear-ended after 5 years, your car gets written off, and you receive a low value from your insurer.
All of the extra care and maintenance that you put into your car to make it a car that would be nice to drive far 15 years also becomes wasted as your insurance won't compensate you for that.
If you get rear-ended, the liability is on the other driver, your insurer need not be involved, and will never be the one paying out, barring an underinsured motorist claim. The legal obligation to property is that you are made whole, that you have what you had before the crash (which is a used car). The party at fault/their insurance have to give you the amount of money that it would take to buy a comparable car (year, condition, options). You are legally entitled to the amount of money that will get you back into a practically identical car.
The extra care and maintenance is something that can get factored into condition. If you disagree with a valuation, they typically will entertain an argument for a higher valuation, if it is grounded in reality and especially if you have comparables. They know that it is better to pay more when it is fair, than to get dragged into court, and be told to pay more and told to pay for lawyers, etc.
> If you get rear-ended, the liability is on the other driver, your insurer need not be involved
Not in jurisdictions with no-fault insurance.
> The extra care and maintenance is something that can get factored into condition. If you disagree with a valuation, they typically will entertain an argument for a higher valuation, if it is grounded in reality and especially if you have comparables. They know that it is better to pay more when it is fair, than to get dragged into court, and be told to pay more and told to pay for lawyers, etc.
Maybe, or they might win in court, and then it's you who should have known it was better to just accept less rather than get dragged into multiple appeals and be told to pay for lawyers etc.
"The judge awarded him $6,000 in damages but when the insurance company appealed, his award was cut to $1,500 and he was ordered to pay legal costs for the other side. In the end, he was $1,000 in the hole."
None of this is relevant for the scenario you originally proposed and what I was commenting on.
When a car is totaled, there is no argument for diminished value, since you are given the full pre-accident value of the car.
Your points are valid for some cases (albeit so rare that you found an article from over a decade ago about a single case that made the national news, in a province that has since had several major overhauls to their insurance regs.), but have nothing to do with your prior argument or the comments I made.
Leave the goalposts where you originally had them.
It is only wasted if you accept their valuation and don't keep the vehicle. Insurance companies allow you to buy back your totaled vehicle, which can then be resold as-is, parted out, or used as a donor parts vehicle when shopping for the same make and model.
Yeah, but if it's an actual write-off because the frame is structurally unsound, there's really no way to get that sunk value back. (And storing an extra vehicle for parts is really... not practical for the vast majority of people.)
I would happily prefer eight years of a gas station 2-3 times a month over having 10 apps with different accounts that allow me to charge my car in merely 45 minutes (if I find one that works and not occupied)
I dunno, they all are going to have wheelie crash damage the way these teenagers ride them down the streets. I don't know why we can't federally require ebike electric motors to disengage when the front wheel goes off the ground
Legal e-bikes are not really capable of wheelie-ing using their power alone since they are limited to 750 watts.
These bikes are already illegal, so lets not introduce another silly regulation that adds expense and a point of failure just because teenagers do wheelies.
Also, teenagers doing wheelies on bicycles is not illegal, nor should it be. Let people have some fun!
And like cars, replacement ebike batteries are absurdly expensive. $500-600 for a few 18650 and a BMS.
Part of it is that a battery pack is legitimately dangerous at that scale (so lots of testing/safety certifications etc). But those are one-time design costs that should be amortized.
I would really like to see some standardization around battery packs for both cars and bikes, so that it could become a commodity market for packs.
There are many comments on here trying to justify why EVs lose value quickly. Why is it simply not the case that the price falls quickly because the market only clears at lower prices? Perhaps the demand curve just isn't there for EVs as it is for ICE vehicles?
In which case: no it's not that they're amazing - it's that they are less desirable than ICE vehicles.
(I used to own a Tesla now I'm back on a hybrid, and delighted about it)
> Plummeting resale values are threatening to derail the world’s transition to electric transportation
Used cars are usually sold to someone who can't afford a new car. It can also be cheaper to drive an EV than a gas car.
So I think the opposite - Used EVs will create an opportunity for normal people to switch away from gas cars.
As to low resale value - I think tesla was VERY aware of this problem and artificially propped up their used market when they were starting out by offering a buyback program.
I'm kind of hoping for more plug and play components like the old days of coach building if EV technology really is more mechanically simple than gas cars. Would love to put the latest/greatest drive train and battery tech into a BMW i3 carbon monocoque chassis and just have everything plug and play like plugging in USB connectors or something.
I wonder if the terminal value of an EV will be higher than ICE. This seems possible if there are secondary users for batteries, motors, or if the mineral content is more valuable (e.g., obviously rare Earth and lithium but also the frames tend to have more aluminum).
Perception of failing battery risk is vastly overstated, creating real opportunity for savvy consumers to pick up a good used EV, so long as it isn't the very first EV's (e.g. those old Leafs) which had terrible battery health management.
It’s clear a lot of good fundamental innovation is still happening in the EV space (as opposed to IMO negative innovation in digital features in ICE cars). This is why I leased my electric car; my family’s pattern is to keep a car forever (ICE car is circa 2009) and I don’t want to be stuck with something. I think resale value partially captures this problem.
I was doing the math on leasing an EV and really seems to work. With the EV deprecation, you are actually coming out ahead of buying in many cases. A friend did this with a Kia a few years ago and looks like its a valid option.
It works because the manufacturers are willing to defer the hit and eat the depreciation themselves in three years. If the leases were honest and the residuals accurate, it would be a wash with buying.
> Battery-as-a-service models are emerging as a potential lifeline...
Not for consumers. Maybe for fleet vehicles.
The rate of innovation has to slow down before that kind of standardization can take hold. And battery tech, from the chemistry to the packs, shows no sign of slowing down in the immediate future.
Agreed. The OC conflates a lot of unrelated & outdated issues, yet doesn't get near the most likely cause: Leasing.
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Many of the EV influencer/reviewers (that I binge watch) do advise leasing over purchasing. Misc reasons (at least in the US):
Continued high rate of improvement. So for EV enthusiasts (early adopters), who are likely to upgrade, leasing avoids eating the entire depreciation in value.
Manufacturer incentives for new purchases drive down used car prices.
Many of the models are simply too expensive. (Esp with the current overstock.) Their resale value will normalize once new EVs reach price parity with comparable ICEs.
With so many leases expiring, there's more supply than demand (for used EVs).
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Anecdatally, I held off buying (or leasing) a new Kia EV9 this year. It's just too expensive; implicitly reflected in their generous incentives. Kia's software is still immature. Knowing I don't intend to keep the vehicle, with their turrible resale value, I wasn't able to stomach the depreciation.
FWIW, My future perfect vehicle is a Toyota Sienna EV, over 350mi range, fast charging, and equiv to Tesla's software.
I predict, based totally on vibes, that sales of city cars (eg Kia Kona, Nissan Leaf) will be just fine once their price is 1:1 with ICE. Ditto roadtrippers (eg VW ID.Buzz) once their range is over 300mi.
> leasing avoids eating the entire depreciation in value
Assuming the bank's predictions are correct, that's not true. The lease agreement simply predicts a specific residual value and you pay the difference between that and the purchase price (in other words, the full predicted depreciation amount) in your payments. Of course, the less you drive the leased car compared to your mileage allowance, the worse you do, since the residual value prediction assumes you used all 10k miles a year or whatever.
Not saying leasing is bad, just that the opportunity for them to be a better deal strictly financially depends mostly on whether the bank overestimates the residual value (as I suspect happened with my off-lease used EV, which cost me less than half the sticker price, with 16k miles, at 3 years old).
My observation is that the manufacturers (who are originating the majority of leases) are intentionally eating the depreciation and going with unrealistically high residuals in order to make the leases more attractive. Just another way of structuring an incentive to move cars off the lot.
The chart shows the fallacy in the argument - EVs don't depreciate, but instead are subsidized by various public and private schemes - meaning their new asking price as paid by consumers is not the same as the sticker prices.
The first hit of 'depreciation' is when this contradiction appears in the used price, after that they depreciate like normal.
that makes no sense. an EV that cost $50k with or without subsidy that now costs half that is depreciation.
What's more interesting from reading the discussion here is that the depreciation of EV goes beyond the battery and thermal/geographic tax its that there is nothing special from the car market point of view that suggests a mass produced EV should hold its value against some truly sought after ICE cars that offer a unique novelty.
Even the Porsche EVs have not held their value very well compared to their ICE cars. There is simply no appeal to taste when you have to generate ICE sounds via speaker and signals EVs aren't very fun to drive or offer much novelty beyond the fact that its an EV compared to ICE cars where each engine is unique to the maker and has ton of parts all synchronized into a controlled chaos.
What makes it a bad deal to own an EV is also coincidentally a great reason to buy one: they're getting cheap, fast.
I bought a used 2023 Model Y for about $36k (only 15k miles) it even came with upgrades like acceleration boost and an extra (unusable) back seat. This particular model was about $52k new in 2023.
I can't believe how much car I bought for my money. Autosteer is fantastic (FSD needs work). Early morning drive to the airport and the car was driving itself while I ate my breakfast and drank my coffee.
Why would I pay $35k for a used EV when I can buy a new one for $42k with a $7500 tax credit taken off at purchase?
This article doesn't seem to mention those credits, but they are likely a large factor in the difference between the nominal sale price of a new EV and the used market price.
If you don't factor in those credits, it looks like someone paid $42k for an EV that a couple of years later was only worth $30k. When in reality they paid $35k for that new EV as a net purchase cost.
In the UK, there are massive incentives for "tax efficient" purchasing of vehicles. ie, there was a point where everyone who could was driving around in a Porsche Taycan because the tax implications of buying it were comically positive. Of course, those benefits don't translate to the secondary market, so of course there's a glut of 3 year old electric vehicles. No one wants them. Oh, and you can't buy a petrol car because the car companies are under the hammer to sell EVs.
Well, sure. EV'S are smart phones on wheels. Are you going to grab your Samsung 5s in 2030, power it back up and use it to store your most sensitive personal data? Even the lowest-end varieties are always-on, internet-conected devices. Their safety and function is on the same tier as today's phone models. Expensive today, junk in 5 years.
Trying to compare an EV to a smartphone is self-serving, you wanted to convince yourself that your already-made decision was the right one. Reality wouldn't be so kind.
I think the most accurate part of your analogy is how fast the technology changes and renders yesterday’s product obsolete.
Just saw the Audi etron gt has amazing deals on used cars. Then I saw a new model coming out with better battery, more power, better range, and more features. Suddenly last year’s model is way less compelling.
True. At this point in time I'd only lease an EV. That being said, given that 100% of cars on the road won't be EV by 2030 as some have tried to convince us, I suspect the rate of innovation in EV land to slow as EV investment is greatly curtailed by the car companies.
As someone who is half in the market for a new vehicle, this is exactly where my thoughts went to. If I buy a car, I'm expecting that to be a 10-20 year purchase. Whereas the surveillance industry's churn culture considers five years of software support for a cell phone as some kind of amazing thing. And since more of an EV has been newly designed around software control (including the chief wear part, the battery), I would expect them to be much more wed to that disposability culture overall. Am I going to be able to get a new battery for a 20 year old EV at a market-competitive (with other cell packs) price?
It is a combination of technology moving fast (aka nobody wants an old ev that does not have the latest advances in capacity and speed of charging) and also the real fear of battery replacement costs.
For the second one insurance companies could help alleviate the uncertainty, but I don’t see major vendors offering packages.
People don’t have 20k in a single shot to fix a battery failure. (Maybe cumulatively for a gas car one has to pay more, but it will be in small installments)
Note: This article compares the depreciation of a Tesla Model Y to a Ford F-150. Seems like not an apples to apples comparison, and it'd be more interesting to have a more similar comparison.
I think they should take into account the fact that a Tesla is a steaming pile of FascistMobile now to many like myself that would buy them otherwise. How about other EVs?
My 2023 Model Y depreciated quickly, sure fine. My 2019 Model 3, that I bought new, I made money on when I sold it used in 2021. With inflation and tax breaks the last few years the data for this means nothing.
The nuance here is there is a much higher floor for EVs when they finally bottom-out in value. A 300,000km EV will be degraded to ~80% it's range, while a 300,000km ICE will need its powertrain and sensors rebuilt and replaced (timing belt, spark plugs, alternator, water pump, PCV, O2 sensors, etc. and very likely will be dripping motor oil all over the ground).
You may not realize it, but barring price, EVs (esp. Chinese EVs) are like smartphones. When you buy one, in 3 months there's another model with better tech and cheaper (ceterus paribus). Not ideal for buyers, but I like it this way.
Let's say (Chinese) EVs never appear in the world. Why do car prices keep increasing while only marginally better?
Why has Tesla depreciated so much since 2023? Could any of the depreciation be due to the character that is Elon Musk and his antics?
As someone who bought a 2023 Model Y 7 seat Long Range, I can tell you my desire to sell the car was 100% because of the negative brand value caused by Musk.
I’m not able to sell it because I’m currently $17,000 underwater on it and can’t afford to dump it, but I would if I had $17,000 to lose. I have a friend who did just that.
I love my Tesla (for the most part, it has some basic annoyances that remind me that building and testing a car for California is not the same as building it for everywhere), but as someone who tracked the depreciation of my own Tesla, it started plummeting when Musk decided to buy Twitter and spend his time exonerating the alt-right, and culminated with his foray into public policy.
I don't think that's the case. I was looking at some used Chevy Bolt models, and they can be found for quite cheap. I found a nearby 2022 model with only 20,000 miles on it listed for $19,000. I'm pretty sure I can negotiate the price down a bit, too.
When my wife got a 2020 Bolt (brand new), the out-the-door price was $24K. 19K is what we could sell it for in three years, coincidentally. 20% depreciation in three years is pretty good.
One factor that I don't see getting discussed is that more price conscious consumers are also more likely to have to live in apartments or park on the street. Even if they have a garage, their commutes may be too long to rely on level 1 charging and can't afford to upgrade. As a result, demand for used EVs is significantly lower than a comparable ICE.
You're correct with that concern being the biggest holding-back factor now. However, I think that the removal of the price barrier that we've seen here with used EVs becoming competitive with gas cars is still a vital prerequisite to adoption. Even if you gifted an apartment dweller a free charger in their carport, in 2021 when most electric SUVs were about $65k at the cheapest compared to $40k for a comparable gas car, it would be hard to convince them to buy electric.
Of course they depreciate faster - battery life declines much faster than engine life (at least by age) and battery replacement (as well as other maintenance) is significantly more expensive.
Battery replacement is on par with engine replacement, and might be cheaper depending on which engine we're talking about. Batteries are also just getting cheaper every year.
Plus, batteries will mostly last twice as long as the typical car is on the road before it gets scrapped for unrelated reasons.
The depreciation is mostly explained by market distortions caused by subsidies.
I’m here to take advantage of it. I bought a 2022 Model Y performance. New price was 75k, used price 31k. Love the car. I plan on driving the wheels off it.
EVs range degrades in a meaningful fashion with time and new EVs are improving faster than ICE cars, thus faster depreciation.
The flip side of this is a general over correction as the new car tax break ends used EVs are really compelling today. A slightly used Long Range Model 3 is a far better option than their new Base Model 3.
Eventually ICE cars were designed for their resale value so people buying a new car every 3 or 5 years could afford to spend more money. That’s coming for EVs as the technology improves battery degradation means the range sweet spot will be chosen to keep the used market happy not just new buyers etc.
> EVs are improving faster than ICE cars, thus faster depreciation.
This, it’s a bit like comparing the depreciation of gpus in peak innovation years to now. They do similar things but they are in completely different contexts
The electricity and ICE fuel costs should be included if the battery is included. The battery is some sort of upfront fuel cost in a way the gas tank isn't.
Since mileage wear is proportional to fuel use anyway.
It is strange how EVs are measured by how far they can go full charge when this is a metric I never have seen for fossile cars. It tells a story how inconvenient EVs or the charging network really is
It also tells the story that the energy price per mile is insignificant. Vehicles that use gas advertise miles per gallon because it significantly affects costs. They also advertise range (or maybe fuel tank capacity), but not as prominently.
An electric car's miles per energy is not as relevant, because current electricity prices are sufficiently low such that people won't really care whether it's 3 miles per kWh or 5 miles per kWh. They will care about how far they can go on a single charge, hence range is a metric that is often advertised.
Easier way to change the battery would decrease the cost of ownership by a ton and decrease the profits of EV companies also a ton. Which I guess is why it doesn't happen.
Computers get old and EV tech is constantly improving. ICE has been stable for decades. Tesla believes they can increase the market value of older EV's eventually by pushing autonomous driving.
I like the direction of https://slate.auto. Module, bring-your-own-computer. We'll see if they allow affordable trade-in's for upgrading battery/motors.
Is it really true that ICE has been stable? Cars seem to have been getting many innovations, especially with power, torque, and reliability. We probably don't hear much about it because it is low profile stuff and a mature product.
The newest vehicle reliability advances are _less_ reliability via:
- cylinder deactivation
- ubiquitous turbos
- gasoline direction injection
- more computers
- generally higher cost of repairs (eg: if a car from 2023 needed a headlight it would cost much more than a car from 1998 needing a headlight, and even if they both had the same failure rate the reliability of the new car would be worse from cost alone)
Pretty much all of these reliability reducers are manufacturers trying to eek a little more MPGs by throwing lots of complicated technology at the problem, which introduces a lot more failure points.
Headlights and taillights on my current vehicle are supposedly around $1500 each, mostly due to a bunch of sophisticated sensors being built in.
Back in the 80s headlights were standardized (in the US at least) - you either had rectangular or circular. They were available at every auto parts store. Now they're a special order item from the dealer.
New synthetic oils are very durable. They actually do last a long time.
There are oil tests that confirm this. Also, 10,000+ mile oil changes are not new, and there are tons of used vehicles on the market, running around with long oil change intervals, and high mileage.
This is well informed and correct. Understand this if you buy a new ICE vehicle: the drive train is uneconomic to repair out of warranty: do not imagine you'll keep it long term or hand it off to a kid or whatever.
Costs drop like a rock once vehicles get old enough that they can't be financed, which means dealers won't sell them, which means they won't be bundled with 3rd party warranties and service plans, which means that the owner will be the one paying and there's actual pressure to control costs (because the owner has no party down the line to pass costs onto).
For example, for the longest time Nissan CVTs were "nonrebuildable, send it back and buy a reman" now any idiot can rebuild one for under a grand in parts.
4L60 and E4OD rebuilds were also $$$ for a long time now they're dirt cheap too.
> do not imagine you'll keep it long term or hand it off to a kid or whatever.
i don't agree, my friend has been driving the same Toyota LandCruiser for 20 years. I will have no problems handing my 2016 4runner down to my kid who turns 16 this December. The 4runner will last another 10 years easy.
Respectfully I specifically wrote "new." 20 year old SUVs predate the issues of new vehicles.
> my 2016 4runner
Even a 2016 vehicle predates what I'm pointing out. A 2016 4runner likely has a 270hp naturally aspirated V6 with modest power and a relatively basic 5 speed auto transmission. A 2025 4runner is a turbo charged 4 cylinder making nearly 2hp/cu in. and an 8 speed transmission. The former is much simpler and thus economic to maintain and repair compared to the latter.
ICE vehicle drivetrains have changed radically in only the last few years. They're almost universally using forced induction, integrated into unserviceable castings, to attain far higher volumetric efficiency, equivalent to high performance engines of not long ago. Gone are the 4-5 speed transmissions and transaxles: 8-10+ speed is the norm, and the complexity follows here as well. They are absolutely intolerant of neglect and abuse. Repairs are complex and likely to fail: manufacturers have taken to replacing major assemblies in leu of attempting repairs as they would have in the past. Part of that is due to the unserviceable nature of these components. Another part is the lack of dealer talent to deal with their own products. Another part is that the manufacturing lifecycle of major assemblies is now extremely short: only a couple years, whereas 10+ years was normal for common platforms as recently as the the 2010s.
What this means is: when these new products are no longer supported by manufacturers, who will drop their supply obligations rapidly as they legally can due to short lifecycles, parts will be fabulously expensive and difficult to obtain and the skills and tools necessary to repair them will be rarified and also expensive. Post-warranty ICE vehicles will be uneconomic, full stop.
But you can't change a headlight bulb if they're a sealed unit, because those don't have bulbs, but with basic tools, you can certainly change a headlight.
But also, if you have a vehicle with a sealed headlight, you're probably not having to change it every other winter.
Actually ICE has improved significantly in the last 20 years, even though progress was held back by emission and safety regulations.
In the year 2000 a sports car would have around 200/250hp while these days any sports car that wants to boast power has around 500hp or more.
Perhaps you're not into cars much but if you compare top cars on track days etc. you will know there have definitely been huge changes.
Though during the last 20 years repairability and reliability also took a hit.
The must fun I've ever had while driving was with the family '99 Honda Civic. Zero power. Zero torque. But, man, it was like driving a go kart in the streets. I'd zip through mountain passes with the engine revving to hell but in reality I'd only be barely going the speed limit.
I did the same mountain pass in my Subaru recently and didn't even notice I was going 20mph over the speed limit. The engine was silent and still responsive.
Those are improvements overall for the environment and safety of course. However as usually improvement in one area is not necessary an improvement in another area. I was referring to "sport" performance of a car or ICE engine then the emission regulation held back the power output and performance of the drive train and the safety regulations added a lot of weight and size to the cars therefore hurting handling.
Said no pedestrian hidden behind my A-pillar (just kidding I still drive a 1980s minivan, one of the poor people ones, not the hipster one, don't get your hopes up).
I'm not sure they've improved that much. Comparing my 1990 miata/mx5 with modern cars I prefer not having electronic screens and bleeping things all over the place. The only thing I'd chose to modernise is engine efficiency which is maybe a bit better now.
Isn't that to be expected? First, battery technology continues to improve, and being battery-constrained ought to reduce the value of the older technology. Second, the battery degrades faster than an ICE.
gas-powered cars will become much more expensive to operate. Perhaps not in the US and A, but everywhere the Climate treaty of Paris has any value.
In Germany, you can buy used luxury cars at high discount due to being fuel inefficient for years now, and that is with barely a price increase for gas and barely 1 l/100km to through 3 l/100km cars taking up more market share.
Beside fuel efficiency and the long charge time for EVs, many EVs seem more like non-repairable iPhones than their ICE counterparts. Tesla’s look very safe but seems like you can not replace body parts. Same with Rivian. I saw a guy dent a rear quarter panel and the quote was $45k. Only because the crazy way they manufactured things.
Just what I've heard, but an Uber driver told me how he upgraded his older Model 3 suspension to a newer variant because they attach the same way. So at least this part you can swap if you want.
I’ve noticed hybrids are filling up dealers lots as well. They can’t sell them or won’t take a big loss on them. “Too heavy, expensive, less cargo space, and not enough benefits.” per sales.
There aren’t many EV’s on the lots either as the configuration team doesn’t see a need to order them from manufacturers if people aren’t buying them.
A hybrid has a smaller battery, so it goes through more cycles for the same milage than a pure EV. An EV might get 250,000 miles from a battery, a hybrid only half that.
This is why I lease not buy now. I am watching the development of solid-state batteries as that has the promise of greatly reducing battery health issues
Basically, we don't understand batteries and their lifespans that well while we understand wear and tear on an engine quite well. Sure, these concerns are valid, but it seems like you could voice the same concerns over any "early" technology.
Another angle to look at it is that cars cost a lot, petrol and electric alike. The only way to reduce depreciation is for the folks to be able to buy used cars for a lot which means financing.
> A U.K.-based study found 3-year-old EVs lost more than half of their value compared with 39% for gas cars.
40-50% depreciation is crazy, there is little reason why this should happen as cars do not change that much in such a short time. I bet they would not depreciate that hard if a new car was sold at 30k.
UK ZEV mandate led to absolutely insane EV incentives for businesses distorting the market towards huge expensive but crap German EVs like Audi e-trons. Those EVs depreciate like crazy. Mercedes EQS must be a record holder at 50% in a year.
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised. Even without the EV-factor, German cars don't have a particularly great track record for depreciation. It's a marvel to see just how much a VW GTI, for example, can depreciate in year 1.
I am impressed by the efforts of the fossil fuel industry (and I think many car manufacturers) to discredit EVs. Their campaign has been sneaky and devious and very, very effective.
This news story shows that the FUD has worked well (especially in the US), hats off to the fossil fuel industry. It's also a double-whammy: this story will spread, so people will be even more suspicious of EVs, which will cause their popularity to fall, which will cause their resale prices to fall…
Bad market analysis and production. I believe a case can be made for a well designed, rectangular vehicle with motorised wheels - 2 or 4 wheel drive. With a cube van or window van. Forget the chatter about un-sprung weight, this is not a high performance vehicle. Brakes, suspension as well as a front compression zone.
Battery = 3 choices - 150/300/450 mile range. Battery flat in 3 segments arranged to balance as needed. Many people are OK with 150, some want 300 and 450 for the longer range. Some car makers in Asia have fast change stands where an old battery can be dropped and a new one picked up in under 5 minutes - perhaps fast charging will eliminate this - however fast charging has IR losses as well as degradation issues - need to be solved before ready for prime time.
Tesla has plateaued due to price and the yearly design steady state ranks old/new cars as same old same. Far less in the way of e-bling = smaller screens etc, fewer assists/features. I would be quite happy at 0-60 under 10 seconds and a max of 85-90.
I think there are other factor's beside the battery and EV's being dumped in the market that may affect the resale value that are not mentioned in the article.
First of all I believe that the car manufactures (especially for electric cars) these days use planned obsolescence tactics to limit a car's lifespan at one side, while also promising the buyers that the car could last for far longer compared to their old ICE cars. However this promise often doesn't seem to hold up in the real world which will decrease confidence once the cars start breaking earlier.
This is especially problematic when you are running an business calculating in the promised lifespan instead of the actual lifespan, once a business finds out (and does the math) often it will make economical sense to dump the fleet.
On top of that I think a big problem with certain cars on the second hand market is big onetime investments. You can see that already in certain internal combustion engine cars that are know to require a costly fix after x amount of miles.
This is quite important in the second hand market since you often have to expect to do the "big maintenance" once you purchase a second hand vehicle as people like to sell slightly before this maintenance is due (and often not tell you).
Where EV's may run for a long time without problems they require costly repairs once they do break. Most EV's are build in a mostly non repairable way, like many modern vehicles, and you have to pray that the parts will be available after 10 years. Also a lot of maintenance on EV's can not easily be done by an enthusiast in a shed as it requires special equipment, certification and skills.
Where with an ICE engine you may run into smaller maintenance earlier you are paying these fixes incrementally, and may be able to do a lot of the maintenance yourself.
On top of that I think there is a certain saturation in the electric car market where people that care about buying an EV increasingly have a EV and the people that don't care (or prefer ICE) don't want to invest the additional premium, or uncertainty to buy an EV.
For example I don't buy an EV because it's very impractical to charge it where I live and I like the added flexibility (miles) that an economy ICE car can provide.
But where we live there is a huuge fanbase of veteran cars like Chevrolet, people are nuts about them and arrange day long cruising around the city a few times a year.
Considering the complexity and rapid technology changes of electric cars, I doubt we'll see many working VW ID.5 in 70 years cruising the streets.
Another reason that this matters (which is artificial) is that at least in the US so many car owners are on "permanent car payments".
They never pay off their cars and trade them in on another one and just keep making payments without really ever owning a car outright. And increasingly as prices have gone up they are trading cars in that they are underwater on, rolling old debt into the next loan!
If you're in this category of insane financial ignorance trying to appear rich but actually being "car poor" of course this resale is a huge problem. But for anyone who buys a car outright or pays off their loan and then drives the car for many years it's not a problem at all whether you bought new or took advantage of the massive depreciation and bought a lightly used one for a great price.
This is another way of saying "EVs are getting cheaper," so it's hard to understand why this is framed negatively.
Moreover, EV batteries are recyclable. The main thing holding back lithium recycling has been the supply chain of used batteries, because the batteries are quite durable.
If the resale value of EVs is falling, that makes it easier to extract the batteries and use the raw material to build better batteries.
Of course they are. It’s the same process as applied to DSLRs, which depreciated much more quickly than film bodies did only a few years prior.
Film bodies found their post-digital price floor quite quickly. DSLRs and mirrorless have only found secondhand price stability in the last three or four years and while a big part of it is the quality plateau at the end of the megapixel race (which might have some sort of analogue in the electric car industry, though I don’t know what it is —- range, perhaps), part of that was driven by pandemic component scarcity and inflation holding up the new camera market prices.
In short I think this depreciation will last for another decade until manufacturers feel confident they will sell enough volume to make cheaper cars.
The difference is only around $4k. And there's an upside to have an affordable EV resale market. Plus, if you're planning to own a new car for 5 years or more, you have to wonder what the resale market for gas cars will look like in the 2030's.
In my country (UK) it’s entirely caused by a policy that means people in well paid jobs can pay for a lease agreement direct from their salary and save tax. It also can be used if you’re a high earner to bring you back under a threshold that gives you a subsidy for childcare. So if you earn more than £100k and have kids under 5 you are almost stupid not to take a lease for an EV if you have the need for a car anyway.
As a result of the above, EVs that are ~three years old are flooding the used car market and you can pick up a Tesla for < £20k
Aren't they deprecating mainly because new EVs are better? In this case, it is not "derailing" but simply the actual replacement happening. And this effect will become smaller as the industry matures and EV prices stabilise.
At least that's what happened in 2022-2023 when prices of EVs and ICE cars quickly converged. No surprise existing EVs on the road deprecated rapidly.
If something looses value faster than something else it can be compared to, then it's considered as worse, meaning fewer people are going to buy it, meaning if you have one, you'll be able to afford less than others in a few years.
Depreciation is huge factor if you buy something for utility.
I think we can say that EV and ICE has nearly same utility, perks on either side. Faster refuelling vs. being able to do it at home.
Now next we can compare operational costs, what is the cost of fuel/electricity and maintenance. With home charging yes EVs are ahead.
But if we take into account Purchase price minus price you get when selling. Well EVs are often more expensive to start with. And then they depreciate more so you get less as an percentage from original purchase price.
Now it can very well be that you come lot of ahead in scenarios where you replace car with new one every 3 or 5 years with ICEs.
So total cost of ownership does matter. And big chunk of that is depreciation. Unless you are one of the few who buy new and then drive it to junk yard.
Unless a 5 year old EV has lost a lot more functionality than a 5 year old ICE, that situation doesn't seem likely.
If in 5 years, your EV (that had similar utility as an ICE when you bought it) has lost so much value relative to a new EV, then the new EV must offer much more utility over both the old EV and the old ICE, in which case your ICE should have lost a similar amount of value.
My point is either the assumption that their functionality doesn't decrease rapidly is incorrect or that they won't continue to depreciate at a much faster rate than ICE in the future. It just doesn't make economic sense.
While I don't dispute EV depreciation (it's a fact, no matter the explanation), then I don't think depreciation is as "huge" of a factor as you make it out to be. People buy new cars all the time, while the added utility over a used car is negligible.
I.e, I've only bought cars that are 10+ years (exactly due to the depreciation factor!), but most other people buy or lease as new of a car as they possibly can afford. Doesn't make financial sense to me, yet it's done so very often.
Why would we compare a car purchase to a gold bar purchase when they are completely different things? The article is comparing two products that substitute for each other, so it's notable that the market treats them differently. Someone looking to buy a car is either going to get an ICE or EV; not an EV or a gold bar.
As I said: "than something else it can be compared to"; if we are talking about cars, you compare to other cars, not to gold or even bikes. If this car looses more value than another, then it's shit.
If they're losing value primarily because better options are becoming available rather than their own functionality decreasing, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
It is because people are incentivized to just wait for the "better options" that everyone knows are coming soon. Or, let's say you bought one and had an accident that totals the car but oops, the steep depreciation curve means you have to go out of pocket to pay off a total loss. No one wants that.
> you bought one and had an accident that totals the car but oops, the steep depreciation curve means you have to go out of pocket to pay off a total loss
That can happen with a conventional car as well, which is why gap insurance exists. The regular insurance should still give you the replacement price (which would be the depreciated value).
Always waiting for "better options" is often irrational. You should buy what's best for you today.
If the value of your EV has dropped to $10k and you get paid out that much for an accident, then in theory you should be able to buy a similar condition EV on the used car market for $10k. What's the problem with that?
> Always waiting for "better options" is often irrational. You should buy what's best for you today.
If you're trying to get people to switch en masse to EVs, it's not good for everyone to be in perpetual "ehh there's gonna be way better ones around the corner" mode.
> If the value of your EV has dropped to $10k and you get paid out that much for an accident, then in theory you should be able to buy a similar condition EV on the used car market for $10k. What's the problem with that?
The problem is when your loan balance is $20K and you're only getting a $10K payoff...
Hey, did you read the article? The newsworthy point is that the EVs depreciate faster than gas counterparts.
But hey, that just means better used EV prices for the rest of us. You can get some high end gently used ones for a great price.
—
“ For Tesla owners in the U.S., their 2023 Model Ys are worth 42% less than what they paid two years ago, while a Ford F-150 truck bought the same year depreciated just 20%. Older EV models depreciate even faster than newer ones. ”
I'm not sure I'd call an F-150 a "counterpart" to a Tesla Model Y, especially when the F-150 Lightning exists. I assume that it is because F-150 vs F-150 Lightning disproves the premise of this article.
I know I personally would not buy a used EV because I've heard so many horror stories about battery replacements. If EV batteries were commonly designed to be repairable (replace by cell or in smaller banks of cells), I'd be less hesitant.
I also suspect there simply aren't many used EVs I'd want right now. I generally "techie" cars with tons of software features, big ol' touch screens, and half-baked self-driving features. I'm still not even comfortable with keyless start on my current vehicle and I hate the adaptive cruise, which I am unable to turn off. For better or worse, EVs seem to always be at the bleeding edge of these kinds of technologies.
As pointed out by Scotty Kilmer on YouTube we currently lack the infrastructure both in terms of mechanics trained to work on EVs and the necessary electricity infrastructure to make a full transition possible. The answer isn't, "new types of cars" it's building the, "you don't necessarily need a car" society the Europeans and the Japanese enjoy.
I am going to declare my wife to be the authority on this topic.
We were well on a path to purchase a couple of EV's (Teslas, new) and even installed a large solar array to support them.
A couple of years later she learned about the cost of replacing the battery. And, just like that, the dream was over. No interest whatsoever.
Anyone who is married fully understands you cannot argue with wife logic. She has no interest in having to spend $20K to $30K ever on any vehicle, of any type, electric or not, a few years after you paid off the loan.
She would not even touch a used EV if it was almost free. In that case you are almost guaranteed to have to spend tens of thousands of dollars for a new battery at a random moment in time in the future. No deal.
Her logic is cemented in a reality of life that we have lived: There are good times and bad times. And, as things go sometimes, you often find yourself in bad times with no money. Vehicles being necessary for mobility and work, if you have an EV, hit bad times and need to spend tens of thousands of dollars to swap the battery, you are absolutely screwed.
So, I asked her: What would make you change your mind?
The answer: A battery swap should be $5,000 or less.
>Anyone who is married fully understands you cannot argue with wife logic.
This is the job the 4dr Wrangler was built to solve.
"see honey, it's got a back seat for the kids".
"don't worry, we can get a hard top if it's too loud."
"there's a hybrid option available"
It's the world's worst 4dr SUV for kids and car seats and the like and it's still loud with a hard top and gets shit milage for a hybrid but you'll never figure it out until after you've bought the thing and the honeymoon period is over.
It's an absolutely brilliant exercise in checkbox engineering (and preventing couples from arguing in the dealership).
In 15 years / 300,000 miles when the battery might need replacement, the pack (not cell) price for batteries will probably be around $50/kWh, or $5,000 for 100 kWh.
It’s not a random moment, they degrade predictably over time and at a very slow rate. They have less “random” big expensive failures than ice cars. How much is an ice whole engine replacement in a semi modern car? Not cheap and happens more often than an ev battery dropping dead.
So I mean I’m sorry your wife is irrational about it, but I don’t think that’s indicative of the market as a whole.
> It’s not a random moment, they degrade predictably over time and at a very slow rate.
So do traditional vehicles. You need to have them serviced regularly, but otherwise they work fine for literally decades. My uncle has a Volvo 240 GL that car is 50+ year old.
> How much is an ice whole engine replacement in a semi modern car? Not cheap and happens more often than an ev battery dropping dead.
Engine failure is extremely rare. My 1997 Landrover Defender 300TDI is getting upto 300,000 miles and lets just say it hasn't had the easiest life (it was on a farm before I got it). Landrover's aren't known for their reliability.
My old Astra is still on the road (according to the DVLA) and that had well over 150,000 on the clock when I sold it.
> So I mean I’m sorry your wife is irrational about it, but I don’t think that’s indicative of the market as a whole.
His wife isn't irrational. I can get a mid-2000s Diesel that will have decent mileage for less than £4000 in the UK. I see people saying "I only paid $30,000 for this EV". I have never paid more than £10,000 for a car and they last for years and years as long as I get them serviced
The EV transition sadly coincides with auto manufacturers giving up on making their cars repairable. ICE cars are getting harder to repair as well, but have some "momentum" since they often reuse parts that have been around for years. Meanwhile EVs are a clean break where manufacturers feel comfortable taking a hostile posture to the 3rd party repair market.
I’d love to have an EV. I’m not even too frightened about the battery.
It’s just that the cars are aging like iPhones. Last years hardware package, hardware compatibility with latest software, etc are all people seem to talk about on Reddit. I think that’s a factor in the steep depreciation.
I just bought a new Corolla hybrid, it gets 60 miles per gallon and should last a good while. Maybe next purchase.
In the UK I think most EVs are leased, especially through "salary sacrifice" schemes from employers (which saves the whole income tax on payments). Is it the same in the US?
In such case I suspect the impact is mostly on leasing companies with issues on viability and leasing costs (for consumers).
In UK/Europe this might also explain why depreciation after 3 years is so high: Leasing companies trying to dump EVs returned at end of leases.
Interesting! My take is that this is partly caused by people not trusting their long term value and reliability, and at the same time it contributes to their depreciation because it means the EVs are dumped on the used car market after 2-5 years (I think 3 years is popular for leases in the UK).
The upside of this story might be a change of culture in EVs in North America. Everywhere else in the world, EVs are cheap cars to urbanites. In the U.S./Canada they're muscle/status cars for rich people. This cheaper second hand market might help popularize them.
I live in Canada where the distances are long and the weather is freaking cold. These are 2 circumstances very adverse to EVs.
But, still, I love my Kia Niro EV. It is the best car I've ever had. The driving experience is so good that it made me enjoy driving; I always hated driving before this car.
EVs run much smoother, are more stable and more powerful. Besides, if you charge them at home, they're far cheaper; even if you don't have solar panels (I do have them, too).
I have never heard of them described as "muscle cars". In the US, they seem like "green" virtue-signalling tech toys for the middle and upper-middle class, to me.
I'd happily buy one if I were a bit more comfortable with their use, but I'm a tech "dawdler".
Hm, what might have happened that might have destroyed the overall brand with sensible, probably-liberal buyers of used EVs? I vaguely recall some salute thing. Don't really remember the specifics. I just remember there was a bit of a hubbub.
You know you're old when - the headline instantly reminds you how fast those newfangled "desktop computers" depreciated, compared to the adding machines and typewriters that they were trying to replace.
Control for:
Companies that make it impossible to source parts for repairs (Tesla)
Companies with absurdity expensive repairs for minor cosmetic damage (Tesla again)
Companies whose CEO threw up a Nazi salute on national tv (also Tesla, seeing a trend here?)
And the science might tell a different story.
People are fed up with being forced into buying a technology they don't want or need. It's idiotic throwing away the mature tech in petrol and diesel cars in favour of electric. And yes, I still drive petrol and I love it!
What country are you in? What government enforcement are you on about? And why a massive downgrade? And why don't you change the channel off of Fox occasionally?
UK and EU are defacto making Petrol/Diesel cars production uneconomical / illegal. California IIRC are also has a deadline for Petrol/Diesel cars IIRC.
> And why a massive downgrade?
The biggest ones for me are:
1) Range. I have a 700 mile range on my car. My old car before that could do 600 miles. I can travel from one end of the UK to another with 1/2 fuel stops. I have family I see regularly on the other side of the country. I can do the trip in 4 providing good traffic In an Electric vehicle that time is 5-7 hours due to the extra stops required. I know this because my mother and step father recently came to visit me and they have an electric vehicle. If you regularly do longer trips even 30 minutes off the road is a long time. I don't stop for anything other than a bathroom break when I do a long journey.
2) Charging time. I live in an apartment. I would need to charge the car away from home. That is a massive PITA IMO. I spend maybe 5 minutes in a petrol station, compared to 30 minutes at a charger.
3) Almost every modern vehicle car has a bunch of annoyances in the vehicle. The electric cars I have seen have this dialled up to 11.
4) Cost. Electric vehicles are really expensive IMO. I can get a cheap second hand diesel for a few thousand in reasonable condition.
> And why don't you change the channel off of Fox occasionally?
Snarky responses like this is why people become resentful. Just because people have a different view point to yours doesn't mean they have been brainwashed by someone.
A lot of us are happy with the vehicles we already have. I simply do not have an interest in ever owning an electric vehicle. I also prefer older vehicles and bikes because they are simpler and I prefer the way they operate.
A lot of these themes btw was explored by Demolition Man with Sly Stallone. The "resistance" figures to the "regime" are eating meat and driving a v8 muscle car.
I suggest you watch that, it is a fun movie and Sandra Bullock looks gorgeous in it.
I'm currently leasing an EV for 24 months 7.5kMi/yr. The residual price is over $20k lower than MSRP. Without subsidy and steep discounts, nobody would buy these things. And IMO, the residual is about $5k higher than it will be worth based on low-mileage used vehicles of the same model for sale. That finally gets us to the price, almost 50% lower than the MSRP, which I personally value this car new with 0 miles.
These EVs should be much cheaper. Either batteries are so outlandishly expensive that this will never be economically viable for the vast majority of the world outside of cities, or companies are playing accounting games.
In any case, when purchasing a used EV, you're essentially risking the entire purchase price if you get a battery lemon. Buying a Bolt or what have you for $15-$20k, and having to replace the battery at 60%+ of your purchase price, that's too much risk. Whereas if you bought a used ICE vehichle for $15-20k, and your engine fails, you might might need to spend $1500-5k for a repair, it's not all or nothing. And with a moderate amount of research, you can determine which makes or models are prone to early large repairs.
If EV manufacturers would sell a no-questions-asked insurance policy that guarantees the life of the battery to 250k miles, there would be no issue.
Manufactures could offer battery inspections and extended warranties. Maybe with more data, I assume at 15-20 years old no one really knows what the failure modes of these batteries will be.
As someone who made the mistake of switching to EV recently, I can see why, battery issues aside. They have a higher cost of ownership, and provide zero benefits beyond smoother acceleration. They are such a pain in the ass to keep charged, and I have to borrow a car for road trips unless I want to make it a very long road trip for no good reason.
Most people just don't want another after their first one. So there is not much demand. Dealerships are practically giving them away right now, which is how they snagged me.
Luckily, I can get out of this lease in a couple of years. Unluckily, I will have to spend more on a very quick ICE car now that I've experienced EV acceleration. Luckily, it'll still probably be cheaper than an EV.
You're seriously the exception. Everyone I have spoken to who switched to EV don't want to go back to ICE.
ICE cars have way more things that break down and less reliable for the most part. As for always having to charge... most people driving an EV recharge every night at home and rarely require a charging station. Road trips are a different story but most people don't have regular road trips.
I wish the market had a wide selection of 40-50 miles electric range PHEVs ... but a 20 mile EV mode range PHEV will still electrify 80% of your city driving in lots of situations.
Causality could be reversed here. In markets where technology advances quickly and prices drop, there is very little market for used goods, because why would you buy a 4-year-old whatever when you can get a new one that's twice as good for half the price? You see this in computers, smartphones, TVs, and solar panels (outside of the U.S, where prices are kept artificially high by tariffs). People almost never buy used because there's no reason to. You can just buy new, for the same or lower price, and get something way better.
Instead of threatening to derail the EV transition, lack of resale value might be evidence of the EV transition, particularly when coupled with quickly growing overall sales of EVs globally.
> You can just buy new, for the same or lower price
But, like the article says, new EVs are selling for about twice as much as a 2-year-old used vehicle of the same make and model. That's a very very far cry from "same or lower price".
Its a matter of perspective.
EV are progressing fast so they lose value quick, like a laptop of the late 90s. Not quite as bad, but in those times, your computer was worth next to nothing in less than a year.
ICE are stagnant. They retain their value because they're not improving at all.
> EV are progressing fast so they lose value quick,
Are they really, though?
A 2021 Model 3, Mach-e, Polestar 2, Model Y, F-150 Lightning, e-Tron, or ID.4 (to name just a few) are not too different from the ones sold today. Aside from software updates and minor refinements (mostly DFM), I don't see much progress. That's not a problem, since they're all competent vehicles for single-car households.
Several 2025/26 models have even been de-contented compared to their 2021 selves.
Trying to steel-man your argument a little, the only models I can think of with significant progress are the bZ4X/Solterra (widely panned due to initially uncompetitive specs and pricing), Leaf (which has been getting small, incremental improvements for more than a decade) and the now-discontinued Bolt (which was the cheapest road-tripable EV).
I think you really have to be looking compliance cars that entered the market before the Model 3 and/or models that were acknowledged as uncompetitive when new to find significant/fast progress.
No, the real problem is that the true market-clearing price for most of these vehicles was $7500-$10000 less than MSRP (which was set knowing the regulatory environment), combined with the false calculation of depreciation based on MSRP instead of market price.
> No, the real problem is that the true market-clearing price for most of these vehicles was $7500-$10000 less than MSRP (which was set knowing the regulatory environment), combined with the false calculation of depreciation based on MSRP instead of market price.
This seems like it. If you paid $29,000 for something with a $36,500 MSRP because of a $7500 credit and a few years later it's worth $22,000, the amount of depreciation you're calculating by starting from MSRP and the amount that the buyer actually experienced are off by more than a factor of two.
Meanwhile the credits caused more new sales than there would have been otherwise, which means more cars of that model available in the used market, and supply and demand is still a thing.
It's not evidence that people don't want them, it's evidence that if you subsidize something the price comes down.
Presumably you’re in the US, given the models you list. Don’t look there, because the best EVs are not available in the U.S. because of trade barriers. Look at what BYD and Toyota are doing in China.
Ok, I'll bite: what are BYD and Toyota doing in China?
https://insideevs.com/news/758625/byd-megawatt-charging-demo... https://time.com/collections/best-inventions-2025/7318540/by... https://www.electrive.com/2025/06/02/byd-expands-megawatt-ch... https://thenextavenue.com/2025/07/28/how-byds-latest-innovat...
And that's just some low hanging fruit.
How does that impact depreciation in the US?
The article here is about rental car fleets, and explicitly states that consumers (and particularly Teslas) are not seeing the same depreciation. Rental car fleets often buy EVs that are available on the global market (eg Kia or Hyundai models) and sell back into that global market.
Oh, you're in for a surprise. An ID.7, the updated Model 3, Ford Explorer/Capri, plus all the ones you don't have in the US - Nio, Zeekr, BYD, Renault, Skoda, Volvo, Cupra - are significantly better than the EVs of five years ago.
In what way? Specifically, in what way compared to a Tesla from 5 years ago? (Most other makes were not great 5 years ago.)
Not the person you asked the question but i can answer this partially.
I see from the EV my parents bought, they got for 22k euro, a car that does 240km on paper. Now a few years later, you can buy a BYD for 26k, that does 450km (ext version) on paper. That same BYD is WAY more fancy, tech gadgets etc...
But that is comparing a lower market segment where this effect is stronger.
On the higher end market, where the Tesla's used to dominate, we see less movement as those cars already came with tons of tech, and large batteries.
Thing is, i am still not buying a EV despite them being better. The same arguments we had with EV disadvantages is still present today. I rather buy a second hand gasoline engine simply because of the convenience of the default 600 a 700km range on most vehicles, the 5 minute tank job, the lack of charging in the city, the prices despite the heavier depreciation in the second hand market are still worse.
Ironically the gasoline car we bought 10 years ago, for 7.5k, still sells today for 8k in todays market (added 50k kms on the car). So even if we take a cut, the actual gasoline engine depreciation is strangely less strong. I track several gasoline cars where i had a interest in from years ago, same phenomenon.
For some reason you expect gasoline cars to drop more in pricing because now in EU 17% of new cars sales are EVs and 36% are hybrid. So more gasoline cars on second hand market? No ... because people are also buying less cars because of the economy, more work from home etc. Resulting in actually less second hand cars as people hold on to their vehicles longer, waiting out this transition periode.
What makes them better?
I can’t speak for the rest, but I believe in 2023 Tesla’s all moved from HW3 to HW4.
I went from a 2020 Model 3 to a 2025 and the self driving experience is dramatically better. I’m one of those “I will never use FSD” people and I honestly love driving…but it’s so good I find myself using it constantly and just being awestruck.
I'm sure for newer EV models makers cut down on production costs but they may also cut down on quality as well.
> in those times, your computer was worth next to nothing in less than a year.
> ICE are stagnant. They retain their value because they're not improving at all.
This doesn't make sense. As already pointed out, the reason computers lose value is because the same money can buy something that does the job better (faster, lighter, etc). ICE don't retain value because they're not improving; they retain value because they still do the same job X years later.
EVs, meanwhile, are losing value even though the same money as a used EV can't buy anything that actually does the job better, as pointed out earlier in the thread. So there must be something else in play (such as battery degradation lowering value of EVs quicker than engine wear & tear lowers value of ICEs).
Aside from battery longevity is there really anything better about a new model S compared to a 5 year old model?
Battery technology in general.
And, Tesla is an outlier here. Other EVs are progressing MUCH faster.
that is a bold statement that needs to be backed by an example... while Tesla is certainly the dinosaur with the most outdated lineup of cars others aren't that much better (unless we venture into super-luxury 6-figure price zone...)
Look at almost* any other manufacturer.
Kia and BYD are two prominent examples. They're outputting huge batteries and absolutely bonkers charging times.
But even US manufacturers have surpassed Tesla. What GM is doing is more impressive.
I have a 5 year old Model S and it's still like new. And it has a wheel instead of a yolk.
The problems with used cars are usually:
1. The previous owner abused the car
2. There is known damage which is being kept hidden from you
And those might be particularly poignant problems for used EVs because EVs are notoriously expensive to repair.
The GPU, sensors, trim, motors, and batteries have improved in those 5 years. I have a 2020 X and I am considering when to update. While the S and X haven’t gotten a significant improvement like the 3 and Y have they are still substantially better than before. Despite the memes I’ve consistently tried the other options, and have tried the BYD, Zyker, MG, etc available in Asia, and the Tesla are still far and away the best cars especially if you consider them in combination with the supercharger network. I think they have slowed their pace of improvement surely through a lot of Musks self inflicted fault, but the competition hasn’t yet surpassed them.
For those boosting BYD, etc, the finish is shiny but low quality, and is rife with safety red flags - an example being by in large you can watch YouTube and movies and sturr on the central screen while driving. (It’s scary in Asia with grab drivers watching videos while weaving in and out of traffic) - but the price is good.
I have a 2020 model X as well and I love it. I have no plans on upgrading which oddly is because it doesn't have the interior review mirror cam for FSD to yell at me for silly things like looking at a passenger to talk while on FSD and it still drives like it did on day 1 (60k miles ago, have only done tires and minor warranty calls). Honestly a fantastic car and now that it's paid off I'm like yep I'll keep this for years more. Keep the car it's great!
Actually to edit this comment - the main (only?) reason I bought the car is because if I'm in an accident I want to try to be in safest car possible and if my sig other is driving I want them to be in the safest car I can find. I thought that paying a premium at release in model X 2020 was well worth the premium if people I love are in it.
I can't tell you about Tesla, but BMW for example did shoot themselves right in the foot by announcing literally at the launch of the iX that they are going to bring a new model with updated 800V architecture within couple years. So........why would you buy that first one, knowing that a much improved model is literally right around the corner. Consequently prices of the iX cratered, and you could have it on a lease for the same cost as a VW golf, despite being (at least in theory) 3x more expensive. The first gen cars are now so laughably cheap it's actually stupid to not buy one because they are still perfectly good very capable vehicles - but yeah, why would it keep value if it was immediately replaced by a much better model. With EVs we're in the GPU area where each model immediately displaces the last generation and within few years your top of the line flagship card is worth close to nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
Most people don’t want to lose tens of thousands of dollars in value to progress for progress sake… I just bought a car and went ICE in no small part to resale value.
Meanwhile, I don't really care much about resale value because when I buy a car I typically intend to drive it until it dies.
In this sense, EVs depreciating faster than ICEVs is exciting, since if my current Tacoma prematurely gives up the ghost (or I buy a second car) I can add “snag an EV for cheap” to my list of available options.
That's still depreciation, just deprecation until it dies (down to near $0 value from new) vs depreciation until you sell it. If it dies fast, the depreciation is still high.
Yeah, but it doesn't die fast. Re-sale value is low because of the competition from newer models due to rapidly developing tech.
If you don't resale you don't lose anything.
Just drive it till it's no longer operational or gift it away to a family member at some point and you get full value of what you paid for without a care in the world about second hand market.
> ICE are stagnant. They retain their value because they're not improving at all.
They aren't degrading either, though
They are definitely degrading.
Complex driver aid/“safety” systems, outrageously complicated “infotainment” systems that are also used to interact with system functions, sealed/un-serviceable transmissions, exhaust gas filtration and recirculating systems, these are all additional points of failure that represent a degradation on modern ICE cars.
These cars won’t be around 20 years after manufacture in the same way Toyota Camry and Corolla are.
Those complaints are really orthogonal to the EV vs ICE debate, though.
Somebody could claim driver aids and infotainment EVs are "degrading" in EVs in the exact same way - in fact they're even more integrated in EVs.
And although EVs don't have the same transmissions and exhaust gas systems, they have their own unique complexities and points of failure, like batteries and regenerative braking systems.
I recently bought a fancy muscle car with all that crap integrated into the infotainment system. I explained to the sales guy that I WANTED to keep this car for the rest of my life but was concerned that wouldn't be possible. In 10 years it may literally be impossible to find a phone that will connect via the USB/bluetooth to the infotainment system. We may all be using something completely different. Not to mention, no one will be manufacturing replacements for that infotainment system if it ever craps out.
You can go buy a 50 year old muscle car and upgrade the radio to something kind of modern. But that won't be possible with my car 50 years from now. It's too integrated.
The sales guy had clearly never considered this issue before.
It seems like he didn't need to consider it, since you bought it anyway.
I wonder how long it will be before the first EVs get bricked because the manufacturer doesn't want to ship software updates to the old hardware any more.
If it can happen to a $1500 phone or a $5k computer, I'm sure it will happen to a $20k car eventually.
10 years is when you really should do a heavy refresh in the engine bay. Stem the tide of oil leaks, replace perished rubber hoses, tuneup (plugs & leads) because lets be honest you never replaced those unless one was obviously broken, fix exhaust leaks, pray cat is not dead and you didnt luck out on a model with factory defects like for example Ford EcoBoost wet belt disintegrating into rubber debris in oil pickup ($10K job). Tons of brands went for lower tension piston rings in the name of ecology and gas mileage, GM EcoTec, Stellantis Tigershark, even Toyotas end up burning oil like crazy and need full engine rebuilds/new engines. Obligatory they stopped making them like they used to :) 10 years is a very dangerous age for a used car right now.
ICE cars are practically falling apart between service windows when compared to EV.
This is not normal. I have a 10 year old budget ICE car and nothing is wrong with it. When I change the oil every 10k miles, the same amount I put in still comes out. It has about 240k.
But 10 year old ICE is still a perfectly good car, yet 10 year old Tesla is trash. Not because there's a better Tesla now, but because it's no repairable and will soon require a new $20k battery.
Knowing several people driving 10+ year old Tesla's, I have to disagree with you.
1. Yes, the range is a little less. One person got their battery replaced by a 3rd party specialist. Runs great.
2. They certainly are repairable, just take it to Tesla service or a 3rd party mechanic.
3. Even if the battery is $20k, now you essentially have a new car for only $20k.
Funny. My Tesla has proven itself to be repairable. And has needed fewer repairs than my ICE car. As for the "will soon require", as https://www.motortrend.com/features/how-long-does-a-tesla-ba... verifies, at 200,000 miles a Tesla still averages being able to hold 90% of original charge. The average ICE car does not survive to 200,000 miles.
While some do need batteries sooner, some ICE cars need new engines sooner. It's a wash. Average lifespan is comparable.
(Electric would win hands down if Tesla had better manufacturing quality though.)
The reason the average ice car doesn't last 200k miles is because car purchases are amazingly irrational. Other than a few unlucky models, basically any Toyota or Honda will go over 200k miles. I own two 250k mile Toyota/Lexus vehicles and expect another 100k from them easily. But people buy Dodge sedans and vans, jaguars and range rovers, Audis and Kias.... Because they basically don't care for getting 200k miles. Realistically if you buy a ice car that is known for lasting 200k, it will easily do it.
I thought the main issue, ICE or not, was that a low energy crash after 10 years makes it a total loss, insurance wise. So drive enough miles in, say, a random US urban highway/stroad environment and you'll find yourself having to change cars regardless.
It's a bigger problem with a Tesla, as there is no sensibly priced repair network, and getting original parts has lead times that will lead to replacing the car.
I suppose, but most people don't crash their cars that often. If they did, insurance would basically be unaffordable for most people just based on statistics of how much they'd have to pay out. No one in my family has had a major crash in 25 years.. most people I know haven't. Like all other things, I think it's a pretty skewed distribution. I dated a girl once that got rear-ended several times by age 30... You can tell something about her driving from that. Her record will show she's not at fault ever and gets good rates, but she causes accidents.
Those cars are often bought and fixed and sold on the market. Others go for parts to keep the rest on the roads.
It doesn't even have to be particularly known for it. The cars you're listing are the ones well known for not doing it. You can pretty easily get 200k miles out of the median Chevy.
I agree. I've had a 300k mile Silverado and currently own a 210k mile Volt. The thing that's basically hanging over the Volts head is a battery problem you almost can't even test for. The gas motor is doing just great.
It's very well possible to get 500k kilometers out of a Mercedes or Audi. They're mechanically quite reliable as long as maintenance is done religiously.
Maybe on the older models. But I'm a sucker for buying high miles cars, and you simply won't even FIND a high miles Audi A7 for example. You'll find cheap ones sure, for $5k even, with 150k miles and multiple issues the owner can't afford to fix. I've never even seen a 200k mile Audi for sale near me, and I'm in a huge major metro area.
a lot of this data on battery health comes from california. Not everywhere has California's climate and lithium ion battery packs do not do well in the cold.
Also, the link you shared is just a collection of anecdotes. It doesn't provide evidence of a trend.
Not really convinced the logic is right here. If the battery dies there’s still options before replacing it with a new one from the manufacturer at retail price.
Even then, batteries in EVs don’t have a 100% failure rate. There are still many 15 year old Leafs driving around on the original battery, and I’m not sure the out-and-out failures (I.e. not including gradual capacity loss) are a high number either.
Modern EVs (2016-present) have even lower failure rates again (below 1% within 200k miles including those replaced due to capacity loss)
I love my Chevy Volt. But I can't recommend a $5k volt to any of my friends wanting a cheap car. Because when you buy a $5k Toyota, it's basically never a random sensor glitch away from costing you $5k+ even at an independent. But volts are inside their battery pack.
That's not the reason why I'm personally not into EVs, but significant capacity loss == failure to me.
It depends on the original range surely?
Losing 30% of 120 miles is a lot more significant to most people than losing 30% of 300 miles (which >99% won’t within the life of the car).
It also doesn't require the same person to be using the car.
Someone has a 90 mile round trip commute and buys a car with a 120 mile range. Having it drop below 90 miles after a decade isn't working for them anymore, so they sell it. Works fine for someone with a 30 mile commute.
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My dad had to make the same decision and he was too vary because of the battery. He talked about his phone and that it doesn't last a day anymore while at 84% health after three years and translated it 1to1 to the car. Its hard to argue with people if they have a reference point but don't understand the differences. I guess most people just want that initial warranty for now. Are there any manufactures that give long warranties on the battery yet?
Yeah, pretty much all of them have long battery warranties. Tesla for example garuntees >=70% capacity for 8 years or 100k miles.
> Tesla for example garuntees >=70% capacity for 8 years or 100k miles.
If you're used to buying used vehicles - that's not sufficient.
For context, all the cars I've bought in the last 20+ years have been at least 8 years old when I bought them. I can get an 8 year old Toyota/Honda and know I'm good for the next 5-7 years.[1]
Buying an 8 year old used Tesla with only 75% capacity? No way.
[1] Likely a lot longer. I'm right now driving a 22 year old vehicle that only started showing issues a year ago.
I'm in the same boat, or was until I finally caved last year and got my wife a 5 year old vehicle, everything else has had >150k miles and >10 years.
I will say that my '03 Pontiac Vibe GT, at 280,000 miles, no longer has all the horses it did when it was younger. There's still a kick from 6000 to 8200 RPM, but I'm increasingly reluctant to hit that redline once a month to "keep it fresh" like I used to. The gradual compression loss and increased leak-down rate aren't that bad, but it might be 25% fewer horses, I guess. Man, I love that car and that engine. I ought to get it a new set of rings, get the cylinders bored out smooth, and give it fresh bearings. Sadly, the rust that's appearing on the body like a cancer probably makes that not worthwhile...
The good news for electrics is that those older motors will remain almost exactly as powerful as they day when they were new for decades.
Obviously, the fuel tank is still the same size it's always been, but range is not as much of a concern on a gas vehicle because gas stations are everywhere and you can fill up rapidly.
I personally hope that this becomes less of a concern as charger density improves year over year - in particular, as EVs become ubiquitous, landlords will start including L2 chargers in apartment parking complexes. Once everyone can charge in a garage overnight, range anxiety is hugely less important.
> 03 Pontiac Vibe GT
So a Toyota :)
This. We have two cars.
One is 8 years old. That's old right? The other is 18 years old.
Neither have had major issues.
The warranty doesn’t suggest the battery will be at 70.00001% on the first day of year 9. It says if it goes below 70% it will get replaced.
That 8 year old Toyota you bought came with a 6 year/60k mile warranty. If you are comfortable driving that to 2.5x the initial warranty then a used Tesla should be good to 250k and 20 years.
> The warranty doesn’t suggest the battery will be at 70.00001% on the first day of year 9. It says if it goes below 70% it will get replaced.
The point is that they're not confident enough to say it won't be in that range. Put another way, why don't they just make the warranty 80% instead of 70%?
If Tesla's not confident in it, I definitely am not.
> That 8 year old Toyota you bought came with a 6 year/60k mile warranty. If you are comfortable driving that to 2.5x the initial warranty then a used Tesla should be good to 250k and 20 years.
We hope so, but we don't know, which is the point. Toyota has a track record. Tesla hasn't been around long enough to have a track record.
That aside, the real point is that ICE cars don't have any particular component that costs that much to replace. How much will a new EV battery cost me? Sure, on occasion you may have to rehaul your whole engine, but that's really rare. I've only known one Toyota owner who had to do that, and it cost (in today's dollars), about $6K.
When I buy an 8 year old car, I don't expect perfection. I know things will break - soon. I buy it with the confidence that repairs will not be too expensive, and even after all the repairs I'll still save a ton of money.
The other blocker is the private party market. So far I've never bought a car from a dealer. I always go private party. The standard procedure with that is you take the car to a trusted mechanic who will examine it and inform you of any potential problems. With electric vehicles, those mechanics can't do much. I've asked them. They can look at a few things like the brakes, but stuff related to the engine is beyond their ability. So whereas I may be comfortable spending a lot of money buying an ICE car from private party, I'm not for EVs.
Why doesn’t Toyota make their powertrain warranty 80k miles? Or 200k?
The warranty is there to cover failures. If a pack has a defect it will drop under 70%. If it doesn’t then it will continue working beyond the warranty term.
You’re assuming linear decay and that Tesla has fit the warranty coverage tightly to that line. It seems more likely to me that Teslas warranty is designed to address unexpected exponential decay. This is consistent with ICE powertrain warranties.
The inconsistent part is the assured decay, as opposed to a low chance of catastrophic failure.
Your ICE car will either continue working basically the same, or it will fail catastrophically. I don't have to worry about my gas tank getting smaller over time, and even if it inexplicably does, gas stations are plentiful and stops are short.
It also makes resale rough, as people are talking about. You can salvage a power train from another scrapped car of the same model (or not, a lot of that is shared nowadays). Salvaging batteries is a bigger issue because so many will be worn down and materially worse than new, and they can be re-used which keeps their value high. Very few people have a use for an engine out of a 1983 Silverado, but a lot of people have uses for lithium ion cells.
I could probably get 2 ICE power trains for a decade old car for less than the price of a new battery pack, and I'd wager they'll go farther.
> Your ICE car will either continue working basically the same, or it will fail catastrophically.
This simply isn’t true. Fuel injectors decay. Catalytic converters decay. O2 sensors decay. Oil decays. Air filters decay. Spark plugs decay. Piston rings decay. All of these things affect fuel economy which directly translates to range.
Additionally the ICE related accessory pumps and sensors decay and fail and need replacement. Individually these are all cheaper than a battery pack but ICE vehicles absolutely have repair costs. They just spread those costs out across the entire complex powertrain.
You're not wrong, but none of this answers the question I have: What will the capacity be at 15 years?
My current car is 22 years old. I paid a whopping $3.5K for it, and have not spent much in repairs.
My prior car - used it till it was 17 years old. Would have used it longer but someone totaled it. I paid (in today's dollars), about $12K for it. Spent very little in repairs.
The car before that - used it till it was 16 years old. I know the person who bought it from me and he used it for another 3-4 years. I paid $5.5K for it (today's dollars). Spent very little on repairs.
So anyone who's buying a 6-8 year old EV needs the following answers:
1. How long will the battery be good for?
2. How much will replacing it cost?
3. Will the savings on gas more than compensate?
>What will the capacity be at 15 years?
For Tesla, the fastest capacity drop off is actually in the first couple of years. After that it plateaus quickly.
Anyone buying a 6-8 year old ICE needs the following answers:
1. How long will the engine and transmission actually be good for?
2. How much will replacing it cost?
You don't actually know for any given car. You can look at analysis of failure rates over time and make some kind of guess about an average for that model, but who knows about that particular one. At least with a battery you can get some pretty detailed state of health readouts, BMS technology can tell you a good bit more about battery health than what your ICE will tell you about transmission and engine wear without tearing it down.
We have a pretty good idea how EV packs decay. This isn’t a new technology. Google searches suggest 1-2% decay per year. So a 15 year old car would have 70-85% of original range.
For pack replacements I don’t know, however it seems unlikely you’d really need to. The battery will almost certainly outlast the car. Range will be degraded but I don’t see a lot of 2005 vehicles doing cross country trips either. Even a degraded EV will be useful in town. Many people only drive a few tens of miles a day.
The cost per mile is a simple calculation. It’s a function of your local electricity prices.
"In our 2023 reliability survey, 17 percent of 2013 Tesla Model S owners told us their cars needed battery pack replacements at a cost of $15,000 each."
This is 11-12 years in.
Granted, perhaps batteries were just crappier back then, but 17% is a scary high number for me.
Also:
"This is in line with data from Recurrent, a firm that analyzes and measures EV battery performance, which found that 13 percent of EVs older than 2015 needed battery replacements. By comparison, only 1 percent of EVs newer than 2016 needed new batteries. "
The source of some of the data. What happened with 2020 vehicles?!
https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batter...
> "In our 2023 reliability survey, 17 percent of 2013 Tesla Model S owners told us their cars needed battery pack replacements at a cost of $15,000 each."
What was the remaining range for those replacements?
> Granted, perhaps batteries were just crappier back then,
Tesla makes its own batteries right? When did that start?
> but 17% is a scary high number for me.
Is that high? I have no idea. How many ICE powertrains got replaced at the same time and what did it cost?
Batteries don't work like that and you know they don't.
Fuel efficiency on an ICE can drop up to 30% after 10 years... the end result is the same. But that's not on anyone's mind when buying a used car.
> the end result is the same.
Absolutely not.
This completely ignores the relatively high initial range of ICE (especially hybrid), and the poor real world state of the EV charging infrastructure, compared to petrol.
A 30% drop in range would be an extra 5 minutes at the nearest gas station, almost guaranteed to be within a couple miles.
And, that 30% is usually cheap to get back, usually just by some combination of changing the spark plugs, running a bottle of carbon removal/fuel system cleaner through, or changing the fuel injectors.
I have an electric, but I also understand why people are avoiding electric, and why 96% of people with EV also have an ICE car [1] (including me, with my newest being ICE)!
[1] https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2023/11/10/the-stat-that-say...
I have a 2013 CRV with a EPA combined mileage of 25 mpg (AWD):
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2013_Honda_CR-V.shtm...
I get combined mileage of 26 mpg. That's a short daily commute and a couple trips a month to a town ~70 miles away.
I haven't taken particularly stellar care of it.
I'd rather they guarantee a fairly inexpensive replacement. When electrics can already give you range anxiety, 70% capacity is a deal-breaker.
Batteries are getting cheaper, and I think there is a perception issue here as well as perhaps a real issue of used parts availability.
A brand new Model 3 battery pack, for example, is in the neighborhood of 10 or 11K installed. Or at least it was about a year ago, I don't closely track prices. Blow up an engine, and you won't be far off that in an ICE car. I know someone who just dropped $18K because they blew up both the engine and the transmission in a single shot. Oops.
But the ICE car has cheaper used options, for sure, where you can probably fix a 15 year old car by dropping in a reman or used engine for under five grand. Options for used Tesla battery packs definitely exist but are nowhere as plentiful. Yet!
There are heaps of scrapped Tesla's and used batteries are absolutely an option.
100k isn't all that many for a modern used car and that's a pretty sizable hit on the range given that it's by far the biggest limitation of an EV. Given those numbers it's reasonable that a used Tesla with say 125k miles might not be able to do a 150 mile round trip on a full battery. That's a pretty big limitation for some people.
You're going off the minimum for a warranty replacement, which is pessimistic. Most Teslas with 125K miles have not lost anywhere even close to 30% of the capacity. Typical will be more like 15% or a bit less. And even less than that for the LFP cars, IIRC.
Some cars I expect to do much better, due to manufacturer decisions. Ford, for example, put a pretty big battery in my Lightning, and then made the top 10kWh or so unusable. So far, this means that Lightnings with 100K miles (there aren't a huge number of them yet, but they do exist) often have 0 apparent degradation, or very low single digits.
8 years or 100k miles is bare minimum I would expect a car to last without major repair work.
These cars are not worth a lot after the warranty ends because the battery replacement cost exceeds the value of the car.
100k is a regulatory minimum. E.g. Toyota had to certify the original Prius traction batteries for 100k because they were considered part of the emissions control system.
>long battery warranties.
My 2009 Prius is still running at 231k, for reference.
A Prius with only 50% of its battery capacity available is in much better shape than a Tesla with only 50% of its battery capacity.
And an early Leaf with 50% of its battery capacity is almost useless.
I think the numbers of those early leafs (a lot were sold), their horribly degraded batteries, and their consequently low sales price make the numbers appear a bit more dire for resale EVs as a whole than they are in reality (breakdown loss of resale value by model and other EVs are doing much better). However, I think it is also true that EV resale values are lower than they perhaps should be due to used battery fears.
There are a bunch of California-only compliance cars that were essentially given away that would depress the values in the sector. I considered picking up a used Fiat 500e, but even though it was electric, FCA still managed to mess it up and a common recommendation was to keep a few specific tools in the back that enabled quickly disconnecting and reconnecting the battery.
Early air cooled leafs aren't doing anyone any favors when talking about battery aging.
With ICE cars, typically manufacturer warranties only are valid for the original purchaser.
That's never been my experience...
I just got a repair on my 2023 Camry that I bought used. It was covered under the 36,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty.
I have had previous cars repaired under manufacturer warranty and I always buy used.
I just take it to the nearest certified dealer for that brand of car and they take care of it.
That must be a US specific thing, because that sounds demented.
It is untrue in the US. Manufacturer warranty follows the car. And it does so automatically, it is tied to the VIN and not whoever has the title.
Eh, its kind of mixed. Some manufacturers like Hyundai have essentially a baked in extended warranty (10y 100,000mi) that is non-transferrable, only the base warranty (5y 60,000mi) gets transferred.
That perception means you can get a good deal on a used EV.
Tesla has an 8 year battery and motor warranty.
All well and good but 8 years isn't that old for a car. I don't even look at cars that new. I start at 10+ years old. The drivetrain on any car should last 20 years if it's not abused and given reasonable care and even if you end up needing to replace the engine or transmission that's a few thousand dollars on an older car. What would a new battery on a 10 year old Tesla cost you? Can you even buy one?
> Can you even buy one?
I would like to think 1) that the answer is yes and 2) that the price in fact come down over time as battery tech gets cheaper, markets of scale, etc.
Maybe some startup needs to go into the battery replacement market for specific popular models of 8+ year old EVs.
Average lifespan of a car in the US is 16 years, warranty covers half of that.
Given the lowest acceptable threshold for capacity under some warranties (70%) and assuming linear degradation, a 16 year old EV would have 40% capacity (worst case). Given a typical range of 250 for EVs today, that would put you at ~110 miles on a charge.
Seems like it would be a fine car to me given the age. I'd also expect battery swaps to become more common as the industry ages, which will drive prices down.
> and get something way better.
The last part of OP's statement is the key. In a field that's rapidly advancing technologically, used prices are depressed because the new product is that much better than the used product.
Think back to the early smartphone days - every year phones multiplied in performance, in screen resolution, etc. In that environment a used item is less attractive because you feel like you're missing out on features/capability. This keeps used prices down. Nowadays used smartphones are more competitive because the rate of advancement (that buyers care about at least) has slowed.
For example there's another post later in this thread that points out that the Nissan Leaf has been the same price forever - except the current-gen Leaf has literally double the range of the last one. Effects like this depress used prices.
> ... because the new product is that much better than the used product.
This starts reading like a hallucination after a while. How much in a Tesla had changed over past 5 years or so that makes 2020 model completely obsolete and unappealing relative to 2025 model?
The range hasn't doubled, internal volume hasn't, acceleration or braking hasn't. They may have changed implementations under the hood, but none has been clearly communicated to potential customers, so they might as well be the exact same car.
Meanwhile, 2020 Prius is that ugly one with quirky dashboard, and 2025 is that mustard yellow thing with the HUD-like dash.
So what in an EV is so "rapidly advancing technologically" so much that it perfectly rule out much more simpler explanation that people just aren't interested in EVs, in favor of more hand-wavy one that the newer EVs are just constantly enormously more appealing to the customers that older ones tend to lose the appeal faster?
Look to BYD instead of Tesla if you want to find rapid advancement. Tesla has not been well managed for a few years, BYD recently passed them to become the biggest EV seller
I bought Hyundai, which charges 2x faster than the Tesla
Another thing to consider is the Tesla likely makes up the majority of the used EV inventory, and Tesla has become a toxic brand
I've seen more lamborghinis than privately owned BYDs at this point. Maybe it's just where I'm from, but consumers definitely aren't switching to BYD, around myself.
Recently in Singapore and Hong Kong. Roughly as many BYD as Teslas there.
> I bought Hyundai, which charges 2x faster than the Tesla
Your Hyundai charges at 500 kW?
There's more to charging than peak kW, notably sustained throughput
The amount of range you can put into the EV, per unit of time, is a better metric.
https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/electric-car-charging.html
Hyundai has been on the 800V arch for a while with their E-GMP platform, Tesla's first entry is the 25th spot.
Huh...that is interesting. TIL.
I wonder why the Tesla is not able to maintain the high charging rate? Both peak at about the same kW.
I don't think that's true. Afaik Tesla (except Cybertruck) have 400V charging limited to 250kW while the other vehicles have 800V charging allowing 350kW or so.
Maybe the car is more efficient and it's twice the rate in "driveable distance-charged" per unit of time?
Sweet Jesus 1000 miles of range per hour is incredible. It might not technically solve the road trip problem but that's fast enough to make a not even five minute pit stop to get you home. Any range anxiety for intra-city travel is just gone.
> BYD recently passed them to become the biggest EV seller
Well when your government subsides every sale, and your the cheapest product on the market this is a natural outcome.
Mass strikes by workers (in china). Fires (a lot of them). Recalls (several this year). And now massive tariffs for them in a lot of markets don't paint a picture that they have a sustainable business.
We all know that subsidized growth is a great way to build a business (see ridesharing, delivery, in the US) but it doesn't make consumers happy in the end when prices go up and service quality goes down.
Having ridden in a lot of BYDs when traveling overseas I think you paint too bleak a picture. They're everywhere and reliable enough to seemingly be the preferred cars for uber drivers. Some markets might tax them out of existence but I expect others will gladly take perfectly serviceable cars on the cheap.
Tesla is still kicking and they had all the same problems at one time or another. I mean until this year we also massively subsidized every EV sale so pot calling the kettle black.
I think it's also fair to argue that it's probably more perceived, than actual.
People are obsessed with EV range, and massively concerned that used EV have degraded batteries.
Most likely there are some market inefficiencies here. Good for you, buy a cheap used EV ;)
Also many EVs are still not attractive to price sensitive consumers. And the price insensitive ones, won't buy used EV.
> The last part of OP's statement is the key. In a field that's rapidly advancing technologically, used prices are depressed because the new product is that much better than the used product.
And 2 years old EV is not twice as bad as current one
> For example there's another post later in this thread that points out that the Nissan Leaf has been the same price forever - except the current-gen Leaf has literally double the range of the last one. Effects like this depress used prices.
The previous gen is 8 years old. It took 8 years to "double" the quality, not 2
> And 2 years old EV is not twice as bad as current one
The new-vs-used price difference in equipment comes from multiple factors, of which "better features" is one part.
Consider what would happen if you gave someone this choice:
1. Keep your 10-year-old car. (No major upgrades from stock.)
2. Pay $X to trade it for its identical factory-sibling which was made the same day but was stored in a timeless stasis-bubble until today, so that it still has its original new-car smell.
I can't imagine anyone saying: "Well, there are zero new features, so I'll swap them for $0."
P.S.: The issues are even more obvious if the person is choosing between buying someone else's 10-year-old car versus paying an extra premium for the time-warp one, because there's uncertainty about the first vehicle's history and maintenance.
Yeah, because a car has tens of thousands of parts that age with both time and usage. The core drivetrain is just a tiny bit of that.
Everything is falling apart and that makes and old, used car... Used and old. Now queue the people who show up to say they haven't changed a tire or wind screen wiper blade on their 2012 Model S/Camry and can't perceive a single difference to when they were new from factory.
Listen, I'm literally just describing basic market dynamics here - my post is not intended as an endorsement of plainly observable phenomena.
The depreciation/utility curve has always been aggressive no matter what product you're buying. Is a 2 year-old ICE car twice as bad as a new one? Is a 2 year-old TV? Clearly not, yet they are all worth that in the open market.
For EVs the depreciation curve is especially aggressive because of perceived advancements. Are the advancements worth buying new? I dunno! You tell me - but this is clearly being reflected in the market.
From a strict utilitarian standpoint, optimizing your depreciation/utility function should mean you're buying almost every single thing used. But yet lots of people don't do that. Humans are empirically not very good utilitarians!
>For EVs the depreciation curve is especially aggressive because of perceived advancements.
And many comments disagree with this statement. There are few perceived advancements. Used EVs are not trusted, particularly because the used battery fear.
Range though is only one aspect to take into account when quantifying the "quality".
What part of EVs is "rapidly advancing technologically"? The battery is the only thing that comes to mind and they should be replaceable if that was the bottleneck. Self-driving is also advancing, but that hasn't stabilized as a feature yet. EV motors have been around for a long time and the rest seems like general car stuff that would be common with ICEs.
Following that logic it seems to come down to old batteries which aren't as good both due to technological advances and battery aging. If so, why aren't used dealers just including a battery swap in the price?
> If so, why aren't used dealers just including a battery swap in the price?
I think that is the main thing that needs to be figured out. I suspect the problem is that you need to get OEM battery replacements for older model cars and those aren't yet readily available or cheap. We are going to need aftermarket batteries to drive price competition in the market. The current car manufacturers aren't incentivised to support a secondary market when they are still focused on primary sales. Also not in the ICE market there is much more ability to scale capacity. The supply chain constraints for EVs, and batteries are much tighter, though that keeps getting better.
Battery swaps are never going to be a thing long term, even with Nio rolling it out in areas. It adds huge amounts of weight and complexity. You have to build electrical and coolant connectors which can handle large amounts of connects and disconnects, in areas that get mucky and interact with rain, salt, snow and ice. You have to build a chassis strong enough to take an impact but also support the additional weight and space that a removable battery takes up - think of how much bigger phones with removable batteries.
I have done 900 mile road trips in EVs with 150Kw charging (low by standards of newer EVs) and charging has been a complete non problem. In fact I have more problems with plugging my car in, going to the toilet and coming back finding that I've put more power into the car than I wanted.
Batteries are lasting 200k+ miles with 85-90% original capacity in so longevity is not a problem and charging is becoming a solved problems in an increasingly large portion of the world too.
You put this in the wrong place. "Battery swap" in this context should be read like "transmission swap". Hours of work replacing a permanent part. Nothing to do with detachable batteries.
Hybrids keep their value remarkably well. If each engine isn't spinning half the time they will obviously last longer. They could have a small enough battery that make hot swapping a lot more realistic.
> "What part of EVs is "rapidly advancing technologically"?"
Battery capacity, motor efficiency (getting more range out of the same battery), charging rate (800V architectures for example that let you charge > 150kW), battery chemistry (wider operating temp envelope, affects charging and driving efficiency depending on environment)... the list goes on.
The batteries are also getting cheaper - which is to say for the same $ you're now (generally) getting a larger battery.
> "If so, why aren't used dealers just including a battery swap in the price?"
Because the batteries are in fact not swappable from one gen to the next, because the power electronics around them are different, peak current draw is different (and that depends on the motor it's mated with!).
Like I know it's tempting and attractive to imagine EVs like regular cars with some giant-ass AA batteries installed on them, but that's not how they work! The battery is specced as a unit with the entire electrical system and drive motor options!
The battery electronics aren't necessarily all that complicated:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZHN3fjDtpc
The precharge resistor has to be reasonably matched with the devices connected to the battery though.
And of course there could be additional converting electronics for charging or whatever.
If you look at EPA efficiency in 2020 and 2025, it hasn’t really moved that much for the same class of vehicle.
> Like I know it's tempting and attractive to imagine EVs like regular cars with some giant-ass AA batteries installed on them, but that's not how they work!
Come on, we all know the big Christmas toys would always use those fat C batteries that we never had enough of.
[dead]
> new EVs are selling for about twice as much as a 2-year-old used vehicle of the same make and model
There's a saying that a new car loses 50% when you leave the lot. It's presumably still true for EVs.
The 50% off the lot was always exaggerated, but it is nearly not true now at all - used prices for all cars have skyrocketed such that buying used is not nearly the deal it used to be.
In fact, buying new is almost always the way to go now over lightly used (e.g., less than 5 or even 10 years old).
Even 20 years ago after I got out of college the advice to "buy a couple year old Honda Civic for cheap" had stopped working because everyone knew those cars were solid so the lightly used ones already barely cost less than new and the new ones often had cheap financing deals.
A brand new 2026 Corolla is $25k (asking price!)
2024 Corollas around me are like $20k. If you need financing, the rates can often be worse for a used car than a new one. You then also have less warranty time left.
I recently bought a used 2023 Camry with 29K miles fully loaded, for 29K. New for the same features which I wanted comes out to 42.6K according to the Toyota configure website, and I assume there might even be some extra fee on top of that possibly...
Basically this - https://www.carmax.com/car/27550586 ?
The 2026 is a hybrid, was the older one?
However, saving more than a dollar a mile is pretty good, in favor of used. It's when you're saving less than 25 cents a mile that used probably isn't worth it.
Almost. Mine has the premium sound system which I really wanted, and ventilated seats, and the 360 camera view, front cross traffic and rear cross traffic monitoring, full lane centering for the full speed cruise control.
It's not hybrid but I don't want hybrid. That's more parts to have issues and I keep for 10 years and the hybrid batteries don't usually last that long, and I don't drive enough for the gas mileage to really make a meaningful cost difference.
Cash for clunkers destroyed mountains of cars which increased pollution and forced a bunch of people up the food chain with regard to competition for used cars.
A big part of it began there, and Covid just made it even worse by constraining new car supply for a while.
Not to mention, all the excess dollars means that almost any older car has increased value for nostalgia seekers and enthusiasts.
The higher cost of financing making people hold the cars they have has further reduced the supply.
> There's a saying that a new car loses 50% when you leave the lot.
New cars in no way lose half of their value when you drive them off the lot. The saying is that a new car loses ~10% of it's value when you drive it off the lot [1].
[1] https://www.carfax.com/buying/car-depreciation
Right or wrong, the _saying_ is that "a new car loses half its value as soon as you drive off the lot." I've heard that repeated from many people across multiple regions in regards to buying a new vehicle. I've always heard half, never 10%, even if 10% is the more demonstrable amount.
That saying has always been a huge exaggeration, though. The price of a barely-used car is usually single-digit percentage points lower than an actually new one.
Or it could be the simple explanation:
That current EVs just depreciate faster than ICE cars (in the US).
The article's chart is about used ICE vs EV prices in the US...
New EVs are definitely not 2x as good as a few years ago at half the price. Not sure if you've seen the price of new EVs in the US without subsidies.
ICE cars don't have a ~20% range depreciation after 5 years. EVs do. One would expect them to depreciate faster, until there's a solution for that.
That's not really a problem if they depreciate faster if the total operation cost is lower - which it almost certainly is for the Chinese EVs (relevant to most of the world).
This entire argument relies on new EV prices declining like other technologies, but this doesn't seem to be the case. E.g. the Nissan Leaf is ~$30,000 and has been for almost a decade. (Guess you could make a case with inflation... but nowhere near the technology price curves.)
It is the case globally. BYD sells EVs starting at $7800 [1][2], and Toyota sells an EV for $15,000 in China [3].
This may also be why Teslas are holding their value better than any other EV. Teslas are usually bought by U.S. consumers, who are forbidden from buying any of the cheaper global EVs by import restrictions. For fleets that buy models that are sold globally, they compete in the global market and are subject to global price declines.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs5h6R2jLUQ
[2] https://insideevs.com/reviews/769113/byd-seagull-good-video-...
[3] https://motorillustrated.com/toyota-launches-15000-bz3x-its-...
Tesla's are also mostly made in China now.
The Chinese Tesla's are also dropping in price if you live in a country that hasn't got massive tariffs on Chinese made cars which is basically everywhere in the world except North America and Europe. Tesla literally won't sell you a Model S in Australia for example since it's made in the USA and there's no way they can sell it for a reasonable price.
It's a little damning for the US car market since Tesla's seen as a success of US manufacturing. Globally they are a Chinese made car.
The actual reason why you can't get a Model S in Australia is that Tesla does not manufacture a right hand drive version any more. You're equally out of luck in Japan, the UK, etc.
Also ironically their Chinese made car is said to have better build quality than the US made one.
Maybe not that surprising, in large part the Germans built up the Chinese auto industry, and Tesla went to China to tap into that manufacturing knowledge/talent and backported it to their US factory.
> Teslas are usually bought by U.S. consumers
More than 62% of Teslas are sold outside of the US.
I think they meant the reverse. The majority of US EV sales are of Tesla's: https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/15/auto-brands-leading-the...
The 2012 Nisan leaf had a 73 mile range. The 2025 leaf has a 300 mile range. 4x range at the same price (~30% less with inflation) is a pretty good improvement.
We've reach a point of price stabilization and longevity for smartphones now that didn't exist for the first 10 year ramp. When every new model added fundamental capability, you always want to upgrade, with the sweet spot often being every other year. But now, with better build quality, batteries, and stabilization of features people will keep their phones for much longer. Or buy "new" models that are of older versions since the price/features have been acceptable to run most of the apps they care about for years now. Plenty of people still want the top end for similar reasons to why people buy design clothing, but we've reached a feature plateau. We hopefully are getting close to that with EVs. Seems like around 300 mile range standard was the key thing. Though improved AI driving could change that again.
The main issue with smartphones is software support, as it essentially acts like a built-in time bomb.
Buying an older-generation flagship model to get better features than a current-generation midrange model of the same market price isn't very attractive when it'll have to be replaced after 2 years instead of 5 years.
The only reason US doesn't have an EV cheaper than that is a >100% tariff on Chinese EVs.
Could be part of it, but the US just doesn't have cheap cars anymore. The days of the Geo Metro and the Dodge Neon with a 5 speed and crank windows is over. Car companies have decided to relegate people (in the USA) with either low income, or who cant stomach the type of depreciation every car suffers from, to the used market.
The reality is that there's no margin in cheap cars. You need to look at numbers instead of vibes.
The difference between 4 crank-up window regulators and 4 power window regulators is less than $100. 4 power lock actuators cost less than $20. Switches for all the above are, what, maybe $10?
The same math applies to power mirrors, auto climate control, heated seats, cruise control, and all the rest.
The production cost of a car with "power everything" vs. "manual everything" is a few hundred dollars at most. But consumers expect a much bigger discount for the inconvenience of missing those features (or, conversely, are willing to pay a much larger premium to add those features to a baseline car).
That the US doesn't have cheap cars is simply the reality of what the market demands. Cheap (new) cars don't sell (for more than what it costs to produce them).
2026 Corolla is $25k.
I saw a manual transmission Nissan Versa for $17k.
How much cheaper can they get?
A friend of mine bought a used car in 2007 for ~$4500 in 2025 dollars.
In my mid-20s I bought a 3-year-old Accord for $16k (using a $12k loan) and that was a big stretch for my finances at the time, despite having a good early-career tech job.
Your $17k figure is a lot of money for most folks in the US.
MSRP of an internal-combustion-powered Civic or Corolla is up 30ish percent in the same time period. The 2025 Nissan Leaf is a lot better than the 2015 model too. Range has nearly doubled for one.
What are the ranges across that decade. If the inflation adjusted price is lowering and the main technical limit is improving, it’s exactly what you’d expect from a technology improvement.
Car prices are tough too because how much subsidies, tariffs etc play into it.
But theoretically if you used a US made car you could limit some of that bias.
No, you completely missed the point. The new model is still ~$30,000 but it has better range/charges faster/drives better.
That doesn’t really happen as dramatically with gasoline cars. The powertrain and driving experience of a 5 year old gas car isn’t noticeably different than a current one.
If you buy a 5 year old EV you might get one that charges slow, doesn’t have a heat pump, has worse battery chemistry, battery health management, and the list goes on.
Heck, the Leaf is a perfect example because you’re stuck with chademo fast charging charging instead of CCS or NACS. I wouldn’t touch one with a 9 foot pole unless I planned to exclusively charge at home.
Also, don’t take my comment to mean that I think used EVs are a bad choice, many of them can work very well for many years and use cases as long as you are properly informed.
This argument seems right to me. Old ICE cars are basically the same as new ones. EVs are getting better quickly, so fast depreciation makes sense.
I avoided a used Leaf for exactly the reason you cited...2.5 years ago, and have been very happy with a last-of-its-generation 2023 Chevy Bolt (~ $22K new after tax credit).
But if you don't care about new features, e.g., really fast charging, a used Bolt (55kW max) is a great option!
>>Old ICE cars are basically the same as new ones.
I'm not sure that's totally true. The rate of change might be lower, but new ICE vehicles have higher efficiency (directly correlating to longer EV range) and are safer, more comfortable, and quieter.
I am definitely on the pro-EV side, nearly an evangelist I suppose, but ICE vehicles do improve.
How are ICEs quieter than EVs? Are you talking about the artificial noise EVs put out at low speeds so they don't sneak up on people?
ICEs have longer range, some of them are really fuel efficient, especially hybrids. But they drive relatively more poorly unless you opt for a sports car that is cramped and expensive. It isn't the worse thing in the world to drive an ICE, but it is noticeably less fun than driving an EV.
> How are ICEs quieter than EVs? Are you talking about the artificial noise EVs put out at low speeds so they don't sneak up on people?
I think your second sentence answers your first. Car noise = tire noise + motor noise. EVs have very low motor noise compared to IC.
EVs also tend to have better cabin dampening on average, but that likely has to do with price-band consumer expectations, and not inherent to the method of propulsion.
You know you can disable that. It might be against the law though, and it isn't the EVs that demand noise, it is the society that demands them not to be silent killers. Even Hybrids have to make this noise when they are running on their electric drive trains.
But let's say ICEs were made as quiet, they would be demanded to make noise as well. Also, no one has done anything about tire noise yet, so at high speeds, EVs and ICEs are about the same.
EVs are also much heavier, which contributes to lower noise as well. You've got a massively heavy battery pack between you and the road.
> How are ICEs quieter than EVs?
That wasn't the point being made. The point was that newer ICE cars are quieter than older models, and thus ICE vehicles have improved (at least to some degree) over the same period as EVs.
None of the comparisons I made were between ICE and EV, They're between old ICE and new ICE.
> That doesn’t really happen as dramatically with gasoline cars. The powertrain and driving experience of a 5 year old gas car isn’t noticeably different than a current one.
Depends. I recently went from a manual car to a mild hybrid with an eCVT. Feels pretty different to me.
Hybrids with eCVTs existed 5-15 years ago. You just happened to not be driving one.
Er, yeah, but that’s kinda analagous to the situation with EVs - there’s a big difference going from a 2015 Nissan Leaf to a 2025 Models S - there’s not nearly as much of a difference going from a 2015 Models S to a 2025 Model S.
This isn’t what’s happening though.
I see Tesla Highland models (<1 year old, current gen) selling at significantly larger depreciations than nearly new gas cars. This holds across other EV manufacturers.
This makes a ton of sense considering the recently expired tax credit. The moment you drive an EV off the lot in September or earlier it’s worth $7,500 less than the normal depreciation.
I think if we give the used market a few years without the tax credit it’ll start to look more normal.
I think that only explains some of it, but definitely not all. The difference between gas models is massive. Look at Audi e trons for example which are regularly hitting 70% depreciation in 3 years with relatively low miles.
I think it’s a lot of things: demand is weakening because people are seeing that the attempt to force them on us faltering so we don’t have to switch, trust in reliability is lower, trust in battery durability too.
Also I think some of the myths of EVs advantages are being uncovered: the cost of batteries and tires takes a lot of the cost benefits away. EV charging stations are past 50% of gas station costs, when they used to be subsidized to be free. The complexity of battery, and the immensely complex heating and cooling systems means they aren’t as simple as many thought. There’s also environmental stuff - 2010s was peak climate change anxiety, you got a lot of social credit for an EV then, even more so because they were novel. The novelty factor and lack of cultural emphasis on environment both are degrading prices too.
e-Trons are definitely among the best deals right now in used EVs, but it's down to a confluence of factors specific to that car:
1. It had fairly good charging, but only so-so range. 250 miles seems to be a big psychological barrier for a lot of people and the e-Tron is on the wrong side of that line.
2. It's a luxury car and should be expected to have luxury car depreciation as a baseline
3. It's a luxury car with luxury car maintenance costs
4. It's a luxury car that had (maybe has) some reliability issues which incur luxury car repair costs
5. Audi had very good lease deals when they were new ("trunk money" was a common phrase)
6. Fuel economy is fairly bad when compared to anything other than an EV pickup
All these combine to make it a used car that only appeals to a very specific buyer.
Indeed, and didn't even mention ~30% inflation over the last five years.
I don't think that's a realistic transaction price for the Nissan Leaf. For most of that decade they were all but giving them away on leases as low as $79/mo. There are probably streaming video channels that cost more than a Nissan Leaf.
I'm an upper middle class person who could buy everything new if I wanted, but I still choose to acquire many things used. I have a new TV but my AVR and most of the speakers are second hand. I bought a four year old car. My CPU and RAM are new, but the motherboard and GPU are from FB marketplace. My monitors are new but my desk and office lights are cobbled together. My laser printer is almost twenty years old. I buy a lot of my clothes and almost all of my sporting gear second hand.
I partly don't own an EV because even used they still cost a lot upfront and I'd rather maintain the personal incentive to take mass transit or ride my bike, but when I do eventually go electric, it'll almost certainly be preowned, assuming I can get a reasonable discount off of new.
Depending on how far back you want to look at electric cars you can find them for pretty cheap. Sub $5k versions from 10 years ago were tempting recently when my partner needed a repair on the current (ICE) car. It looked like sub $15k there were many options. For use around the city it would be a good fit, but I ditched the ideas since we're in the process of dealing with partial house rewiring. That might be an update for later.
I think it’s hard to draw any conclusions about the auto market. The cost escalations of cars and the bizarro economy have changed the market fundamentally.
The weird gaps of supply in model years because of the pandemic and prices are just nuts. The value of my 2016 SUV has gone up $4000 since last year. EVs are super volatile — my brother has netted profit from trading them. My girlfriend sold her 14 month old Subaru for $1000 under her cost - the pretax value appreciated.
Hard agree. A drunk driver hit our parked 2015 Mazda CX-5. We paid about $27,000 for it in 2016. The car was totaled and we received about $17,000. That figured out to just about $1100 in depreciation per year for 9 years.
You're right, but it still sucks that my car now depreciates as fast as my Macbook. I don't think batteries will ever hold their value though, and those things constitute at least $10k of an EV's sticker price.
Hopefully as EVs become less ugly-looking, the body and interior hold their value, even if the value of the battery depreciates rapidly.
If somebody made an EV that looked like a 1980s Rolls Royce Corniche- something tasteful- I would buy an EV.
But _why_ would the battery depreciate so much? My 4 year old EV can drive the same distance as it could when it was new. The data we have on EVs just doesn’t support the idea that their range drops a cliff at some point. And if they do, you’re mostly able to have it fixed by swapping the faulty cell module. Which more and more places are able to do. And even when it reaches the end of life, it’s still good for grid applications.
So the way I see it, the EV resale value is really due to two factors. One being that, yes, the typical EV buyer is able to buy new. And the other being knee jerk reaction to used EVs that’s mostly emotion-based.
I expect the resale value become better in some years. And I fully expect end of life EVs costing more than end of life ICE cars, because the battery will definitely be more valuable than a scrap pile.
I think it's also in large part due to the demographics of ev buyers today. Still a lot of wealthy early tech adopters who specifically want the newest thing. Not yet driven by utility value ( not that cars ever really are, lower end but ICE vehicles are much closer to that)
This isn't car specific, it's new technology specific.
I agree (just made an analogy to DSLRs in another comment)
You are spot on. New car EV prices are dropping and tech is advancing.
EVs inherently depreciate less; they're simpler, few moving parts. The motor is sealed. Batteries are lasting longer than expected.
So 'depreciate' in the title is misleading. It may be technically true in that they lose resale value, but they are definitely not less road-worthy than a similarly aged combustion vehicle.
I would absolutely buy a second hand Tesla, they're great value. Probably other EVs too.
The EV car market is rapidly evolving which tends to make people skittish about purchases and tend to the latest innovations. I decided to lease my first EV because I figured it would be outdated pretty quickly.
I was wrong. In reality the main innovation driver is the battery. The car is great and EVs are much less maintenance. I think used sales would be better if there were better aftermarket options for batteries.
I buy used all the time. It is way cheaper and new things are usually not much better (sometimes new things are worse).
For example a lot of new TVs are worse than old TVs, because new TVs have ads in their UIs, and increasingly new TVs don't even come with remotes anymore.
Maybe $30k or $40k are nothing for the average car owner in the USA but that's 3 or 4 times what a small car used to cost here in Europe, even 5 times. Small cars are going extinct or their price doubled because they are transitioning to electric too. The result is that they are selling few EVs and a lot of used combustion engine cars. The EV transition is derailing here because of price, not because of second hand market value.
Exactly. There is such a gap between brand new EV and regular cars that for someone doing 10000km per year it needs on average 8 years before breaking even to account for the price gap. It’s too expensive right now it does makes sense to invest in an EV, except if money isn’t a problem
> when you can get a new one that's twice as good for half the price?
That's the premise. Is that the actual reality?
I'm pretty sure it's a mixture between this and the fact that EVS don't really break down. You have the same amount of them for sale a few years later. Versus gas cars. You have half of them around being parted out. So they do go up in value oddly.
They've pretty much just saturated their own market. Everyone needs a car. Not everyone needs an EV. If you have a garage then yes it makes perfect sense to have an EV. But if you don't and you live in an apartment or you live in a shared house. It's not really going to work for you. People who have their own house don't want old cars. So they basically just have a bunch of older car sitting around that nobody really wants even though they technically do have better value. A $30,000 Tesla and a $30,000 BMW? You'd have to be biased to think that it makes logical sense for the BMW. Sure! It's 40. It's fun but the cost of maintenance. The reliability.... It's not really a family car in the same way. It appeals to more people, but it's not more logical. However, you don't need a garage to charge your BMW. I don't care how fast the car charges. I don't want to go to a charger. I've had my car for 4 years and I've only been to a supercharger twice.
But I fully understand why not everyone has them. Every time I pass by a mechanic shop an oil change place like gas station. I just think of how much wasted time that people use on their cars thinking that it's more convenient.
But but for them in fact it may actually be. Imagine sitting at a charger for 20 mins 2x a week if you drive a lot and use sentry.
Actually EVs break down a lot, more so than ICE or hybrid cars. It turns out that having fewer moving parts doesn't compensate for incompetent engineering and shoddy manufacturing.
https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2025-us-vehi...
Old cell phones and computers are fine from a performance and features point of view. The lack of support, repairability, and durability affect the resale value more than anything.
Tires, summer and winter, are also very expensive. ICE weighs a lot less and generally have much cheaper tires.
It's 100% a reparability issue. When it breaks it will become a brick, that's why.
There are close to zero shops that will work on the powertrain of an EV. The only exceptions are enthusiasts like Rich Rebuilds, etc.
I actually think that the used market for EVs just is going to have more apartment dwellers (who lack home charging infrastructure) and people who only have access to one car (and thus more strongly prefer something that can easily do long trips without much planning). New EVs are new cars which are expensive as hell and primarily going to be purchased by well off people that have houses. And as you said, these people probably aren't getting much work done at the dealership even if we assume the dealership services EVs.
I've noticed in discussions about EVs a lot of people feel range anxiety if overblown, which is probably true. But the "I have nowhere to charge it at night because I don't own a house" problem is usually just ignored even though it seems like a much bigger problem to me.
That’s what I always thought, not having the proper infrastructure is a greater problem because not every apartment has private garage with electricity. In the hyper center of big towns they will never dig the streets to install chargers for every few parking spots and superchargers are rare for the amount of cars there is compared to 3min for gas with ubiquitous infrastructure. Where I live there is often parkings with 50+ cars and no or 2 chargers
Rich runs a youtube channel not a repair shop. There are independent EV repair shops, but you are right that there are not many.
Most people just see ‘old, meh’.
Agree with everything here.
Anecdote:
I purchased an EV this year, my highest priority was range per dollar, and the vehicle I selected happened to be new because of current market conditions. (Equinox EV for under 25k otd after incentives)
That would make leasing the better option because at the end of the lease the leaser has to take them card back....no worry about selling something on one wants to buy.
> You see this in computers, smartphones, TVs, and solar panels
3D printers!
I think a lot of that is economies of scale. The parts needed are not cheap in small quantities, but we finally got to the point that they are popular enough that they are made en masse.
Yeah at the top end there is still a ton of progress, but on bottom end it just recently turned into commodity, to the point they are sold in more general stores.
The bottom end are still incredibly impressive. For $200 you can buy something that just five years ago would have made for good science fiction.
> Instead of threatening to derail the EV transition, lack of resale value might be evidence of the EV transition
People buying new EVs might be bad for environment though.
It's not like those used EVs are getting thrown away—they're just going further down-market than they otherwise would.
yup. and there are a lot more people in America who can buy a 2-3-year-old $20,000 EV than the insane prices those cars were fetching when new!
Hopefully EVs are being purchased to replace existing ICE cars, in which case the falling price is a good thing since it makes them more available at lower price points. Replacing a car with one that is cheaper to run and produces less emissions is usually a good thing.
If people are buying (and storing, and fueling) EVs in addition to their collection of ICE cars, that's probably a separate issue about overconsumption.
A significant fraction of consumers are going to purchase ICE cars (including hybrids) to replace EVs.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/25/ev-owners-want-to-buy-gas-ca...
Consequently, why are used sellers so out of touch, for cars or anything else? I love the idea of buying and selling used, but people ask too much relative to the new price.
There are multiple reasons.
1) A large segment of people make purchase decisions based on payment schedules rather than the total cost of driving or even residual value.
2) Today 2/3 of car loans are are 72 months, meaning that even for lower depreciation rate cars, private sellers are often under water, and may not have the resources to pay off the gap with current market value. [0]
3) Banks have responded with 1/5 new-vehicle loans being 84 months or longer, adding to the problem
4) For around the ~40 years I have been paying attention, private sellers almost always think they should get the dealer price and not the private party price.
There are other reasons, but we are in a situation where it would be amazing of we avoid another 2009 like crash in the market.
[0] https://www.edmunds.com/industry/press/underwater-and-sinkin...
If they are out of touch, then the cars aren't selling, right? Because if they are selling for that price, then by definition you are out of touch and the sellers know what the market will bear.
My friend told me that his in-laws absolutely refuse to buy a new car, as their whole lives they’ve been told it’s an awful deal. Instead, they’ll get something a couple of years old and save maybe a few thousand dollars on a $40,000 vehicle.
It drives him batty.
So, I’d say there’s a potential the used buyers are the ones out of touch, and that people like those in-laws probably aren’t buying EVs.
I've told this story before, but I like telling it, so here goes.
I once went shopping for a Mustang Cobra, back when they were cool and I was young and into those kinds of cars. The local Ford dealer had their new car lot next door to the used lot, literally separated only by a driveway.
I went to look at the 2004 Cobras they had a half dozen of, and they were marked down (IIRC) $8000 off MSRP. I thought "Cool, the 04 is no different from the 03, so I wonder what I can get one of those on the used lot for." And walked over to look. The 03s were priced higher than the marked-down price on the 04s a couple hundred feet away. At the same dealer.
I brought it up with the used car manager, incredulous at what he was asking for the used ones. His response was "Yeah, go buy one of the new ones, these will sell just fine." I asked why and he said there is a whole class of buyer that won't even look at new cars. That the new car market and the used car markets are not in fact sharing the same space, even if it seems like it would make sense for people to cross-shop. So he priced his used cars at whatever the market would bear, which turned out to be higher than Ford would unload the new ones for.
Does this happen often? Perhaps not. But over the years I've bought new cars on several occasions where the used equivalent was going to save me a whopping $3-4K for a car that was two or three years older and with some miles. It did not make any financial sense whatsoever to buy the used one for such a small discount.
I was literally in this situation this year. My parents needed an upgrade, and as I was researching it, the 2 year old used cars were just 1-2k EUR cheaper than the same model new with a slight discount. Of course we got the new one, if only for having the full warranty period.
> Instead, they’ll get something a couple of years old and save maybe a few thousand dollars on a $40,000 vehicle.
A used 2 year old Ioniq 5 is selling for about $15-20K less than MSRP.
Some years ago, a friend bought a 2 year old Forester - for a full $10K less than MSRP.
It's not a "few thousand dollars".
(Oh, and personally, if you buy a 2 year old car - you're paying way too much. 6-8 year old cars are a good value).
>> people like those in-laws probably aren’t buying EVs.
> A used 2 year old Ioniq 5 is selling for about $15-20K less than MSRP...It's not a "few thousand dollars".
The Ioniq 5 is an electric vehicle. The whole point of this article is that EVs depreciate significantly faster than Internal Combustion Engine vehicles. A brand new ICE vehicle depreciates quickly but not to the point of losing 50% in 2 years.
>6-8 year old cars are a good value
Agree.
I did point out another ICE car that lost $10K.
In general, particularly for higher priced cars, how many do you know that don't lose about $10K in value after 2-3 years?
>It's not a "few thousand dollars".
It is if you're buying a 4Runner or top of the line diesel pickup or some other meme car that people buy because of how great the internet says it is.
But in the general case I agree with you.
There was a big change in the used market after Covid, that may not have fully worked itself out yet.
Have you bought or sold used recently? You can find a fair price, but it's a big time commitment, and stressful.
Plenty of people must find this worthwhile, otherwise sellers wouldn’t be able to find buyers and they’d be forced to reduce price if they want to sell.
Plus, the listed price is often aspirational. Savvy buyers will typically negotiate the price down.
I have to admit that I’m not a savvy buyer and always buy new though. But I know people who do this very successfully.
That's how it goes in my experience with the used market, for anything, really. People go online, browse around the listings to get a feel of the prices, and post a price based on that. That's a mistake. The prices that are easy to find and most common are for the items that aren't moving. When someone finally posts an item at a price that buyers are willing to pay it usually gets sold in a few days, if it's something in demand.
I've only ever found good deals on used stuff by pure chance or by watching the market over weeks. It takes both patience and decisiveness, otherwise someone else swoops in before you.
All of this is just a way of saying that the market does not agree with someone's personal opinion on value. "That's a mistake" sounds right but if the market is willing to pay, then was it really a mistake?
> I've only ever found good deals on used stuff by pure chance or by watching the market over weeks. It takes both patience and decisiveness, otherwise someone else swoops in before you.
That sounds like it is exactly how things are supposed to work. If the average price were a good deal, it would by definition not be a good deal. It should take some work or some waiting, if you want that price.
>"That's a mistake" sounds right but if the market is willing to pay, then was it really a mistake?
But it's not willing to pay. That's my point. That's why those postings sit unsold.
>If the average price were a good deal, it would by definition not be a good deal.
Let me clarify: I mean "good deal" in comparison to just buying new. Take headphones, which is something I've bought used a few times. I found a pair of SHP9500s for like 20% of the price of new ones; they had some visible wear, but they weren't broken and they sounded perfect. That's what I'd call an excellent deal. Another time I found a pair of HE400ses for 60-70% of the price of new, and they looked mint. That's a good deal and how the used market should work. The buyer pays a little less with the risk that the item might have some latent defect that's building up, and the seller gets to recoup some of his money.
A bad deal is paying 90% for that same risk and uncertainty, which is what I see most often. Yeah, maybe the product is even verifiably in good condition, but at that point the difference is so small that why would someone even bother?
I felt like my new factory order car buy recently was a big time commitment and stressful to get a fair price.
>why are used sellers so out of touch
Math.
You don't see what sells because it's no longer on the market.
A vehicle that sells in 1mo is on the market 30x longer, seen by 30x more people, etc, etc, than one that sells in 1d and only takes 1/30th as many of them on the market to fill up your FBMP feed.
Now, not a lot of cars are priced to sell in 1d, but also 30d is a comically low upper bound as well. Adjust the numbers as you see fit.
Sellers might be out of touch with your sensibilities but they are not out of touch with their own market. Used sellers ask that much because buyers are willing to pay that much.
It's difficult to decouple your knowledge of how much you paid for something. Even if you intellectually know the fair market value of something is now 0.1x what you paid for it, it can still feel like you're just losing all that money by accepting that price.
Yeah. This is called "anchoring" in behavioral economics research. People can't let go of the price they last paid for the good as the "correct" price, and so are reluctant to drop to the true market-clearing price.
This is also why cereal makers rely on shrinkflation to raise prices, and why home prices are sticky downwards, and why companies resort to layoffs rather than wage cuts. In an individual consumer's mind, prices should stay the same.
I think this is also a baby step away from one basis for hoarding behavior. The hoarder cannot see the many cases where the loss of value has already happened whether you retain the item or discard it. They think the full loss is realized the moment it is discarded.
Is a new EV twice as good as a four year old one?
Does it go twice as fast? Does it have twice the range? Is it twice as comfortable? Is it twice as safe?
My data point: old Kona Electric vs new Ioniq 6. Acceleration is faster, but not twice as fast. It does charge 40-50% faster though, and that is life-changing. Not twice the range but 360 mi vs 220 mi is a huge improvement. More than twice as comfortable, and that’s switching from the top of the line to the base model. Mostly due to better climate controls and a huge amount of legroom. Both have 5 star Euro NCAP scores. But now the lane keep assist now works at any speed and there are more warnings about cars and other obstacles, so there’s a safety improvement. And it’s not twice the price: the MSRP was cheaper!
The value isn't there to justify double the price, but yes a new EV is gooder than an older EV in every single category.
The new Model Y surely is safer, more comfortable and has a longer range and a better battery.
Might is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your last sentence. I’m genuinely curious, what odds is this evidence of transition versus not?
Exactly ^^^ This situation reminds me of the 90s with the PC market, where PCs were changing so fast, and getting cheaper every day - I think Weird Al put it best: "My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks / But it was obsolete before I opened the box".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos
What a reference. Thanks for taking me back to the 90s. I have fond memories of memorizing Running with Scissors :)
Yeah, tech for this stuff is moving super fast. It's hard to know what will endure, what will be upgradeable, and what will be cast aside.
I recently bought a low mileage used EV for relatively cheap. I'm hoping I'll be able to drive the battery into the ground. Then I'm betting that, in 6-8(10?)yrs when I need a new one, there will be better battery chemistries so I can extend the car's life even further.
If that were true than the market would value used goods as essentially free, so there wouldn't be a reason to buy anything new. The reason there is not a huge used market for technology is because they are no longer supported or are deprecated on purpose by the producer.
Sub-Headline from this article: "Plummeting resale values are threatening to derail the world’s transition to electric transportation."
Alternative take: "EVs now easy to afford for the 80% of Americans who don't have $50-90k to spend on an EV!"
This year I bought a 2022 EV with 16k miles. A luxury brand. The sticker price when new was $79,000. I paid $35k. It was an off-lease vehicle so if anyone took a bath, it was the bank. I would never in a million years spend 80 grand on a car but now I have a great EV.
Battery life is not a huge concern. Any more than timing belts/chains, transmissions, etc. can be dauntingly costly repairs for cars with 150k miles or more.
I also have a gas car which I love (spouse drives the electric for a much greater commute) so I'm no EV absolutist. But this whole premise is stupid. EV adoption has had 2 main blockers: 1. only rich people had justification to buy them until recently, and 2. Charging space for people who don't have their own private garage.
Now #1 is no longer a factor. This is a GOOD thing.
Picked up a 10 year old Fiat 500e with 50k miles for $5k as my daughters first car. She and my wife love it. Way more power than the gas model, and a super fun drive.
Thank you "Plummeting Resale Values"!
Fun fact -- three years after the first 500e went on sale, they were going through auction off-lease at $4K (in the US, at least). Ouch! I remember this vividly because a coworker of mine's wife had purchased one brand new for over 30 grand.
For a two car house, having one electric and one ICE vehicle seems like a no brainer, assuming charging space at home
I don't hear this blatantly obvious point made often enough. 100% EV penetration seems optimistic any time soon, but 30% seems like a slam dunk.
The other day I randomly took a look at car sale listings and found a 2yo Tesla Model 3 long range with 43k km for less than half the MSRP.
There's about a dozen such offers on that one site that I checked and that's just Teslas.
FUD about battery life and having to spend over $10k to replace one was a large factor in EV depreciation. Some people assumed car battery life was like that of a cell phone or a laptop, perhaps 3 years. There is increasing evidence that EV batteries with good battery management systems will last 15+ years (see https://www.geotab.com/blog/ev-battery-health/). Once the general population understands an EV will outlast a gas car and needs less maintenance, resale value should improve.
lol, I was looking at fun cars for my most recent purchase, and Audi E-Trons are available for 50% off if you buy them just a year old. Apparently they stabilize in price after that, but GOODNESS GRACIOUS that's a big dropoff in a single year. It was crazy to see Audi's newest top-of-the-line offering (not their RS offering, to be clear) for the same price as an entry-level BMW M.
> For Tesla owners in the U.S., their 2023 Model Ys are worth 42% less than what they paid two years ago
I want to suggest that there are recent reasons why Tesla, as a brand, has specifically gotten a bit less popular that are unrelated to the entire EV category. (It's Elon. He's the reason.)
That said, to the extent the result holds true for the entire category, I'd suspect it's because EVs are still fairly immature. It's like "resale value of desktop PCs falling rapidly" back in the 90s, when the field was advancing quickly enough that buying used was genuinely a bad idea.
There are other factors, too. As an owner of a 2023 Model 3, I am acutely aware of them. It's not just image, but prices. The 2023 Model 3 & Y were expensive, and Tesla started slashing the prices in 2024. This absolutely destroyed the resale value for people who paid near the high point.
I suspect people don't really notice this as much because if you are familiar with regular manufacturers you are used to the price (well, the MSRP at least) staying rock steady for a year at a time. Tesla moves their prices around quite a lot by comparison, which can be very detrimental to the used market when it drops quickly.
This got me curious about tesla prices over time. Turns out someone has a nice spreadsheet of this. I don't know about the accuracy, but it's a cool spreadsheet.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F5IQOynIawoXiJPVarLD...
> This absolutely destroyed the resale value for people who paid near the high point
This is definitely true, but it's funny how much hand-wringing is being done about those people, who already bought EVs and really don't need to replace them like 3-4 years into ownership (they might want to for vanity, but if so they're either rich or love wasting money).
"Destroyed resale value" is just another word for "provided amazing prices to a great used market." These "destroyed value" cars are great almost-new cars available at prices competitive with gas cars. In California with horrific electric rates, if I charge my used EV at the "non-peak" time it's like buying gas for my old car at 2.50/gal. In places with much better rates it's more like $1 a gallon. And these are cars that are now available for the same price as a comparable gas car. I'd say this is a huge win for everyone.
Well yes, it's a matter of perspective, and good used prices are better for society as a whole. You're welcome :). Someone who buys my Model 3 for 35 grand less than I paid for it a few years ago is getting a pretty good deal. But despite my wife wanting something in a different form factor, we're keeping the Model 3 a while longer because selling it would realize what is just a theoretical loss right now. It's just psychological, but it definitely influences our choices.
I would personally run that model 3 into the ground.
In the UK the price of gas is currently around the equivalent of $7/gal at the cheapest due to how it’s taxed here and the absence of a subsidy.
Electricity is around 18c/kwh overnight.
I can’t understand how gas cars get sold here anymore at all.
Me neither. My fuel costs went from £1000 a year to £100. And I don't even do that many miles. Why isn't everyone jumping on this? Meanwhile a lot of moaning about the "cost of living crisis". People are strange.
Electric and internal combustion cars do not cost the same though. Even a plug-in hybrid which only has ~50mi range before the ICE turns on was a +$8k feature (in practice, $10k - $12k after dealer shenanigans and taxes) when I last bought a car. I'd have to drive 8+ years without ever using a drop of gasoline for that to make sense, by your numbers. A full EV was $20k - $30k more than similar ICE models.
That's in the US where we have a bunch of tariffs to protect the local auto industry.
In the UK, you can get really cheap EVs because the china ev and battery market is open to them and their importers.
Further, because of the nature of both public transport and the city layout of the UK, there's much less of a need for long range EVs. Almost everything there is both walkable and within walking distance. It's very unlike the US.
I survived in the UK for 2 years on foot. It was really not that bad.
The Hyundai Kona Electric starts at £32,400. Which is ~$43,500 freedom bucks.
But there's very little reason why the majority of brits couldn't survive with the Dogood Zero which starts at £5,500 (and has a 50 mile range).
Those comparisons were from the same manufacturer, so tariffs should be similar.
I ended up going with the RAV4. I just looked and the gas powered RAV4 is $29k, while the plug in hybrid model (toyota doesn’t do full EV) is $45k, so there is still a very big difference in price.
I don't think I could understand not getting an EV in the UK. Everything is so close together and public transit is really good. You can practically survive in even the most remote regions with just a bike alone.
For someone who doesn't drive an EV, what is that in $$/mi?
EV sedans use ~ 250Wh/mile. So £0.18 is ~$0.24. So you are looking at about $0.06/mile.
Much cheaper if you get a much smaller EV (which are much more available in the UK).
For example, the Dogood Zero uses 95Wh/mile which means $0.02/mile.
> and Tesla started slashing the prices in 2024
Jan 2023 was when prices were slashed, and the $7,500 tax credit came in.
You're right, I was off by a year. We have a 2023, but we bought it in December 2022. Not at the high point, exactly, but still before a big slash in prices, and before the credit. We mistakenly thought the credit wasn't going to happen.
If I sell the car anytime soon it will definitely be the most I've ever "lost" on a car purchase. Oh well.
That's unfortunate. I also had a few cousins buy a Tesla just before the price changes and credit happened. I paid $25k or so less than them at the end of 2024 for a better car. Early 2020s in general was an awful time to be a car buyer.
I bought 2023 April after first price drops and EV rebate at its highest point (this is in NZ). I was looking at used ones which were about 3-4k usd cheaper at the time. After some timewaster I figured savings are not worth it and bought new. Tesla did another drop next week and refunded me about 2k USD without me realising.
Fast forward to now it’s worth about 30% less but thats what I saved on fuel.
A friend of mine sold their Model S recently because a)Elon and b)their neighborhood where Elon is not popular. They got a Lexus hybrid instead. They were bummed out because they loved the car. They don't tickle me at all - I like his Lexus better - but hey to each is own.
Not in my neighborhood. I’ve seen strong sales of the new models and tons more used Teslas on the road. The competitive used prices have helped expand their audience tremendously.
has TSLAQ ever been right? Maybe short term but never long term.
> has TSLAQ ever been right? Maybe short term but never long term.
Any rational view of TSLA's business and future prospects suggests that TSLAQ is right, but that the timeline for proving it out may be extended (and there's a saying about that, right? Something about the market staying irrational longer than you can remain solvent). TSLA is a meme stock at this point. I wish it were not part of the S&P500, because I hate to be exposed to that volatility.
But I'm often wrong, so maybe this is yet another example.
I’ve read that same sentiment back in 2016. Only difference being that “meme stock” wasn’t a word back then.
I also love the excuse: “I’m right. I’m just not putting any money behind my conviction because the market might deviate from my truth.”
What is that “insight”, that “prediction” worth, if you can’t put money on it without going broke?
I think I would eventually win the bet. I just don't think my timeline or funding is in a position where I want to wait it out. I think TSLA is detached from the fundamentals and I haven't heard a good rationalization that explains what I'm missing. I get that the stock market is aspirational, the price you see is the collective hopes & dreams for the future, but at some level there needs to be an explanation, a vision that seems plausible. What is Tesla doing today that leads to their current valuation, what does that path even look like?
The other reason is that Hertz was dumping most of their large inventory of Teslas on the used market. No one wanted those cars as rentals and they cost too much to maintain.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/06/ev-sales-slump-hertz-dump-ta...
The article literally says that tesla depreciates the least among evs.
It doesn't present any such data. Only this one vague quotation from the manager of Polish vehicle history report website autodna.pl:
"Premium brands consistently retain higher resale value than mass-market brands, for both ICE vehicles and EVs. No one knows what entirely new Chinese marques will cost in the secondary market – for instance, what a 5-year-old Omoda will fetch"
Everything concrete in the article is about how Teslas, specifically, have precipitously declined in value, except for one paragraph about how nobody wanted to buy used vehicles from BluSmart (an Indian company that "collapsed in April amid financial fraud allegations").
Yeah, that Tesla fares better than a Chinese brand we've never heard of doesn't mean much to me. Are there 5 year old ICE Omodas to compare their expected value loss? For Americans, I think it'd be interesting to put compare against several year old Rivians, Ford F-150 Lightnings, etc.
I think there is really not enough good data to draw conclusions yet. The EV market is so young, and Tesla was basically the only non-compliance EV for several years. At this moment the expected value on my 2024 Lightning is way closer to what I paid for it than the expected value on my 2023 Model 3 is compared to what I paid. But that could just be situational.
I have been telling people, though, on the Model 3 forum that they should be leasing unless they are extremely sure they'll keep the car for a lot of years. Tesla's residuals have been way more optimistic than what the used car market suggested reality would look like. Only a problem if you sell at about three years, but maybe worth hedging your bets.
I’m in this boat. I’m voting with my wallet.
All the power to the people who love their Teslas, you do you.
I completely support voting with your wallet. Where the anti-Tesla people lost me was when they decided that anybody who owned a Tesla was nazi/fascist/whatever by extension, and it would be totally okay to abuse them or their car.
Fortunately that has subsided a bit, I haven't heard as much chatter about it in the last few months. And anecdotally, there are still quite a lot of "just got my new Tesla" threads on the Model 3 subreddit -- I think sales totals have still been a disappointment, but they haven't tanked.
Yes, all the anti-Tesla people went to a meeting a decided that abusing cars was on the menu.
(hint: if even a small majority of them felt that way, there would have been many many orders of magnitude more incidents. more than any gap in reporting could cover. figure out where that narrative was born though.)
Point taken, it was just the loud ones ruining it. Though in my mind, when I think "anti-Tesla people" I am casually excluding the people who are not vocally so. Arbitrary, yes, but how I tend to think about it. I know a lot of people who are anti-Tesla in the sense that they will never buy one, but aside from that you will never hear anything from them.
If you decide to define vocal as willing to damage cars, that's your prerogative.
There a many (many) more people who are vocally anti-Tesla and not willing to damage cars, again, evidenced by the ratio of vocalized anti-Tesla sentiment to real incidents.
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> I'll never buy a nazi car, used or new
I don’t see what the Volkswagen Beetle has to do with EV reselling.
Maybe it had the "I bought this long after I knew Hitler was a fascist" bumper sticker?
The current leadership of VW presumably was not around for WW2. Unless you mean to say that they currently support fascism?
The normalisation of the word "Nazi" really is a scourge in modern society. An actual, real life Nazi, would want the extermination of the Jewish people. Let's reserve that word for such monsters.
You may not like a lot of Elon's opinions (myself included), but he is far from a Nazi.
He did the Nazi salute twice on stage. He shared anti-semitic propaganda on X, unbanned known nazis, openly campaigned for AfD, a party that has actual Nazis in its ranks, renamed his AI chatbot Mecha Hitler. The list goes on.
He is very much a Nazi sympathizer just like Ford was.
In an attempt to keep this conversation about technology, all I'll say is that Elon is a self described free speech absolutist, which is what he's enacted on X - and hence the unbanning of "known nazis". I have to agree with this (a position I've not always held). It's better to bring out and allow speech to be held and more importantly: challenged. This at least is something to treasure in the US, as we are losing here in the UK.
Elon may describe himself as a "free speech absolutist", but his actions betray his insincerity in saying that. The man isn't even mildly pro free speech. He is only "absolute" about defending the speech that he likes and agrees with. With that in mind, it really says something about his beliefs when he defends and even boosts actual nazis.
VW, Porsche, Audi, BMW, and Mercedes are doing fine without you.
Tesla will also be fine once Musk goes away. The problem right now isn't the actual car, its that you are handing money to a company that directly affects his wealth, even if you buy second hand.
You think this is clever but it's not, unless one of the executives was recently caught doing nazi salutes on a stage, and on camera, and I missed it.
> (It's Elon. He's the reason.)
Which is really weird isn't it? He did his best to help reduce America's debt while the Democrats do everything they can to increase it. Instead of showing appreciation, far left assholes attacked the Tesla brand, factories and Musk himself...for trying to help us get out of the deep debt hole we are in.
2/10. Mainly for writing full sentences.
Considering that independent analyses all find that DOGE's efforts didn't really accomplish much of anything in the budget department, his best wasn't very good. Which isn't surprising? He was aggressively slashing the tiniest little sliver of the US government's total budget. (Visible, yes. Significant, no.) As the saying goes, premature optimization is the root of all evil.
Folks really need to quit looking at these things in such a heavily politicized light. Because when we are biased toward thinking something is definitely good or definitely bad based purely on the party affiliation of the person who proposed the idea, that fundamentally undermines our ability to discern what is and is not actually working.
And also, frankly, all this stupid name calling is fucking stupid.
Not falling for the ragebait
Well, except he directly caused the debt to go up, and killed hundreds of thousands of people, while being really awful to everyone. I know it is tempting to think this isn't true if you're in an info bubble, but unfortunately it is! Wish I could buy another Tesla, they're great cars.
Let's do a thought experiment.
Say the govt wanted everyone to buy more Rubik's Cubes (cause they help you become smarter).
Their plan to do this is not to pay the Rubik's company to make them cheaper, but instead to give everyone $5 spendable on Rubik's Cubes only. The cost of a cube prior to this was $8.
The day that decide that, the Rubik's company ups the price of a Cube to account for this incoming onslaught of buyers and get more profit. They can safely up the price without losing sales because A) everyone wants to get smart and B) The overall cost of a cube is still cheaper than before. You can get a $10 cube for $5, which is less than $8.
More cubes are sold than ever before.
Now the market is flooded with cubes.
Now the govt says "Great! Everyone has cubes. Let the intelligence revolution commence!" So they remove the subsidy.
$10 Cubes are now QUITE expensive, so the Rubik's company reduces the price back to the $8 it was before. But wait a second, now the market is flooded and people are used to paying effectively $5 for a cube.
This is what's happened with EVs.
I think you're right that contributed, but at least the federal EV subsidy was trying to mitigate that effect by also subsidizing used EV purchases. I just bought a used PHEV and got a subsidy right before the cutoff. So the effect might get worse now that the program has ended, though I suppose new EV prices should come down too.
Yeah interestingly, Hyundai recently cut prices on their EVs in anticipation of this. To me, it was confirmation that they had inflated prices in recent years.
> cause they help you become smarter
Solving them is a question of knowing the algorithm and applying it. It makes you better at pattern matching.
> everyone wants to get smart
In most social situations people want to have fun. They'll intentionally consume substances which reduce their "smarts" in an effort to achieve this more easily. They will lie to your face about this because _appearing_ smart is all they actually care about.
> Now the market is flooded with cubes.
That are lower quality than what was being made prior to the subsidy.
> This is what's happened with EVs.
Inflation also halved the value of money. The story seems simple but it's obviously more complex than a simple analysis would allow for.
The battery uncertainty is real, but I think the bigger issue is information asymmetry.
Looking at actual market data, the spread on used EVs is wild - a 2022 Tesla Model S ranges from $57 to $112k depending on trim/condition (https://cardog.app/tools/valuation/tesla/model_s/2022). That's a $60k spread on the same year vehicle. Compare that to ICE vehicles where the range is typically much tighter.
When buyers can't confidently price an asset, they discount heavily. The depreciation problem might actually be a data problem - we just don't have the standardized battery health reporting and historical comps that exist for ICE vehicles yet.
Not even just the battery (although that probably is the biggest one), but maintenance in general.
If I buy a 5 year old Corolla with 50k miles on the clock, I have a pretty good idea of what maintenance is going to like for the next decade, and I know a mechanic who can do the work.
I have no idea at all what will happen with a comparable Tesla over 10 years.
Everyone likes to focus on the battery, but in my experience with Ford, Honda and Nissan, there's more frequent expensive surprises in gas engine sedans.
Replacing the passenger occupant detection sensor for the airbag system in my 2007 Ford Fusion cost $2K. After a series of other issues with things like the transmission and fuel injector, I ultimately traded it in for $500.
I got a used Nissan Leaf with low mileage for $18K a few years ago and haven't taken it in for anything yet. Battery health is still at 90%, and I could get that replaced for around $6K if I needed to.
I feel a palpable sense of relief that the surprise maintenance bills have stopped.
I hate to break it to you, but electric cars probably have the exact same "passenger occupant detection sensor"
Obviously we don't have ICE levels of data, but as far as available data that we do have, that battery uncertainty is probably unwarranted. Battery life seems to be dropping much slowly than early estimates predicted (and this is including vehicles with >100,000 miles, and >10 years of driving history). Risk acceptance is not a thing that has one right answer, so I won't try and say that people are wrong for how they are assessing this risk, but I know that I personally had zero compunctions at all when I recently bought a used EV, and just appreciated the price I was getting.
Now is probably the golden age for buying used EVs, because eventually this notion that the batteries are untrustworthy is going to go away (you can argue about whether this will occur because the technology improves vs. people will better realize where it already is, but it will happen).
This is including the Model S Long Range (decent performance, more focused on efficiency) with the Model S Plaid (fastest accelerating street-legal car in the world?). It's really not realistic. The median is $68k, which is probably much closer to the typical price you'd pay.
The article is making a huge mistake though, comparing apples to oranges.
Resale value of EVs doesn't depend on mileage nowhere near as much as ICE cars. EVs are just much simpler machines and electric motors can do a million miles with no maintenance, and the only maintenance you have is the oil in the differential, which is often simpler because it is single-speed. Compare that to thousand different mechanical parts that all wear out in a ICE engine. Which is why ICE cars resale value is determined by the odometer.
What drives EV resale value is the health of the battery, which is influenced more by recharge cycles and straight up passage of time.
And the anecdotal evidence of a commercial fleet going bankrupt and not getting much for their EVs... Well yeah, would you buy from such a source? I wouldn't. They usually don't follow longevity advice for battery charging, because they have to optimize for time-in-use.
As an anecdote, I bought all my ICE cars second hand, and would usually sell them 3-4 years later just before major maintenance was needed. My EV is now 8 years old, runs like the day I got it and had 1 repair, when the motor that drives the window up and down broke and battery capacity is still the same, or if it changed it's such a small change I didn't notice. I don't expect to sell any time soon, if ever. I expect I will just do a battery swap in 5-10 years.
> What drives EV resale value is the health of the battery, which is influenced more by recharge cycles and straight up passage of time.
The resale value drops much faster than the battery health. Hyundai has been tracking the degregation rates of the batteries in their Ioniq 5 vehicles and they've been holding up surprisingly well. Most of them have >90% battery capacity at over 100k miles. Their data was sparse for 250k miles, but half of them were still over 90% capacity.
I had trouble finding the original video, but the data is included in this summary: https://youtu.be/s3DMd0e4loQ?t=17s
Well ok, the perception of battery health :)
The article is comparing 2 scenarios that have other explanations: a fire sale of a large fleet and Tesla which has an image problem because of its leadership.
I’m not saying the article is wrong I’d just like to see broader representation (Chevy bolt, lucid air, etc).
Worse than that, the main vehicle it compares everything to is the Model Y. There may have been one or two things related to Tesla this year, and not other EVs, that might have hurt resale values for some reason...
My battery is starting to get to unacceptable degradation; I have a 7 year old EV and my top battery percentage is 78% of the purchase.
I inquired about a battery swap and it's around $10->12k. I'm seriously considering it in the next couple of years as I see that as buying another 9->10 years of life for my car.
I might grab a used EV instead, though, as the one thing my car lacks is a heat pump, which kinda sucks in the winter.
Just like for ICE buyers will learn about the important things about EV choice and ownership.
An EV maker that sells parts at inflated prices including the battery will get less and less customers.
As those customers look at catalog prices for important parts including the battery before buying an EV.
Random web page on the topic:
https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/costs-ev-battery-repl...
Another listing price:
https://evshop.eu/en/13-batteries
Note the used LFP 55 kWh tesla pack at $4140 so ... $75/kWh.
Your warranty should cover the battery swap. I know my Chevy Volt's warranty is 150,000 miles or 10 years. It may only be 100,000. The length of the warranty depends on whether you live in a CARB state.
If a dealer charges you between $10K to $12K for a swap out, that's the "fuck you for not buying a car that makes the dealership more money" price. Several third-party vendors refurbish and sell EV batteries for much less.
I know what you mean by not having a heat pump sucking. The Volt has resistive heating for wintertime, and it definitely drains the battery. I dress warm and use the seat heaters when I'm driving by myself.
I'm outside the range. I have 170,000 miles
> The length of the warranty depends on whether you live in a CARB state.
Does it matter where you live, or where the vehicle was originally purchased/registered?
Lithium-ion batteries have fallen in price at least 40% since you bought your car in 2018 (https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/charted-lithium-ion-ba...). Assuming there's some correlation between that decline and the replacement price you're facing, which is unfortunately not a given, it would be worth it to hold out as long as you can.
We can only dream of a day when battery packs are a standardized commodity, and as easy to change as motor oil. But modern industry is far too extractive.
Newer battery technology is cheaper, but for a battery swap you'll probably need to buy the same battery tech you already have -- which is probably why a battery swap might not be cheap.
if its a tesla you can probably get it replaced under warranty. i think its 8 years
70% is when they do the swap, but also under 150,000 miles.
No dice for me, I'm at 170,000 miles.
If you put 170k miles on a gas car, wouldn't you have paid for $10-12k in maintenance over that time? At that point you've done 20 oil changes, replaced the spark plugs & air filter 5 times, replaced the timing belt and transmission fluid twice, replaced the brake pads 3-4 times, replaced the brake rotors, water pump, alternator, and maybe even a head gasket, starter motor, and fuel pump.
Assuming you averaged 30mpg, you also put $20k in gas through it. At the current US average retail electricity price of 17 cents per kWh and EV efficiency of 250Wh/mile, recharging would be $7,200 for that same distance. The fuel savings alone are more than the cost of replacing the battery.
For sure. That's why I'm thinking of a battery swap. It'll buy a decade more with the car and is cheaper than any used cars I can find.
For me, a lot of the mileage on a car is wear and tear and general "niceness" of the interior.
In my previous vehicle I replaced the transition, engine, brakes, etc. but I sold it once the interior wasn't "nice" anymore.
This aspect does track between EVs and conventional vehicles.
In the future, it might be worth it to have the interior of an EV refurbished and updated. What I'm really nervous about is the infotainment system, eventually it is out of date but unless you are maybe driving a Tesla, only the original model will work in your car! It would be nice if some of the electronics could be easily upgraded after 10 years. That isn't even counting failure (mine failed and had to be replaced in the first six months, but hopefully that was a product defect that usually hits quickly rather than slowly over time).
If solid state batteries actually come out, they probably won't be retrofitted into existing EVs. That's a bummer, but I guess by the time I'm ready to change cars self driving will be a real thing (the Waymo kind, not the Tesla kind).
> What I'm really nervous about is the infotainment system, eventually it is out of date but unless you are maybe driving a Tesla, only the original model will work in your car!
tbh, it's kind of baffling to me how it seems like nobody else is interested in offering software updates to infotainment without needing to take it to a dealer's service bay, if it's even offered at all.
When I bought my Tesla, at the time, "Streaming" (Which was silently powered by Slacker Radio) was the only music streaming integration, but Spotify was added shortly after my purchase. They've since added YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Tidal integrations.
Map data is fetched on the fly. No need to manually install updates. Hell, how many cars even make that an option? My in-laws have an old Prius (I think first gen, maybe second gen?) with built-in Nav, but has never received a map update. Their nav doesn't even know their home street exists.
It doesn't help that so many cars have lackluster infotainment systems. I had a Subaru BRZ in 2016 and was kinda stoked that I could play MP3s from a USB drive, since back then I actually somewhat maintained a collection. I figured I'd get a thumb drive with all my MP3s on it. But the interface completely flattened the directory structure and put them in alphabetical order. There'd be no way to play a single album in sequence if I had multiple albums by the same artist. My folder organization became worthless.
But I've digressed...yeah, more car manufacturers should offer software updates for their infotainment.
>the infotainment system
Though this is true of ICE vehicles as well although CarPlay has eliminated that to a significant degree.
Maybe this explains one reason the OEMs hate CarPlay so much! If Apple would start arbitrarily cutting off cars over 5 years old from CarPlay, I bet suddenly GM, Rivian, etc would be all about CarPlay. Of course Apple would only do that if the carmakers agreed to give Apple 30% :D
I recently sold my 14 year-old ICE car, and like 2/3 of the maintenance costs were for things that still would have been present if it had been an EV.
Tires, brakes, and windshield washer fluid are the only regularly replaceable parts on an EV. My last ICE car, also that age, required oil, tires, coolant flush (100k miles), transmission (100k miles), water pump, thermostat, timing belt, and tensioners. And lots and lots of filters.
So, either you were really lucky with ICE or extremely unlucky with EVs.
Yes, my ICE required those things, but not including tires, those other things were only like 1/3 of the total maintenance costs. The ICE components ran under 5 cents per km and the non-ICE components ran over 9 cents per km.
I don't see that I was especially lucky with the ICE components, I did all the scheduled maintenance plus some other misc things (water pump x2, bad transmission bushing, etc.) (Oil and filters just don't add up to all that much - I followed the maintenance schedule using high mileage synthetic and high-mileage filters and the total cost was under $100/year at a dealership.)
I also don't see that I was especially unlucky with the non-ICE components, I've got a 13-year sample size of steady, unremarkable maintenance to tires, paint, brakes (these always corroded from salt before they wore down, so no real EV savings to be had on brakes), misc trim pieces, etc. Looking at my Excel sheet of maintenance, I'd expect these costs to be higher on nearly any EV, just because the ICE was a cheap econobox with cheap parts (e.g. tires were small, TPMS sensors were cheap, only 4 lug nuts, etc.), and any newer vehicle is going to have more parts that need replacement/repair, and those parts are going to be more expensive.
Brakes are almost never used on most EVs, you're likely not going to need a single replacement before the battery dies. I've only ever change tires and cabin filters.
Some EVs do have maintenance items beyond tires/brakes/washer fluid. The maintenance schedule for my Lightning, for example, has the first real maintenance at 125K -- for flushing the battery coolant. Fortunately it's the same standard coolant they use for all their cars, and trivial to flush.
Belts, brakes, coolant system hoses, spark plugs, spark coils, various turbine valves if you have turbine, eventually turbine itself, gearbox fluid, oil + filters, fuel filters - shitload of things that need regular maintenance on ICE vs EV
Yes, I'm aware of that, and I'm saying those things only added up to 1/3 of the maintenance costs for my ICE. I responded to a sibling comment to yours with some additional details.
Man when you list all of that, plus constant stink and poison from tailpipe, horrible performance, time wasted in gas stations. Why anyone puts up with this? It’s insanity.
"which is influenced more by recharge cycles and straight up passage of time" would seem similar to "mileage" since both increase in general the passage of time and driving. But yes, driving two cars equal amount of time presumably the ICE will wear down far more than the equivalent EV so the title is quite misleading to those looking at a glance.
Not really in practice.
A lot of charging is influenced by convenience and lifestyle rather than miles, for example:
People charge at work from 68% to 75% because is convenient.
People always draining the battery because they don't have charging at home.
Commercial EVs being charged based on loading/unloading schedules etc.
...
Isn't one "recharge cycle" a full discharge / recharge? So charging from 68% to 75% at work would just be 7% of a cycle, and about the same amount of wear as if you'd skipped that top up and just fully charged at home.
With a battery how fast you charge it, how "full" you charge it to, how deeply you discharge it, the temperature at which you keep it, etc., all affect the degradation rate of the battery. So, because charging a battery from 68-75% is better on the battery than charging from 93-100%, storing the battery full is worse, etc., it isn't necessarily true that "7% charging is the same as 7% charging".
> People charge at work from 68% to 75% because is convenient.
Isn't that almost the best possible way to charge a Li-Ion battery?
It is.
I mean, keeping it closer to 50% might be better, but the returns are so diminished by that point that it's a rounding error of a rounding error.
I keep my limit to 75% unless I have a long drive planned, and nearly all my charging at home. I'll probably have <5% degradation after 100,000 miles.
> I expect I will just do a battery swap in 5-10 years.
Do you expect it will be an OEM part or a remanufactured battery?
My EV is 3 years old, but I have no hope of being able to swap the battery every, at least not in any reasonable way. That said, it'll be fine for my use case for at least 15 years, so whatever :)
> comparing apples to oranges.
In a situation when we're being told to completely give up on apples (ICE cars) and switch entirely to oranges (EVs), I am afraid we'd have to make exactly the comparison you find so distasteful for some strange reason. They are both vehicles, sorry, fruits, after all.
You do not need to use age on the X-axis.
It's fine to compare ICE and EV.
It's not fine to be shoddy with data.
Not sure I understand the part about differentials being single speed, aren’t they unrelated?
I think the phrasing was imprecise and they were referring to the transmission and differential. Most EVs use a single-speed gear reduction system - one gear mesh from motor shaft to a compound gear, another mesh from that gear to the ring gear of the differential. In contrast with ICE drivetrains, there is no clutch or torque converter (the electric motor can operate from a standstill), no reverse gearing (the electric motor can operate both CW and CCW), and no synchronizers and dog-clutches (as in manual transmissions), no hydraulic logic and clutches of automatic transmissions, nor the hydraulically operated sheaves found in CVTs. We've been hobbing gears to operate at those power levels for roughly a century.
I think Porsche has done a 2-speed EV transmission and Lucid moved the differential inside the motor and has two-reduction gear sets on either side, but those are both unusual designs.
My take was: the only lube-requiring, wear-out-fast part was the differential, and on EVs they are much simpler, with less to wear out.
ICEs have MANY wear-out-fast parts (where "fast" is relative) requiring lube, and lube itself suggests the risk of frictional degradation.
Control rods, suspension, alignment, etc are significant costs where I live. Winter climate and road conditions impact this.
Underrated point! Heavier EV's typically burn through tires and wear components in the suspension faster.
Most EVs aren't enough heavier for this to be a big factor. The only reason some people burn through tires faster is because when you have all-the-torque-all-the-time and can use it silently, it is addicting to do so. This is hard on tires. Boring drivers routinely get the same wear life from tires as they did before.
The differential on an EV is the same as on an ICE car. It does the same job either way, it doesn't care whether the power source is gas or electricity.
But on an EV, that's basically the only thing that needs somewhat regular "oil changes". Whereas ICE motors & transmissions also need fluid changes regularly.
Regardless of drivetrain type vehicle repair is absolutely dominated by brake/wheel/hub/steering/suspension components (i.e. the drive force bearing bits between the car and the road).
The EV needs less regular maintenance because it has less fluids though.
And less brake bits, because of regenerative braking. But the rest stands.
> As an anecdote, I bought all my ICE cars second hand, and would usually sell them 3-4 years later just before major maintenance was needed. My EV is now 8 years old
I mean, that sounds quite poor on both counts TBQH. I bought a used 2002 Honda Accord in 2004 and drove it until last year with little more than regular oil changes. I expect to get the same kind of life out of the Mazda 3 I replaced it with. Anything less than 10 years out of a car sounds like something went terribly wrong to me.
Yeah I expect to drive my Lightning for at least 10 years. Probably a lot longer since it's a pretty simple body-on-frame truck. I'm secretly hoping that since the battery just hangs between the frame rails, someone will come along in a few years and offer upgrades.
>the only maintenance
Suspension and tires are the biggest items for EVs. The twist is cheap owner can neglect those and keep driving past service window with ripped bushings and clapped out tires until hitting that magic 3 year goal, then you buy used EV in need of 4 of everything.
You can see the tires, at least, so that will just come off the value. And if you turn in a lease at three years with clapped out tires they'll make you pay for new ones.
So likely the resale value is more percieved tham actual.
Another market failure to adequately assist us in making the best choice.
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One nitpick on the article is comparing a passenger sedan or passenger SUV to a light truck like the F150 when you're discussing depreciation is a bad comparison. Light trucks hold their value better generally for a variety of reasons including because the parts that get used are heavier and are more designed to be maintained with lubrication schedules and such. SUVs are not light trucks and have more in common with a minivan or a sedan. A better comparison would be to compare the depreciation of say a Tesla SUV to like a Ford Escape.
I don't disagree with you, but man is it crazy to hear that a "light" truck these days includes a 5 liter V8 that gets 16 mpg.
"Light truck" is slightly more formal way of saying "pickup truck." And is meant to differentiate the class from commercial trucks like moving vans, dump trucks, and semis.
Smaller pickups like the Ford Ranger and Chevy S-10 are in the "compact pickup" class. (And unfortunately these are not sold in the US anymore. For those with genuine need, we either have to resurrect some old heap headed for the scrapyard or import them on the gray market from Asian countries.)
The Ford Ranger is still (or once again?) sold in the US.
But it's basically the same size as the F-150 from the 80s, and double the size of the Ford Ranger from that era.
By no means is it a compact truck any more.
The Maverick fills that space but has limitations (less towing capacity than a 90's Ranger). I've seen it used by a ton of service folks that need a pickup but not for towing (1500 payload).
Even the Maverick is GVWR 5100. The original Ranger was around 3200 GVWR, which these days almost makes it a kei truck.
Agreed. If the F150 is Ford's "light" truck, what does that make the significantly smaller Maverick?
Maverick is styled like a truck, but unibody design is more like a ute. Same way the Subaru Outback is not a truck
It is a truck.
Unibody might not be commonly used by truck makers, but using it doesn't mean it's not a truck.
A Tread Unibody bulk truck can haul 50K pounds and no one would call it a ute.
I've always found that to be a silly distinction, like it's a thing that matters to use cases in the same way that axle type matters, but it's not the sole distinguishing marker of whether something is a "truck". There are various non-trucks that are body-on-frame - BMW i3, Ford Crown Vic, Suzuki Jimny, etc. (The highest-spec Jimny tows less than the lowest-spec Honda Ridgeline.)
Heavy trucks are industrial/commecial. In comparison to those vehicles, a 5 liter v8 is indeed "light".
The F150 achieves its maximum available payload capacity (over a ton) in the trim level with a 3.5L turbocharged V6.
I'm a little surprised it isn't a regular cab with the 2.7L V6 that gets the highest payload. But they manipulate the suspension components a fair bit between different models so it's not just going to come down to the weight of the engine. The Lightning weighs as much as a gasser F250 but still has a payload in the 1650 pound range; my guess (without doing any research to prove it, mind you) is that the Lightning has the highest GVWR of any F150. I think even the HDPP only gets an ICE F150 up to 7850 GVWR.
On a related note, we have some real candidates on the Lightning forums for being the modern "Danger Ranger" trucks -- turns out you can load a Lightning with well north of 2000 pounds and it still isn't squatting anywhere near the bump stops. Stiff suspension.
Wait until you find out about the proper trucks that use a 7 to 15 liter turbocharged i6 and get 5-8 mpg.
That is city mpg for the less common V8. What is crazy is that is that is what the Toyota 4Runner has gotten for over a decade.
You're confusing SUVs with Crossovers. Most sales are crossovers and they are a taller sedan or minivan but SUVs like the land cruiser, 4runner, escalade, or armada are body on frame and built like a truck including being able to tow several tons.
That's not true from a mechanical perspective. Most SUVs use the same frame and parts as trucks by the same manufacturer (which is why they handle so poorly compared to sedans - it isn't just center of gravity)
By weight (gotta over-count those chevy suburbans, lol) that could be possible.
By number the median SUV is some sort of crossover or compact SUV built on a platform the OEM also builds sedans on.
How much is due to the tax credits, at least in the US? Last time I looked, a big chunk of the expected first year depreciation on my F150 Lightning could be explained by the credit. The expected depreciation in the years following tracked very similarly to ICE F150s.
The EV market is just weird, anyway. Manufacturers have to price to what the market will bear, which may have little resemblance to MSRP. So a good evaluation of deprecation has to figure out how to account for that. My Lightning had an MSRP of 72K but I got it for 51K, which was a very normal price that anyone could get. If I evaluate resale based on the MSRP, it looks pretty bad. If I use my out-the-door cost for comparison, it does not look bad at all (compared to any other new car purchase, of course, which are never going to be the most cost-effective choice for an individual).
Yes, you can safely ignore any article about the U.S. EV depreciation where it doesn't mention subsidies, etc.. I recently purchased a 2025 Nissan Leaf and got 42% off the MSRP. So the first 42% depreciation doesn't have an effect for me, the buyer.
Anyone who has comparison shopped new and used Teslas over the last few years can tell you that the price of <1 year old, low mileage Teslas runs very close to the new price minus $7500.
Exactly what I came here to post. I bet if you subtracted $7,500 from the “new” price then the numbers would be a lot more similar.
In any case, individual buyers shouldn’t worry about it too much. The most financially prudent decision is to keep the car for a long time anyway. My 10 year old Tesla still drives just fine. Its value at the two-year mark wasn’t relevant.
I have a 2018 Model 3 dual motor long range that I bought new right before the first tax credit expired. I never considered another manufacturer because they didn’t have NACS for supercharger access. Only just this year has that started to change. I never considered another Tesla because 1. I didn’t want to repay for FSD and 2. I would lose on the depreciation while there has not been a killer feature that separates my current car from the new ones. Now I wouldn’t even consider a Tesla.
Since owning my car I’ve had to service it only twice. My battery depreciation has been at least to me completely unnoticeable. I basically only charged on superchargers till late 2023 till I got a charger in my garage. I’m sure my battery has lost some small amount of range but honestly I would have to do the calculations to know what it is. It can’t be much.
I will say only this year have I even considered for even just a moment of getting something new. I’m pretty interested in the Lexus steer by wire technology that will come as an upgraded feature on the new RZ. I know that car is not on anyone’s radar and I can understand someone being very hesitant of steer by wire technology. I genuinely believe it’s an interesting feature though and could be a noticeable enhancement to every day driving. It actually makes a yoke style wheel make sense.
Not a surprise when the tech is improving so quickly still.
Why would I pay a significant fraction of the original price for a 2020 EV if a same tier 2025 EV has better batteries and drivetrain that'll probably have a longer lifetime, almost double the range, heat pump and faster charging? That doesn't mean the 2020 is bad, but it's only worth it if you can get it at an enormous discount over the current model.
Meanwhile, a 2020 ICE is pretty much the same as a 2025 ICE aside from the wear and tear.
Once the tech stabilises, so will the resale market.
2025 EVs aren’t double the range of 2020 EVs. The batteries and power electronics are on a learning curve but it’s 2-3% per year, not 10-15% like microprocessors.
Is this born out by real life examples? Is a 2025 Model 3, for example, significantly different technologically from a 2020? Definitely does not have double the range, and the technology has evolved only slightly in that time. The heat pump was introduced in late 2020. (and to be honest, heat pumps have turned out to be less of a slam-dunk than we hoped, they have a minor effect on range for most people)
Not double the range. But you could get one with an LFP battery now that probably has about double the life time in terms of cycles. Closer to 3K cycles rather than 1200-1500 cycles for the NMC batteries common in 2020.
Fun fact, the 2020 model 3 would still have its battery under warranty. That's true for most model 3s with the exception of those that did more than 100K miles or the ones that were sold in 2017. Those would have just started coming out of the eight year warranty. But most of the second hand model 3s are still covered by warranty for their drive trains.
Mostly, second hand buyers can get some decent deals on their cars now and don't have to worry that much about their cars depreciating massively when they sell them on five years later. With EVs most of the depreciation happens in the first few years.
I will say, when you get far enough to worry about only having 1200-1500 cycles, you have extracted a lot of life from the car. It's a good problem to have.
The resale market isn't shaped by technology but market demand which you frame it narrowly to what you place value on.
Otherwise there is no reason for old Porsches and 90s Japanese cars to demand the sticker price they do now.
The people who are willing to pay more for a used car down the road aren't interested in EVs or mass produced ICE cars, if unique enough will continue to be in demand over EVs
ex) New porsche EVs losing value against ICE cars
"Meanwhile, a 2020 ICE is pretty much the same as a 2025 ICE aside from the wear and tear."
One would think and hope so, however numerous ICE manufacturers, even long-term reliability experts like Honda, have been adopting "wet belt" timing belts.
These run submerged/immersed in engine oil, which tends to degrade the belt, often resulting in clogged oil pickups, galleys, etc.
Buyer beware, unfortunately.
EVs are simply immature products. The first truly mainstream models (car manufacturers making EVs their flagship model) outside of Tesla were released this year, or maybe last.
The first few generations of smartphones didn't last very long either (1-2 years). But now they last much longer (5-7 years). EV lifespans will expand in the same way as they mature as a product.
I don't know where this idea comes from. I had a Fiat 500e when it first came out, about a decade ago, and it was fantastic even though unloved by the manufacturer, and it had to go in for a recall for two days once which was a hassle. Still better than the BMW that I bought when the 500e lease expired, because the BMW was in the shop for a whole week for some sort of tail light recall. I only bought the BMW because I was waiting for the Model 3 to come out, and switched to that eventually, and it is far far more mature than any other car of the era.
I bought a minivan when I had kids, and it's such a huuuuuuge step backwards on every front from the Model 3. There's so much ridiculous maintenance for a gas car, it really really sucks. And Toyota's build quality is absolute shit compared to Tesla, which supposedly gets dinged for build quality. All the plastic in the Toyota is falling out, the window seals are terrible, the whole thing is terrible in comparison to Tesla's supposedly bad build quality.
I've taken EVs on thousand mile road trips with an infant, and it was fantastic.
My EV is going to outlast my ICE by a long long time. The amount of fake FUD around EVs is mystifying to me. I can not understand why anyone would want a gas car wheee you have so much maintenance and always have to stop to fill up. So much wasted time and money on that BS.
you know what they say, the plural of anecdotes is not data. The poor quality of Tesla's cars is well known. The high quality of Toyotas is well known as well.
How much of this is due to a high level of pre-purchase excitement followed by buyer's remorse? Anecdotally, I know several people who were gung ho about getting an EV, fully willing to pay its cost premium, who initially loved their EVs but sold them within a year or two after encountering issues that only become apparent with semi-long-term ownership:
— In the US, charging infrastructure is still quite poor, with a high amount of disabled or damaged chargers that aren't apparent on maps. Nothing worse than planning a route around the only charger within a few dozen miles and arriving to find it broken. The overall overhead of having to plan driving/parking around chargers is also too onerous for some people.
— Similarly, people underestimate how much harder long road trips are on EVs, especially when fast chargers are damaged and don't actually supply anywhere close to the advertised amount of current.
— People underestimate how much range degrades in cold weather. One person I know bought their EV in the spring, loved it until winter came around, and then promptly sold it the next spring. In a similar vein, people don't realize how poor and battery-hungry climate control can be in an EV, especially in models without a heat pump.
It would be interesting to rigorously study this, examining whether people buying EVs are more likely to sell them within the first couple years of ownership versus people buying comparably priced ICE cars.
From personal experience over ~6 years of EV roadtrips, the first two really aren't much of a problem with a Tesla or a vehicle that can access Tesla's network.
Other chargers can definitely be a bit more hit-and-miss although they are improving.
These days if you stick to the big networks (Tesla, Electrify America, Rivian, IONNA, etc.) you're going to have a pretty good time. The one-off chargers in municipal parking garages are a different story, I don't really on those unless there is a recent PlugShare review showing that it actually works.
I agree that Tesla's network is universally pretty reliable. For the other networks, I've found it can be quite location-dependent, likely proportional to the density of EV drivers. Bay Area or LA? Pretty solid. Orlando? Not so much.
> charging infrastructure is still quite poor
Now that basically every car can access Tesla Superchargers and vice versa for Teslas, this is really not a problem anymore. We’re at the « sometimes I’m grumpy the best stop for my car does not have the exact amenities I want » stage now.
I guess is worse than the « the stop with the exact amnenities I want is not the provider with the cheapest electricity that I wanted » stage that we are in say, France.
> especially in models without a heat pump.
Oh for- who the fuck is putting resistive heating in an EV?! What brain-dead PM greenlit that pants-on-head jackassery? Was it GM? I can see an American OEM getting that close to the goal line only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Really though, that's just disappointing; I had earnestly assumed every EV that made it to market (in North America at least) would be using a heat pump.
Tesla, Honda, Nissan, Chevy, Fiat and Volkswagen have all produced cars with resistive heat in the past decade (not an exhaustive list, just a list that I could find on the first page of search results). So no, not an exclusively American thing.
Heat pumps are expensive, complex, prone to warranty claims, and subject to additional regulatory control (refrigerants). Resistive heating is cheap and simple.
I'm guessing that the development costs for a heat pump that is good enough for automotive use is well into 8 figures, and would probably take at least a year to fully test.
Given all those constraints, it makes a tremendous amount of sense that many cars were built with resistive heating.
heat pumps are not magical technology. Pretty much every car sold in the West in the last three decades has one. There is only one reversing valve worth of difference between a standard auto AC and a heat pump.
I believe most new EVs have heat pumps [0], but this wasn't common until a couple years ago.
[0] https://www.recurrentauto.com/questions/which-electric-vehic...
Heat pumps aren't free to run, they still require a decent amount of energy and and on shorter trips resistive heating (which is required for other reasons anyway) is quicker.
Yes it was GM. My 2017 Bolt has resistive heating.
> who the fuck is putting resistive heating in an EV
Tesla before 2021.
How did they find F150’s selling for $35k new in 2023? If they’re comparing fleet model F150s either roll up windows to model Ys, that’s an incredibly unfair comparison. You would need to compare similar trim levels with comparable features to a model Y. An F150 with a higher trim has depreciation values similar to an electric vehicle.
So much of this, but not all, could be mitigated with a guaranteed battery "refurbishing" program. Large part of an EV's value is tied up in the battery, which is a (longer term) consumable. So when an EV hits the second hand market, and there is no battery guarantee (or clear and trusted state and history reporting), the estimates on battery value will have to be on the low side, and the overall car value depreciated accordingly.
Traditional gas cars also have wear and tear with parts on the "consumables" spectrum, but these are considered more open to state inspection by a semi knowledgeable amateur, and the car's value is less tied to one specific black-box item.
Initial studies show that EV batteries typically last longer than the car. Making a car 10% heavier so the battery can be replaceable will put a lot of strain on our roads, our grid and our wallet for little benefit.
https://www.p3-group.com/en/p3-updates/battery-aging-in-prac...
An average mid-size EV weighs somewhere in the ballpark of 2000kg. Surely making the battery replaceable would not add 200kg, that claim makes no sense.
Tesla saved 10% by converting to a structural battery, and even before they did so their cars were considerably lighter than competitors.
10% figure can be substantiated?
https://www.laserax.com/blog/structural-batteries
Are they not replaceable already? Older Teslas could literally change the battery in a few minutes. Newer ones aren’t quite so easy, but it’s a fairly quick matter of lifting up seat cushions, undoing some bolts and connectors, and connecting the new one. If your battery dies under warranty, they’re replacing the battery, not giving you a whole new car.
The issue isn’t that the batteries can’t be replaced, it’s that a new battery is quite expensive. Substantially more than a new motor for a typical ICE car.
> 10% heavier so the battery can be replaceable will put a lot of strain on our roads
No it won't. Road wear scales as the fourth power [0] in relationship to axle load, so even a modest increase in weight is still hugely outweighed by the damage done by a fully-loaded semi tractor-trailer (80k lbs). Cars, even EVs, are negligible in terms of road wear.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
That could be done if manufacturers went with some "standard battery factor" like on PCs is 3,5" slot and you can put there HDD, SSD, or whatever fits.
Now you could just exchange battery as a module and replace NCA for Solid State in the future like HDD in the computer and car would be driving just fine.
We're at the laserdisc part of the evolution of EVs. It's too early to standardize now, and besides, there are a lot of real performance advantages that can be gained from customizing battery packaging to the vehicle chassis.
I think modular and replaceable battery regulations are desperately needed. The sheer volume of waste from used ev batteries even through non battery issues like insurance write offs is likely to be staggering otherwise
That requires a standards body and government mandate. It might not happen for a while.
This story doesn’t really gel with my understanding as an EV owner in Europe.
The post says that Tesla hold their value better than Chinese newcomers but that absolutely isn’t the prices I’m seeing in Europe.
In Europe Tesla resale value has plummeted due to brand destruction. Tesla was super popular when they launched as the first realistic EV to hit the main time. But they quickly got a poor reputation for build quality and never delivering on self-driving, and that was before the political damage the owner did which seems never recoverable in at least a generation.
Meanwhile comparable Chinese entrants are so new they aren’t yet at the 3 year mark where fleets sell off to second hand market.
Another interesting thing about non-Tesla EVs is that there aren’t a lot being resold; if you got one, you likely hang onto it. Personally I’ve just not yet let go of my Kia EV6 even though it sailed past the normal trade in point recently.
Tesla mostly focused on the American market anyway. In my understanding there are a lot of facilities for Tesla's that we don't have in Europe like the program where you can buy a refurbished Tesla from Tesla.
Additionally there is a political drive to not trust Chinese manufactured products so those EV's are probably harder to maintain, get support for and in general it is socially considered less status to have a Chinese EV instead of a Tesla. Where in Europe this cultural drive is not as present in Tesla vs Chinese . In my experience in the EU the drive is more about is it EV and the Chinese EV's often offer more features/value for less money.
> Tesla mostly focused on the American market anyway.
Not true at all. In 2023, before the brand became toxic, they sold more cars outside the US than internally. They were a huge percentage of the market in parts of Europe, especially Scandinavia. There was a lot of noise about the manufacturing centres in Germany as Tesla fought around labour laws and traditions, too.
They also bet big on China where they almost got to the point where they were selling as many cars as in the USA. Elon fell hook, line, and sinker for the classic Chinese government move to invite them into the market and then steal the tech and flood the market with domestic brands (this is not to say that they haven't improved on it, though).
>Tesla mostly focused on the American market anyway.
There a lot of them in the UK (although I haven't seen so many newly registered ones lately).
I keep a vague eye on the market share of the railway station car parks around London
it's a good representative sample of affluent london commuters (mostly leasing via salary sacrifice)
I've seen close to zero new teslas in the past year
BYD seem to have entirely replaced them
These data points are based on 2023 inflated pricing as the entry point. Not much to see here.
In 2023 the car market was wildly overpriced due to the low interest rates and covid money combined with supply chain problems.
> For Tesla owners in the U.S., their 2023 Model Ys are worth 42% less than what they paid two years ago
A $25,000 used EV with 80,000 miles is not a good deal if you're going to have to spend $20,000 to replace the battery.
If you can get another 150,000 miles out of it with almost no maintenance or repair costs, it's a screaming good deal.
The latter is far more likely than the former, but people don't realize it yet.
https://www.p3-group.com/en/p3-updates/battery-aging-in-prac...
P. S. I will likely be buying a used EV soon.
> A $25,000 used EV with 80,000 miles is not a good deal if you're going to have to spend $20,000 to replace the battery.
What makes you think that you would have to do that?
1) that car would still be under warranty until it is older than eight years or drives more than 100K miles. So if it needs a replacement at 80K miles, you might get it for free because it's not supposed to fail.
2) There's a lot of data that suggests batteries last a lot longer than their warranty period both in miles and years. There are plenty of EVs with 150K or more miles on them that are still fine. And define fine, is it such a bad deal when the battery has 75% of its original capacity instead of 85%?
3) It's hard to get numbers on when they actually do fail on average for the simple reason that the overwhelmingly large majority of EVs ever made are still driving around with the original battery they left the factory with. They've only been on the market for about 15 years. And the majority of them is much younger than the eight years of battery warranty they left the factory with. Most of the EVs on the road have been sold in the last few years only.
Sorry, my original post was originally formatted correctly. Some readers are reading the inverse what I was trying to say. The link shows that EV's are lasting up to 300,000 kilometers on a single battery.
I'm going to buy a used EV, and I don't expect to replace the battery.
But why spend $45,000 on a used EV when you can get a new one for the same price or less?
I'm not, I'm going to spend ~$20,000 and I expect to save many thousands over the next 10 years in reduced maintenance compared to my ICE vehicle.
Edit: Oh I see the confusion. I should have been more explicit in my original comment that the second case involved not ever replacing the battery.
The Volt I bought a few years ago is worth a small fraction of what we paid for it, 30% maybe?
Its also turned into a mountain of problems recently. It was great until about a year ago, then the battery started acting up. With 10 miles of charge left it will drop to 0, go into limp mode, and require dealership software to disable the thrown code and restart the car. Now it has a phantom battery drain going on, killing the 12v battery after being parked for a few days.
I really liked the car until these issues cropped up. Now I wish I hadn't saved the ~$2,800 in gas while the car depreciated by 4x that amount.
A few thoughts...
They compare the Model Y to an F150, but don't indicate if the 0-day prices are MSRP or actual sales (because F150s are usually discounted from list price and EVs have various subsidies). While each is best-selling by some measure, they're also different products - a truck VS a near-luxury wagon/crossover. I wouldn't expect them to depreciate at the same rate - they should have included a near-luxury gas-powered wagon/crossover as well (Lexus NX, maybe).
Their argument relies heavily on data from India, where a bankrupt ride-share service flooded the market. If Enterprise went out of business and flooded the US market with Toyota Camrys, I'd expect some pricing irregularity for that model.
Similarly, the US EV market (and probably some others?) is heavily impacted by federal and local rebates and tax benefits. Those surely skew the used car values as well - nobody actually paid $50,000 for a new Tesla (or whatever), they paid $50,000 - some subsidy (and that amount varied based on model, price, and the income of the initial buyer - my neighbor could by the exact same car as me for $7500 less than I could). Some of these subsidies also incentivized leasing vs buying, which then means more of those cars go on the market in 2-3 years (vs a typical ~8 year ownership for a new car).
Long story short, EVs are a nascent market, there's bound to be pricing issues. I'm not convinced we can extrapolate long-term used market values based on the last ~5 years of data.
It's the charging.
You have to remember that the market for new cars skews heavily toward wealthier households. These households are generally the ones that can afford a place to charge a car at home.
The market for a used EV is much smaller than for a used gas powered vehicle. People buying used vehicles are much more likely to have housing situations where they can't charge a vehicle.
This factor doesn't apply to gasoline vehicles because everyone, rich or poor, fills up at a gas station.
This is analogous to why houses listed for sale are so bland. Realtors and sellers stage the property to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Even if you could elicit a stronger response from a niche of buyers who love a certain amenity it's a surer bet to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
I think this is spot on. I bought a new EV 6 months ago. I brag about paying less than $0.03/mile even with a large EV, but it's completely dependent on charging in my garage and being on a plan that reduces my night-time electricity cost down to $0.07/kWh. At cheaper DCFC stations ($0.39/kWh) it's about breakeven with a similarly-sized ICE vehicle and at higher cost stations ($0.59/kWh) it's more expensive per mile than the ICE vehicle.
I don't think most people are caught up on the cost per mile, but the inconvenience factor. If you can't charge at home, you going to have to go exclusively to a public charger, which is already pretty inconvenient for a lot of people, and for people of average or lower incomes, they might not even have one in their neighborhood.
We'll probably see a lot more adoption once infrastructure is equitably available to everyone.
Comparing with Tesla is bad as there is a political aspect why people, especially in EU, do not want to buy it after 2024. Which means the statistics might falter. Also when I look at other sources the data say different. I mean if I look at data from the biggest reseller in Sweden KVD you have EV's that has ~80% of the original worth after three years.
This is mostly a function of the markets for used EVs and used ICE vehicles being the same and the used EV purchaser is not a target market for EVs in general.
Not that many people can afford a new car now at all, and of those who can, they're getting luxury end cars, generally. Luxury vehicles depreciate faster than non-luxury vehicles, generally. People who want used cars are frequently people who can't afford new cars, thus they want something that works in their area in their situation with their stuff as it stands. Many of these people live in places with poor charging networks or rent and cannot install a charger. Used EVs don't come with a free charger like new ones often do. EVs were also being priced and purchased based on the tax credit for quite a while, which meant that price was a little... soft? On top of that, many EVs that fit into this data are selling for less for real reasons, like the uninsurability of Cybertrucks and the range loss on the Bolt EV. This all drives demand down or shifts the curves and lowers prices. It's just a small market for now.
> Not that many people can afford a new car now at all, and of those who can, they're getting luxury end cars, generally
That doesn't really make sense. Cheaper new cars are more popular than new luxury cars. Plenty of people finance their new car buys.
> While an electric vehicle is ideal for shorter trips in urban areas with moderate temperatures, they aren’t as effective as traditional cars for long-distance travel or when the temperature is very high or very low
On long trips, I plug in at bathroom breaks about once every 2-3 hours. I don't wait for a full charge because (surprise surprise), I'm going to need to pee before I deplete the battery.
Now that I've adjusted, I actually prefer it to gas, because I can just plug in and walk away instead of needing to babysit the car at the pump.
Depreciation off of the initial price, absolutely. EVs have always been grossly overpriced tech machines. They’re not traditional cars.
Look at Nissan leafs. They “traditionally” depreciate.
Happy owner of a 2017 Tesla Model 3. I couldn’t care less about resale value. I’m driving it, that’s my value, and will do so until it can’t. I’m just glad my garage doesn’t smell like gasoline, I never have to do an oil change, and I never have to go to the gas station. Eight years of no gas stations, it fills up overnight every week in my garage. Stop reselling your car and you won’t have to worry about resale value.
> Stop reselling your car and you won’t have to worry about resale value.
I mostly agree, but not-at-fault collisions throw a real wrinkle into this.
There's a non-trivial chance that even if you were planning on keeping your car for 15 years, you get rear-ended after 5 years, your car gets written off, and you receive a low value from your insurer.
All of the extra care and maintenance that you put into your car to make it a car that would be nice to drive far 15 years also becomes wasted as your insurance won't compensate you for that.
If you get rear-ended, the liability is on the other driver, your insurer need not be involved, and will never be the one paying out, barring an underinsured motorist claim. The legal obligation to property is that you are made whole, that you have what you had before the crash (which is a used car). The party at fault/their insurance have to give you the amount of money that it would take to buy a comparable car (year, condition, options). You are legally entitled to the amount of money that will get you back into a practically identical car.
The extra care and maintenance is something that can get factored into condition. If you disagree with a valuation, they typically will entertain an argument for a higher valuation, if it is grounded in reality and especially if you have comparables. They know that it is better to pay more when it is fair, than to get dragged into court, and be told to pay more and told to pay for lawyers, etc.
> If you get rear-ended, the liability is on the other driver, your insurer need not be involved
Not in jurisdictions with no-fault insurance.
> The extra care and maintenance is something that can get factored into condition. If you disagree with a valuation, they typically will entertain an argument for a higher valuation, if it is grounded in reality and especially if you have comparables. They know that it is better to pay more when it is fair, than to get dragged into court, and be told to pay more and told to pay for lawyers, etc.
Maybe, or they might win in court, and then it's you who should have known it was better to just accept less rather than get dragged into multiple appeals and be told to pay for lawyers etc.
e.g. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/vehicles-insurance-accident...
"The judge awarded him $6,000 in damages but when the insurance company appealed, his award was cut to $1,500 and he was ordered to pay legal costs for the other side. In the end, he was $1,000 in the hole."
None of this is relevant for the scenario you originally proposed and what I was commenting on.
When a car is totaled, there is no argument for diminished value, since you are given the full pre-accident value of the car.
Your points are valid for some cases (albeit so rare that you found an article from over a decade ago about a single case that made the national news, in a province that has since had several major overhauls to their insurance regs.), but have nothing to do with your prior argument or the comments I made.
Leave the goalposts where you originally had them.
It is only wasted if you accept their valuation and don't keep the vehicle. Insurance companies allow you to buy back your totaled vehicle, which can then be resold as-is, parted out, or used as a donor parts vehicle when shopping for the same make and model.
Yeah, but if it's an actual write-off because the frame is structurally unsound, there's really no way to get that sunk value back. (And storing an extra vehicle for parts is really... not practical for the vast majority of people.)
I have a 18mph petrol fueled SUV. My garage does not smell like gasoline. All your other points are fair though :)
I would happily prefer eight years of a gas station 2-3 times a month over having 10 apps with different accounts that allow me to charge my car in merely 45 minutes (if I find one that works and not occupied)
Human scale electric vehicles (e-bikes, e-scooters, etc) do not seem to suffer from this problem as much.
I dunno, they all are going to have wheelie crash damage the way these teenagers ride them down the streets. I don't know why we can't federally require ebike electric motors to disengage when the front wheel goes off the ground
Legal e-bikes are not really capable of wheelie-ing using their power alone since they are limited to 750 watts.
These bikes are already illegal, so lets not introduce another silly regulation that adds expense and a point of failure just because teenagers do wheelies.
Also, teenagers doing wheelies on bicycles is not illegal, nor should it be. Let people have some fun!
At least for my e-bikes - all the batteries are easily removed and replaceable (whether the vendor is still manufacturing it is a different question).
And like cars, replacement ebike batteries are absurdly expensive. $500-600 for a few 18650 and a BMS.
Part of it is that a battery pack is legitimately dangerous at that scale (so lots of testing/safety certifications etc). But those are one-time design costs that should be amortized.
I would really like to see some standardization around battery packs for both cars and bikes, so that it could become a commodity market for packs.
They don't? I usually see them marked down 1/2 off or more if they're used even with negligible use.
Because there is no major secondary market. Obviously.
There are many comments on here trying to justify why EVs lose value quickly. Why is it simply not the case that the price falls quickly because the market only clears at lower prices? Perhaps the demand curve just isn't there for EVs as it is for ICE vehicles?
In which case: no it's not that they're amazing - it's that they are less desirable than ICE vehicles.
(I used to own a Tesla now I'm back on a hybrid, and delighted about it)
> Plummeting resale values are threatening to derail the world’s transition to electric transportation
Used cars are usually sold to someone who can't afford a new car. It can also be cheaper to drive an EV than a gas car.
So I think the opposite - Used EVs will create an opportunity for normal people to switch away from gas cars.
As to low resale value - I think tesla was VERY aware of this problem and artificially propped up their used market when they were starting out by offering a buyback program.
I'm kind of hoping for more plug and play components like the old days of coach building if EV technology really is more mechanically simple than gas cars. Would love to put the latest/greatest drive train and battery tech into a BMW i3 carbon monocoque chassis and just have everything plug and play like plugging in USB connectors or something.
I wonder if the terminal value of an EV will be higher than ICE. This seems possible if there are secondary users for batteries, motors, or if the mineral content is more valuable (e.g., obviously rare Earth and lithium but also the frames tend to have more aluminum).
Perception of failing battery risk is vastly overstated, creating real opportunity for savvy consumers to pick up a good used EV, so long as it isn't the very first EV's (e.g. those old Leafs) which had terrible battery health management.
Well, that just means that secondhand evs might cater to people who could not or don’t want to shell out a lot of money for new EVs.
As the battery tech and service infrastructure matures we probably will see less of this though.
It’s clear a lot of good fundamental innovation is still happening in the EV space (as opposed to IMO negative innovation in digital features in ICE cars). This is why I leased my electric car; my family’s pattern is to keep a car forever (ICE car is circa 2009) and I don’t want to be stuck with something. I think resale value partially captures this problem.
I was doing the math on leasing an EV and really seems to work. With the EV deprecation, you are actually coming out ahead of buying in many cases. A friend did this with a Kia a few years ago and looks like its a valid option.
It works because the manufacturers are willing to defer the hit and eat the depreciation themselves in three years. If the leases were honest and the residuals accurate, it would be a wash with buying.
Also, OC wrote:
> Battery-as-a-service models are emerging as a potential lifeline...
Not for consumers. Maybe for fleet vehicles.
The rate of innovation has to slow down before that kind of standardization can take hold. And battery tech, from the chemistry to the packs, shows no sign of slowing down in the immediate future.
Agreed. The OC conflates a lot of unrelated & outdated issues, yet doesn't get near the most likely cause: Leasing.
--
Many of the EV influencer/reviewers (that I binge watch) do advise leasing over purchasing. Misc reasons (at least in the US):
Continued high rate of improvement. So for EV enthusiasts (early adopters), who are likely to upgrade, leasing avoids eating the entire depreciation in value.
Manufacturer incentives for new purchases drive down used car prices.
Many of the models are simply too expensive. (Esp with the current overstock.) Their resale value will normalize once new EVs reach price parity with comparable ICEs.
With so many leases expiring, there's more supply than demand (for used EVs).
--
Anecdatally, I held off buying (or leasing) a new Kia EV9 this year. It's just too expensive; implicitly reflected in their generous incentives. Kia's software is still immature. Knowing I don't intend to keep the vehicle, with their turrible resale value, I wasn't able to stomach the depreciation.
FWIW, My future perfect vehicle is a Toyota Sienna EV, over 350mi range, fast charging, and equiv to Tesla's software.
I predict, based totally on vibes, that sales of city cars (eg Kia Kona, Nissan Leaf) will be just fine once their price is 1:1 with ICE. Ditto roadtrippers (eg VW ID.Buzz) once their range is over 300mi.
> leasing avoids eating the entire depreciation in value
Assuming the bank's predictions are correct, that's not true. The lease agreement simply predicts a specific residual value and you pay the difference between that and the purchase price (in other words, the full predicted depreciation amount) in your payments. Of course, the less you drive the leased car compared to your mileage allowance, the worse you do, since the residual value prediction assumes you used all 10k miles a year or whatever.
Not saying leasing is bad, just that the opportunity for them to be a better deal strictly financially depends mostly on whether the bank overestimates the residual value (as I suspect happened with my off-lease used EV, which cost me less than half the sticker price, with 16k miles, at 3 years old).
My observation is that the manufacturers (who are originating the majority of leases) are intentionally eating the depreciation and going with unrealistically high residuals in order to make the leases more attractive. Just another way of structuring an incentive to move cars off the lot.
The chart shows the fallacy in the argument - EVs don't depreciate, but instead are subsidized by various public and private schemes - meaning their new asking price as paid by consumers is not the same as the sticker prices.
The first hit of 'depreciation' is when this contradiction appears in the used price, after that they depreciate like normal.
that makes no sense. an EV that cost $50k with or without subsidy that now costs half that is depreciation.
What's more interesting from reading the discussion here is that the depreciation of EV goes beyond the battery and thermal/geographic tax its that there is nothing special from the car market point of view that suggests a mass produced EV should hold its value against some truly sought after ICE cars that offer a unique novelty.
Even the Porsche EVs have not held their value very well compared to their ICE cars. There is simply no appeal to taste when you have to generate ICE sounds via speaker and signals EVs aren't very fun to drive or offer much novelty beyond the fact that its an EV compared to ICE cars where each engine is unique to the maker and has ton of parts all synchronized into a controlled chaos.
What makes it a bad deal to own an EV is also coincidentally a great reason to buy one: they're getting cheap, fast.
I bought a used 2023 Model Y for about $36k (only 15k miles) it even came with upgrades like acceleration boost and an extra (unusable) back seat. This particular model was about $52k new in 2023.
I can't believe how much car I bought for my money. Autosteer is fantastic (FSD needs work). Early morning drive to the airport and the car was driving itself while I ate my breakfast and drank my coffee.
Why would I pay $35k for a used EV when I can buy a new one for $42k with a $7500 tax credit taken off at purchase?
This article doesn't seem to mention those credits, but they are likely a large factor in the difference between the nominal sale price of a new EV and the used market price.
If you don't factor in those credits, it looks like someone paid $42k for an EV that a couple of years later was only worth $30k. When in reality they paid $35k for that new EV as a net purchase cost.
In the UK, there are massive incentives for "tax efficient" purchasing of vehicles. ie, there was a point where everyone who could was driving around in a Porsche Taycan because the tax implications of buying it were comically positive. Of course, those benefits don't translate to the secondary market, so of course there's a glut of 3 year old electric vehicles. No one wants them. Oh, and you can't buy a petrol car because the car companies are under the hammer to sell EVs.
Well, sure. EV'S are smart phones on wheels. Are you going to grab your Samsung 5s in 2030, power it back up and use it to store your most sensitive personal data? Even the lowest-end varieties are always-on, internet-conected devices. Their safety and function is on the same tier as today's phone models. Expensive today, junk in 5 years.
Thanks, but I'm hanging in to my old Subaru.
Trying to compare an EV to a smartphone is self-serving, you wanted to convince yourself that your already-made decision was the right one. Reality wouldn't be so kind.
I think the most accurate part of your analogy is how fast the technology changes and renders yesterday’s product obsolete.
Just saw the Audi etron gt has amazing deals on used cars. Then I saw a new model coming out with better battery, more power, better range, and more features. Suddenly last year’s model is way less compelling.
True. At this point in time I'd only lease an EV. That being said, given that 100% of cars on the road won't be EV by 2030 as some have tried to convince us, I suspect the rate of innovation in EV land to slow as EV investment is greatly curtailed by the car companies.
As someone who is half in the market for a new vehicle, this is exactly where my thoughts went to. If I buy a car, I'm expecting that to be a 10-20 year purchase. Whereas the surveillance industry's churn culture considers five years of software support for a cell phone as some kind of amazing thing. And since more of an EV has been newly designed around software control (including the chief wear part, the battery), I would expect them to be much more wed to that disposability culture overall. Am I going to be able to get a new battery for a 20 year old EV at a market-competitive (with other cell packs) price?
Most non-Tesla EVs aren't notably different from a software/surveillance perspective than the comparable ICE car.
It is a combination of technology moving fast (aka nobody wants an old ev that does not have the latest advances in capacity and speed of charging) and also the real fear of battery replacement costs.
For the second one insurance companies could help alleviate the uncertainty, but I don’t see major vendors offering packages.
People don’t have 20k in a single shot to fix a battery failure. (Maybe cumulatively for a gas car one has to pay more, but it will be in small installments)
Note: This article compares the depreciation of a Tesla Model Y to a Ford F-150. Seems like not an apples to apples comparison, and it'd be more interesting to have a more similar comparison.
I think they should take into account the fact that a Tesla is a steaming pile of FascistMobile now to many like myself that would buy them otherwise. How about other EVs?
My 2023 Model Y depreciated quickly, sure fine. My 2019 Model 3, that I bought new, I made money on when I sold it used in 2021. With inflation and tax breaks the last few years the data for this means nothing.
The nuance here is there is a much higher floor for EVs when they finally bottom-out in value. A 300,000km EV will be degraded to ~80% it's range, while a 300,000km ICE will need its powertrain and sensors rebuilt and replaced (timing belt, spark plugs, alternator, water pump, PCV, O2 sensors, etc. and very likely will be dripping motor oil all over the ground).
“ Older EV models depreciate even faster than newer ones.”
So the problem is already in the process of solving itself? Seems like standard first mover technology stuff.
This article seems not worth the pixels it’s printed on.
You may not realize it, but barring price, EVs (esp. Chinese EVs) are like smartphones. When you buy one, in 3 months there's another model with better tech and cheaper (ceterus paribus). Not ideal for buyers, but I like it this way.
Let's say (Chinese) EVs never appear in the world. Why do car prices keep increasing while only marginally better?
Why has Tesla depreciated so much since 2023? Could any of the depreciation be due to the character that is Elon Musk and his antics?
As someone who bought a 2023 Model Y 7 seat Long Range, I can tell you my desire to sell the car was 100% because of the negative brand value caused by Musk.
I’m not able to sell it because I’m currently $17,000 underwater on it and can’t afford to dump it, but I would if I had $17,000 to lose. I have a friend who did just that.
I love my Tesla (for the most part, it has some basic annoyances that remind me that building and testing a car for California is not the same as building it for everywhere), but as someone who tracked the depreciation of my own Tesla, it started plummeting when Musk decided to buy Twitter and spend his time exonerating the alt-right, and culminated with his foray into public policy.
> Why has Tesla depreciated so much since 2023?
Prices were high, then the credit came back and Tesla slashed prices. Those of us who bought a 2023 got hosed pretty hard.
I don't think that's the case. I was looking at some used Chevy Bolt models, and they can be found for quite cheap. I found a nearby 2022 model with only 20,000 miles on it listed for $19,000. I'm pretty sure I can negotiate the price down a bit, too.
When my wife got a 2020 Bolt (brand new), the out-the-door price was $24K. 19K is what we could sell it for in three years, coincidentally. 20% depreciation in three years is pretty good.
One factor that I don't see getting discussed is that more price conscious consumers are also more likely to have to live in apartments or park on the street. Even if they have a garage, their commutes may be too long to rely on level 1 charging and can't afford to upgrade. As a result, demand for used EVs is significantly lower than a comparable ICE.
You're correct with that concern being the biggest holding-back factor now. However, I think that the removal of the price barrier that we've seen here with used EVs becoming competitive with gas cars is still a vital prerequisite to adoption. Even if you gifted an apartment dweller a free charger in their carport, in 2021 when most electric SUVs were about $65k at the cheapest compared to $40k for a comparable gas car, it would be hard to convince them to buy electric.
Wouldn’t you expect a field with rapid technological growth to depreciate faster?
ICEs are a stable technology. There’s little learning curve. Next years EV could be a step change up from last years at the same cost.
How is this a bad thing?
You can't dismiss the fact that EV dies faster and more expensive than ICE.
Without evidence you can. I dismissed your comment without a second thought.
Of course they depreciate faster - battery life declines much faster than engine life (at least by age) and battery replacement (as well as other maintenance) is significantly more expensive.
Battery replacement is on par with engine replacement, and might be cheaper depending on which engine we're talking about. Batteries are also just getting cheaper every year.
Plus, batteries will mostly last twice as long as the typical car is on the road before it gets scrapped for unrelated reasons.
The depreciation is mostly explained by market distortions caused by subsidies.
Batteries degrade over time. And the perfect-conditions range of many EVs isn't great to begin with.
Also, have you seen the out-of-warranty maintenance/repair costs for many EVs?
I assert that these 2 things contribute heavily to the rapid depreciation of EVs.
EVs are in the first phase of the mobile phones.
Within very few years they will be like modern phones that you only update because they're worn down.
Where's my Robo Taxi that's worth $250k because it drives people around while I work?
I’m here to take advantage of it. I bought a 2022 Model Y performance. New price was 75k, used price 31k. Love the car. I plan on driving the wheels off it.
EVs range degrades in a meaningful fashion with time and new EVs are improving faster than ICE cars, thus faster depreciation.
The flip side of this is a general over correction as the new car tax break ends used EVs are really compelling today. A slightly used Long Range Model 3 is a far better option than their new Base Model 3.
Eventually ICE cars were designed for their resale value so people buying a new car every 3 or 5 years could afford to spend more money. That’s coming for EVs as the technology improves battery degradation means the range sweet spot will be chosen to keep the used market happy not just new buyers etc.
> EVs are improving faster than ICE cars, thus faster depreciation. This, it’s a bit like comparing the depreciation of gpus in peak innovation years to now. They do similar things but they are in completely different contexts
It's relevant to current resale issues.
I don't think the comparison is fair.
The electricity and ICE fuel costs should be included if the battery is included. The battery is some sort of upfront fuel cost in a way the gas tank isn't.
Since mileage wear is proportional to fuel use anyway.
If we were talking cost of ownership, sure.
But we're discussing resale value specifically, and it doesn't matter if you spent $25 or $50 "filling it up" last week when you sell it.
I prefer to think of a battery as a transmission since rebuild/replacement costs and inconvenience are comparable.
Or you can look at it from the opposite side.
There are plenty of deals to be had from a used EV market.
It is strange how EVs are measured by how far they can go full charge when this is a metric I never have seen for fossile cars. It tells a story how inconvenient EVs or the charging network really is
It also tells the story that the energy price per mile is insignificant. Vehicles that use gas advertise miles per gallon because it significantly affects costs. They also advertise range (or maybe fuel tank capacity), but not as prominently.
An electric car's miles per energy is not as relevant, because current electricity prices are sufficiently low such that people won't really care whether it's 3 miles per kWh or 5 miles per kWh. They will care about how far they can go on a single charge, hence range is a metric that is often advertised.
bad for new car buyers, great for us used car people, so there is a silver-green lining to this whole affair.
Easier way to change the battery would decrease the cost of ownership by a ton and decrease the profits of EV companies also a ton. Which I guess is why it doesn't happen.
> decrease the profits of EV companies also a ton
Nobody profits from EV sales except Tesla (and 1/7 Chinese companies) [1].
[1] https://www.carscoops.com/2025/03/only-four-ev-brands-are-pr...
Do you have a source that the labor is more significant than the materials of a new battery?
I don't claim that. I claim that the process could be improved by a significant margin if there was incentive to do that.
[dead]
Computers get old and EV tech is constantly improving. ICE has been stable for decades. Tesla believes they can increase the market value of older EV's eventually by pushing autonomous driving.
I like the direction of https://slate.auto. Module, bring-your-own-computer. We'll see if they allow affordable trade-in's for upgrading battery/motors.
They could also work with CommaAI for autonomy.
Is it really true that ICE has been stable? Cars seem to have been getting many innovations, especially with power, torque, and reliability. We probably don't hear much about it because it is low profile stuff and a mature product.
> and reliability.
The newest vehicle reliability advances are _less_ reliability via:
- cylinder deactivation
- ubiquitous turbos
- gasoline direction injection
- more computers
- generally higher cost of repairs (eg: if a car from 2023 needed a headlight it would cost much more than a car from 1998 needing a headlight, and even if they both had the same failure rate the reliability of the new car would be worse from cost alone)
also:
- tons of sensors with limited lifespans
- more complicated transmissions with more gears
- auto start/stop
Pretty much all of these reliability reducers are manufacturers trying to eek a little more MPGs by throwing lots of complicated technology at the problem, which introduces a lot more failure points.
Headlights and taillights on my current vehicle are supposedly around $1500 each, mostly due to a bunch of sophisticated sensors being built in.
Back in the 80s headlights were standardized (in the US at least) - you either had rectangular or circular. They were available at every auto parts store. Now they're a special order item from the dealer.
Oh, and new "high" oil and fuild change intervals. They'll get you through warranty, but your car won't make it to 150k or 200k.
New synthetic oils are very durable. They actually do last a long time.
There are oil tests that confirm this. Also, 10,000+ mile oil changes are not new, and there are tons of used vehicles on the market, running around with long oil change intervals, and high mileage.
This is well informed and correct. Understand this if you buy a new ICE vehicle: the drive train is uneconomic to repair out of warranty: do not imagine you'll keep it long term or hand it off to a kid or whatever.
Costs drop like a rock once vehicles get old enough that they can't be financed, which means dealers won't sell them, which means they won't be bundled with 3rd party warranties and service plans, which means that the owner will be the one paying and there's actual pressure to control costs (because the owner has no party down the line to pass costs onto).
For example, for the longest time Nissan CVTs were "nonrebuildable, send it back and buy a reman" now any idiot can rebuild one for under a grand in parts.
4L60 and E4OD rebuilds were also $$$ for a long time now they're dirt cheap too.
> do not imagine you'll keep it long term or hand it off to a kid or whatever.
i don't agree, my friend has been driving the same Toyota LandCruiser for 20 years. I will have no problems handing my 2016 4runner down to my kid who turns 16 this December. The 4runner will last another 10 years easy.
> Toyota LandCruiser for 20 years
Respectfully I specifically wrote "new." 20 year old SUVs predate the issues of new vehicles.
> my 2016 4runner
Even a 2016 vehicle predates what I'm pointing out. A 2016 4runner likely has a 270hp naturally aspirated V6 with modest power and a relatively basic 5 speed auto transmission. A 2025 4runner is a turbo charged 4 cylinder making nearly 2hp/cu in. and an 8 speed transmission. The former is much simpler and thus economic to maintain and repair compared to the latter.
ICE vehicle drivetrains have changed radically in only the last few years. They're almost universally using forced induction, integrated into unserviceable castings, to attain far higher volumetric efficiency, equivalent to high performance engines of not long ago. Gone are the 4-5 speed transmissions and transaxles: 8-10+ speed is the norm, and the complexity follows here as well. They are absolutely intolerant of neglect and abuse. Repairs are complex and likely to fail: manufacturers have taken to replacing major assemblies in leu of attempting repairs as they would have in the past. Part of that is due to the unserviceable nature of these components. Another part is the lack of dealer talent to deal with their own products. Another part is that the manufacturing lifecycle of major assemblies is now extremely short: only a couple years, whereas 10+ years was normal for common platforms as recently as the the 2010s.
What this means is: when these new products are no longer supported by manufacturers, who will drop their supply obligations rapidly as they legally can due to short lifecycles, parts will be fabulously expensive and difficult to obtain and the skills and tools necessary to repair them will be rarified and also expensive. Post-warranty ICE vehicles will be uneconomic, full stop.
Not even mentioning that you cannot change the headlight by yourself.
But you can't change a headlight bulb if they're a sealed unit, because those don't have bulbs, but with basic tools, you can certainly change a headlight.
But also, if you have a vehicle with a sealed headlight, you're probably not having to change it every other winter.
Actually ICE has improved significantly in the last 20 years, even though progress was held back by emission and safety regulations. In the year 2000 a sports car would have around 200/250hp while these days any sports car that wants to boast power has around 500hp or more.
Perhaps you're not into cars much but if you compare top cars on track days etc. you will know there have definitely been huge changes. Though during the last 20 years repairability and reliability also took a hit.
>500hp or more
But are they fun? My main experience of powerful cars is you hit the speed limit or a traffic jam within about 10 seconds.
I have more fun on my 1/3 hp ebike than my 200 hp car which suffers from the above.
The must fun I've ever had while driving was with the family '99 Honda Civic. Zero power. Zero torque. But, man, it was like driving a go kart in the streets. I'd zip through mountain passes with the engine revving to hell but in reality I'd only be barely going the speed limit.
I did the same mountain pass in my Subaru recently and didn't even notice I was going 20mph over the speed limit. The engine was silent and still responsive.
>I did the same mountain pass in my Subaru recently and didn't even notice I was going 20mph over the speed limit. The engine was silent
How about the transmission lol
>200/250hp while these days any sports car that wants to boast power has around 500hp or more.
And it'll only weigh 4,500 lbs.
> held back by emission and safety regulations
How so? Are those not improvements?
Those are improvements overall for the environment and safety of course. However as usually improvement in one area is not necessary an improvement in another area. I was referring to "sport" performance of a car or ICE engine then the emission regulation held back the power output and performance of the drive train and the safety regulations added a lot of weight and size to the cars therefore hurting handling.
>Are those not improvements?
Said no pedestrian hidden behind my A-pillar (just kidding I still drive a 1980s minivan, one of the poor people ones, not the hipster one, don't get your hopes up).
I'm not sure they've improved that much. Comparing my 1990 miata/mx5 with modern cars I prefer not having electronic screens and bleeping things all over the place. The only thing I'd chose to modernise is engine efficiency which is maybe a bit better now.
Isn't that to be expected? First, battery technology continues to improve, and being battery-constrained ought to reduce the value of the older technology. Second, the battery degrades faster than an ICE.
gas-powered cars will become much more expensive to operate. Perhaps not in the US and A, but everywhere the Climate treaty of Paris has any value.
In Germany, you can buy used luxury cars at high discount due to being fuel inefficient for years now, and that is with barely a price increase for gas and barely 1 l/100km to through 3 l/100km cars taking up more market share.
Beside fuel efficiency and the long charge time for EVs, many EVs seem more like non-repairable iPhones than their ICE counterparts. Tesla’s look very safe but seems like you can not replace body parts. Same with Rivian. I saw a guy dent a rear quarter panel and the quote was $45k. Only because the crazy way they manufactured things.
Is BYD any different?
> I saw a guy dent a rear quarter panel and the quote was $45k.
The expected repair cost was ~1/10 that: https://www.thedrive.com/news/41000-rivian-fender-bender-act...
4100 still sounds insane amount of money. An amount that sounds like something somewhere or everywhere has gone wrong.
More a story about the body shop / car insurance interplay and blue collar skilled service industry / Private Equity dynamics.
My beat up truck got quoted 6k to replace a dent caused by a fender bender.
Just what I've heard, but an Uber driver told me how he upgraded his older Model 3 suspension to a newer variant because they attach the same way. So at least this part you can swap if you want.
> Tesla’s look very safe but seems like you can not replace body parts
What?
https://parts.tesla.com/en-US/landingpage
https://epc.tesla.com/en-US/catalogs/dab210aa-2a7d-43b3-9e9b...
Anyone can by them directly from Tesla.
I’ve noticed hybrids are filling up dealers lots as well. They can’t sell them or won’t take a big loss on them. “Too heavy, expensive, less cargo space, and not enough benefits.” per sales.
There aren’t many EV’s on the lots either as the configuration team doesn’t see a need to order them from manufacturers if people aren’t buying them.
A hybrid has a smaller battery, so it goes through more cycles for the same milage than a pure EV. An EV might get 250,000 miles from a battery, a hybrid only half that.
This is why I lease not buy now. I am watching the development of solid-state batteries as that has the promise of greatly reducing battery health issues
Basically, we don't understand batteries and their lifespans that well while we understand wear and tear on an engine quite well. Sure, these concerns are valid, but it seems like you could voice the same concerns over any "early" technology.
Currently: $36,000 buys you a used 2020 Tesla Model X with FSD and a 35,000 mile odometer, maybe 5-10% battery degradation.
Another angle to look at it is that cars cost a lot, petrol and electric alike. The only way to reduce depreciation is for the folks to be able to buy used cars for a lot which means financing.
> A U.K.-based study found 3-year-old EVs lost more than half of their value compared with 39% for gas cars.
40-50% depreciation is crazy, there is little reason why this should happen as cars do not change that much in such a short time. I bet they would not depreciate that hard if a new car was sold at 30k.
> 40-50% depreciation is crazy
It's most likely a lie, they probably based the numbers on the original MSRP rather than the original out-the-door price.
UK ZEV mandate led to absolutely insane EV incentives for businesses distorting the market towards huge expensive but crap German EVs like Audi e-trons. Those EVs depreciate like crazy. Mercedes EQS must be a record holder at 50% in a year.
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised. Even without the EV-factor, German cars don't have a particularly great track record for depreciation. It's a marvel to see just how much a VW GTI, for example, can depreciate in year 1.
I am impressed by the efforts of the fossil fuel industry (and I think many car manufacturers) to discredit EVs. Their campaign has been sneaky and devious and very, very effective.
To spread good FUD, there has to be truth in it, so that debunking it gets very difficult. Over the years I've seen so much FUD it's not even funny (see for example https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/factcheck/electric-vehic...).
This news story shows that the FUD has worked well (especially in the US), hats off to the fossil fuel industry. It's also a double-whammy: this story will spread, so people will be even more suspicious of EVs, which will cause their popularity to fall, which will cause their resale prices to fall…
It's quite sad, but also impressive.
Bad market analysis and production. I believe a case can be made for a well designed, rectangular vehicle with motorised wheels - 2 or 4 wheel drive. With a cube van or window van. Forget the chatter about un-sprung weight, this is not a high performance vehicle. Brakes, suspension as well as a front compression zone. Battery = 3 choices - 150/300/450 mile range. Battery flat in 3 segments arranged to balance as needed. Many people are OK with 150, some want 300 and 450 for the longer range. Some car makers in Asia have fast change stands where an old battery can be dropped and a new one picked up in under 5 minutes - perhaps fast charging will eliminate this - however fast charging has IR losses as well as degradation issues - need to be solved before ready for prime time. Tesla has plateaued due to price and the yearly design steady state ranks old/new cars as same old same. Far less in the way of e-bling = smaller screens etc, fewer assists/features. I would be quite happy at 0-60 under 10 seconds and a max of 85-90.
I think there are other factor's beside the battery and EV's being dumped in the market that may affect the resale value that are not mentioned in the article.
First of all I believe that the car manufactures (especially for electric cars) these days use planned obsolescence tactics to limit a car's lifespan at one side, while also promising the buyers that the car could last for far longer compared to their old ICE cars. However this promise often doesn't seem to hold up in the real world which will decrease confidence once the cars start breaking earlier. This is especially problematic when you are running an business calculating in the promised lifespan instead of the actual lifespan, once a business finds out (and does the math) often it will make economical sense to dump the fleet.
On top of that I think a big problem with certain cars on the second hand market is big onetime investments. You can see that already in certain internal combustion engine cars that are know to require a costly fix after x amount of miles. This is quite important in the second hand market since you often have to expect to do the "big maintenance" once you purchase a second hand vehicle as people like to sell slightly before this maintenance is due (and often not tell you).
Where EV's may run for a long time without problems they require costly repairs once they do break. Most EV's are build in a mostly non repairable way, like many modern vehicles, and you have to pray that the parts will be available after 10 years. Also a lot of maintenance on EV's can not easily be done by an enthusiast in a shed as it requires special equipment, certification and skills. Where with an ICE engine you may run into smaller maintenance earlier you are paying these fixes incrementally, and may be able to do a lot of the maintenance yourself.
On top of that I think there is a certain saturation in the electric car market where people that care about buying an EV increasingly have a EV and the people that don't care (or prefer ICE) don't want to invest the additional premium, or uncertainty to buy an EV. For example I don't buy an EV because it's very impractical to charge it where I live and I like the added flexibility (miles) that an economy ICE car can provide.
Well, I don't entirely agree.
But where we live there is a huuge fanbase of veteran cars like Chevrolet, people are nuts about them and arrange day long cruising around the city a few times a year.
Considering the complexity and rapid technology changes of electric cars, I doubt we'll see many working VW ID.5 in 70 years cruising the streets.
Another reason that this matters (which is artificial) is that at least in the US so many car owners are on "permanent car payments".
They never pay off their cars and trade them in on another one and just keep making payments without really ever owning a car outright. And increasingly as prices have gone up they are trading cars in that they are underwater on, rolling old debt into the next loan!
If you're in this category of insane financial ignorance trying to appear rich but actually being "car poor" of course this resale is a huge problem. But for anyone who buys a car outright or pays off their loan and then drives the car for many years it's not a problem at all whether you bought new or took advantage of the massive depreciation and bought a lightly used one for a great price.
This is another way of saying "EVs are getting cheaper," so it's hard to understand why this is framed negatively.
Moreover, EV batteries are recyclable. The main thing holding back lithium recycling has been the supply chain of used batteries, because the batteries are quite durable.
If the resale value of EVs is falling, that makes it easier to extract the batteries and use the raw material to build better batteries.
Seems like we need electric houses.
Finally the battery car scam is over
Of course they are. It’s the same process as applied to DSLRs, which depreciated much more quickly than film bodies did only a few years prior.
Film bodies found their post-digital price floor quite quickly. DSLRs and mirrorless have only found secondhand price stability in the last three or four years and while a big part of it is the quality plateau at the end of the megapixel race (which might have some sort of analogue in the electric car industry, though I don’t know what it is —- range, perhaps), part of that was driven by pandemic component scarcity and inflation holding up the new camera market prices.
In short I think this depreciation will last for another decade until manufacturers feel confident they will sell enough volume to make cheaper cars.
The difference is only around $4k. And there's an upside to have an affordable EV resale market. Plus, if you're planning to own a new car for 5 years or more, you have to wonder what the resale market for gas cars will look like in the 2030's.
In my country (UK) it’s entirely caused by a policy that means people in well paid jobs can pay for a lease agreement direct from their salary and save tax. It also can be used if you’re a high earner to bring you back under a threshold that gives you a subsidy for childcare. So if you earn more than £100k and have kids under 5 you are almost stupid not to take a lease for an EV if you have the need for a car anyway.
As a result of the above, EVs that are ~three years old are flooding the used car market and you can pick up a Tesla for < £20k
Aren't they deprecating mainly because new EVs are better? In this case, it is not "derailing" but simply the actual replacement happening. And this effect will become smaller as the industry matures and EV prices stabilise.
At least that's what happened in 2022-2023 when prices of EVs and ICE cars quickly converged. No surprise existing EVs on the road deprecated rapidly.
Finally read the article
This issue is for fleet operators overextending themselves buying too many cars, and probably collateralizing debt off of them
Additionally, resale market demand and price discovery is one thing, but it really sounds more like the primary market is overvalued
And this aspect just made me lol
> 3-year-old EVs lost more than half of their value compared with 39% for gas cars.
so around 50% as opposed to around 40%. wow. stop the presses.
My MG4 was bought exactly 1 year ago. for 31k on Carsales.com.au *older models are still selling for 28k....
I dont think all EV's are dropping equally.
Is the price before dealer markup or MSRP?
Tesla dropped their prices a lot after covid boom, that completely distorted the market.
Might be a great time to buy EV.
And/or maybe it should have been the time of the PHEV first.
Weird that this is presented as a problem for some reason.
They're objects that lose value when you use them. That's normal.
If something looses value faster than something else it can be compared to, then it's considered as worse, meaning fewer people are going to buy it, meaning if you have one, you'll be able to afford less than others in a few years.
Something's ability to store value is only one factor, and probably not the most important, when you're not buying it as an investment.
A bar of gold will hold value a lot better than a car, but that doesn't mean a car is a worse purchase.
Depreciation is huge factor if you buy something for utility.
I think we can say that EV and ICE has nearly same utility, perks on either side. Faster refuelling vs. being able to do it at home.
Now next we can compare operational costs, what is the cost of fuel/electricity and maintenance. With home charging yes EVs are ahead.
But if we take into account Purchase price minus price you get when selling. Well EVs are often more expensive to start with. And then they depreciate more so you get less as an percentage from original purchase price.
Now it can very well be that you come lot of ahead in scenarios where you replace car with new one every 3 or 5 years with ICEs.
So total cost of ownership does matter. And big chunk of that is depreciation. Unless you are one of the few who buy new and then drive it to junk yard.
Unless a 5 year old EV has lost a lot more functionality than a 5 year old ICE, that situation doesn't seem likely.
If in 5 years, your EV (that had similar utility as an ICE when you bought it) has lost so much value relative to a new EV, then the new EV must offer much more utility over both the old EV and the old ICE, in which case your ICE should have lost a similar amount of value.
Are you trying to use logic to convince the resale value to be higher?
My point is either the assumption that their functionality doesn't decrease rapidly is incorrect or that they won't continue to depreciate at a much faster rate than ICE in the future. It just doesn't make economic sense.
Neither did Beanie Babies, and yet...
While I don't dispute EV depreciation (it's a fact, no matter the explanation), then I don't think depreciation is as "huge" of a factor as you make it out to be. People buy new cars all the time, while the added utility over a used car is negligible.
I.e, I've only bought cars that are 10+ years (exactly due to the depreciation factor!), but most other people buy or lease as new of a car as they possibly can afford. Doesn't make financial sense to me, yet it's done so very often.
Why would we compare a car purchase to a gold bar purchase when they are completely different things? The article is comparing two products that substitute for each other, so it's notable that the market treats them differently. Someone looking to buy a car is either going to get an ICE or EV; not an EV or a gold bar.
As I said: "than something else it can be compared to"; if we are talking about cars, you compare to other cars, not to gold or even bikes. If this car looses more value than another, then it's shit.
Because people prefer their objects to lose value more slowly?
Not sure why this would be hard to understand.
If they're losing value primarily because better options are becoming available rather than their own functionality decreasing, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
It is because people are incentivized to just wait for the "better options" that everyone knows are coming soon. Or, let's say you bought one and had an accident that totals the car but oops, the steep depreciation curve means you have to go out of pocket to pay off a total loss. No one wants that.
> you bought one and had an accident that totals the car but oops, the steep depreciation curve means you have to go out of pocket to pay off a total loss
That can happen with a conventional car as well, which is why gap insurance exists. The regular insurance should still give you the replacement price (which would be the depreciated value).
The gap insurance will be more expensive. Resell still matters with gap insurance.
Yes but again, the steeper depreciation curve makes it more likely to happen.
Always waiting for "better options" is often irrational. You should buy what's best for you today.
If the value of your EV has dropped to $10k and you get paid out that much for an accident, then in theory you should be able to buy a similar condition EV on the used car market for $10k. What's the problem with that?
Again, you're attempting to use logic to convince reality to change.
People make irrational decisions. That's a fact.
People "should" do things they don't. That's a fact.
The question is not, "What would a logically-driven being do?", but "What are people doing?"
> Always waiting for "better options" is often irrational. You should buy what's best for you today.
If you're trying to get people to switch en masse to EVs, it's not good for everyone to be in perpetual "ehh there's gonna be way better ones around the corner" mode.
> If the value of your EV has dropped to $10k and you get paid out that much for an accident, then in theory you should be able to buy a similar condition EV on the used car market for $10k. What's the problem with that?
The problem is when your loan balance is $20K and you're only getting a $10K payoff...
Tesla lowered the prices dramatically in Jan 2023:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1F5IQOynIawoXiJPV...
It does not seem remarkable that a new product takes some time to find its market price, and COGS goes down as supply chain improvements are made.
And there was a $7,500 tax credit at time of purchase introduced in Jan 2023. At least the graph comparing Model Y to Ford F150 seems expected.
Hey, did you read the article? The newsworthy point is that the EVs depreciate faster than gas counterparts.
But hey, that just means better used EV prices for the rest of us. You can get some high end gently used ones for a great price.
—
“ For Tesla owners in the U.S., their 2023 Model Ys are worth 42% less than what they paid two years ago, while a Ford F-150 truck bought the same year depreciated just 20%. Older EV models depreciate even faster than newer ones. ”
I'm not sure I'd call an F-150 a "counterpart" to a Tesla Model Y, especially when the F-150 Lightning exists. I assume that it is because F-150 vs F-150 Lightning disproves the premise of this article.
Better used EV prices for buyers just means that EV sellers get ripped off
Why buy a car that depreciates hella fast?
Dafuck? No.
It says that it deprecates faster than other type of cars which should be worse in this particular criteria
Wierd that we're presenting SpaceX rockets that explode shortly after takeoff as a problem.
They're objects that disintegrate in the atmosphere at some point when you use them. That's normal, it even has a name: rapid unscheduled disassembly.
IMO the biggest issue is the lack of aftermarket cheap battery replacements, and the fault of that lies on car manufacturers.
sounds like retail price needs to drop
We are not at the top of curve where we get getting small incremental upgrades between models. Until the curve flattens out depreciation will be high.
I know I personally would not buy a used EV because I've heard so many horror stories about battery replacements. If EV batteries were commonly designed to be repairable (replace by cell or in smaller banks of cells), I'd be less hesitant.
I also suspect there simply aren't many used EVs I'd want right now. I generally "techie" cars with tons of software features, big ol' touch screens, and half-baked self-driving features. I'm still not even comfortable with keyless start on my current vehicle and I hate the adaptive cruise, which I am unable to turn off. For better or worse, EVs seem to always be at the bleeding edge of these kinds of technologies.
As pointed out by Scotty Kilmer on YouTube we currently lack the infrastructure both in terms of mechanics trained to work on EVs and the necessary electricity infrastructure to make a full transition possible. The answer isn't, "new types of cars" it's building the, "you don't necessarily need a car" society the Europeans and the Japanese enjoy.
Yes we're doomed is what I mean.
I am going to declare my wife to be the authority on this topic.
We were well on a path to purchase a couple of EV's (Teslas, new) and even installed a large solar array to support them.
A couple of years later she learned about the cost of replacing the battery. And, just like that, the dream was over. No interest whatsoever.
Anyone who is married fully understands you cannot argue with wife logic. She has no interest in having to spend $20K to $30K ever on any vehicle, of any type, electric or not, a few years after you paid off the loan.
She would not even touch a used EV if it was almost free. In that case you are almost guaranteed to have to spend tens of thousands of dollars for a new battery at a random moment in time in the future. No deal.
Her logic is cemented in a reality of life that we have lived: There are good times and bad times. And, as things go sometimes, you often find yourself in bad times with no money. Vehicles being necessary for mobility and work, if you have an EV, hit bad times and need to spend tens of thousands of dollars to swap the battery, you are absolutely screwed.
So, I asked her: What would make you change your mind?
The answer: A battery swap should be $5,000 or less.
>Anyone who is married fully understands you cannot argue with wife logic.
This is the job the 4dr Wrangler was built to solve.
"see honey, it's got a back seat for the kids".
"don't worry, we can get a hard top if it's too loud."
"there's a hybrid option available"
It's the world's worst 4dr SUV for kids and car seats and the like and it's still loud with a hard top and gets shit milage for a hybrid but you'll never figure it out until after you've bought the thing and the honeymoon period is over.
It's an absolutely brilliant exercise in checkbox engineering (and preventing couples from arguing in the dealership).
In 15 years / 300,000 miles when the battery might need replacement, the pack (not cell) price for batteries will probably be around $50/kWh, or $5,000 for 100 kWh.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-pric...
It’s not a random moment, they degrade predictably over time and at a very slow rate. They have less “random” big expensive failures than ice cars. How much is an ice whole engine replacement in a semi modern car? Not cheap and happens more often than an ev battery dropping dead.
So I mean I’m sorry your wife is irrational about it, but I don’t think that’s indicative of the market as a whole.
> It’s not a random moment, they degrade predictably over time and at a very slow rate.
So do traditional vehicles. You need to have them serviced regularly, but otherwise they work fine for literally decades. My uncle has a Volvo 240 GL that car is 50+ year old.
> How much is an ice whole engine replacement in a semi modern car? Not cheap and happens more often than an ev battery dropping dead.
Engine failure is extremely rare. My 1997 Landrover Defender 300TDI is getting upto 300,000 miles and lets just say it hasn't had the easiest life (it was on a farm before I got it). Landrover's aren't known for their reliability.
My old Astra is still on the road (according to the DVLA) and that had well over 150,000 on the clock when I sold it.
> So I mean I’m sorry your wife is irrational about it, but I don’t think that’s indicative of the market as a whole.
His wife isn't irrational. I can get a mid-2000s Diesel that will have decent mileage for less than £4000 in the UK. I see people saying "I only paid $30,000 for this EV". I have never paid more than £10,000 for a car and they last for years and years as long as I get them serviced
The EV transition sadly coincides with auto manufacturers giving up on making their cars repairable. ICE cars are getting harder to repair as well, but have some "momentum" since they often reuse parts that have been around for years. Meanwhile EVs are a clean break where manufacturers feel comfortable taking a hostile posture to the 3rd party repair market.
No shit.. you have gas cars that drives for 20+ years. Let's see if EVs can do that without costing a fortune.
I’d love to have an EV. I’m not even too frightened about the battery.
It’s just that the cars are aging like iPhones. Last years hardware package, hardware compatibility with latest software, etc are all people seem to talk about on Reddit. I think that’s a factor in the steep depreciation.
I just bought a new Corolla hybrid, it gets 60 miles per gallon and should last a good while. Maybe next purchase.
In the UK I think most EVs are leased, especially through "salary sacrifice" schemes from employers (which saves the whole income tax on payments). Is it the same in the US?
In such case I suspect the impact is mostly on leasing companies with issues on viability and leasing costs (for consumers).
In UK/Europe this might also explain why depreciation after 3 years is so high: Leasing companies trying to dump EVs returned at end of leases.
According to Experian, a bit over half of EVs are leased in the US (https://www.experianplc.com/newsroom/press-releases/2025/con...)
> through "salary sacrifice" schemes from employers (which saves the whole income tax on payments)
I don't know if such a thing exists in the US. I'm not aware of it, but it could easily have escaped my notice.
Interesting! My take is that this is partly caused by people not trusting their long term value and reliability, and at the same time it contributes to their depreciation because it means the EVs are dumped on the used car market after 2-5 years (I think 3 years is popular for leases in the UK).
The upside of this story might be a change of culture in EVs in North America. Everywhere else in the world, EVs are cheap cars to urbanites. In the U.S./Canada they're muscle/status cars for rich people. This cheaper second hand market might help popularize them.
I live in Canada where the distances are long and the weather is freaking cold. These are 2 circumstances very adverse to EVs.
But, still, I love my Kia Niro EV. It is the best car I've ever had. The driving experience is so good that it made me enjoy driving; I always hated driving before this car.
EVs run much smoother, are more stable and more powerful. Besides, if you charge them at home, they're far cheaper; even if you don't have solar panels (I do have them, too).
I have never heard of them described as "muscle cars". In the US, they seem like "green" virtue-signalling tech toys for the middle and upper-middle class, to me.
I'd happily buy one if I were a bit more comfortable with their use, but I'm a tech "dawdler".
The article is basically talking about Tesla.
Buyers of new Teslas are basically the TSLA cult.
Used buyers... aren't.
Hm, what might have happened that might have destroyed the overall brand with sensible, probably-liberal buyers of used EVs? I vaguely recall some salute thing. Don't really remember the specifics. I just remember there was a bit of a hubbub.
You know you're old when - the headline instantly reminds you how fast those newfangled "desktop computers" depreciated, compared to the adding machines and typewriters that they were trying to replace.
Control for: Companies that make it impossible to source parts for repairs (Tesla) Companies with absurdity expensive repairs for minor cosmetic damage (Tesla again) Companies whose CEO threw up a Nazi salute on national tv (also Tesla, seeing a trend here?) And the science might tell a different story.
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You know, pretty much all of the Germany's post-WW2 industry could be described like that, including Daimler and Benz...
But these bosses are also long retired or dead and didn't had their primary market in left-wing people.
Anybody with Nazi sympathies who works for those companies today had best keep them to themselves... and believe me, they know it.
At Tesla, such behavior is rewarded with 12-digit compensation packages.
People are fed up with being forced into buying a technology they don't want or need. It's idiotic throwing away the mature tech in petrol and diesel cars in favour of electric. And yes, I still drive petrol and I love it!
Why does anyone accept the government enforced massive downgrade that is switching from gas to electric?
What country are you in? What government enforcement are you on about? And why a massive downgrade? And why don't you change the channel off of Fox occasionally?
> What government enforcement are you on about?
UK and EU are defacto making Petrol/Diesel cars production uneconomical / illegal. California IIRC are also has a deadline for Petrol/Diesel cars IIRC.
> And why a massive downgrade?
The biggest ones for me are:
1) Range. I have a 700 mile range on my car. My old car before that could do 600 miles. I can travel from one end of the UK to another with 1/2 fuel stops. I have family I see regularly on the other side of the country. I can do the trip in 4 providing good traffic In an Electric vehicle that time is 5-7 hours due to the extra stops required. I know this because my mother and step father recently came to visit me and they have an electric vehicle. If you regularly do longer trips even 30 minutes off the road is a long time. I don't stop for anything other than a bathroom break when I do a long journey.
2) Charging time. I live in an apartment. I would need to charge the car away from home. That is a massive PITA IMO. I spend maybe 5 minutes in a petrol station, compared to 30 minutes at a charger.
3) Almost every modern vehicle car has a bunch of annoyances in the vehicle. The electric cars I have seen have this dialled up to 11.
4) Cost. Electric vehicles are really expensive IMO. I can get a cheap second hand diesel for a few thousand in reasonable condition.
> And why don't you change the channel off of Fox occasionally?
Snarky responses like this is why people become resentful. Just because people have a different view point to yours doesn't mean they have been brainwashed by someone.
A lot of us are happy with the vehicles we already have. I simply do not have an interest in ever owning an electric vehicle. I also prefer older vehicles and bikes because they are simpler and I prefer the way they operate.
A lot of these themes btw was explored by Demolition Man with Sly Stallone. The "resistance" figures to the "regime" are eating meat and driving a v8 muscle car.
I suggest you watch that, it is a fun movie and Sandra Bullock looks gorgeous in it.
I'm currently leasing an EV for 24 months 7.5kMi/yr. The residual price is over $20k lower than MSRP. Without subsidy and steep discounts, nobody would buy these things. And IMO, the residual is about $5k higher than it will be worth based on low-mileage used vehicles of the same model for sale. That finally gets us to the price, almost 50% lower than the MSRP, which I personally value this car new with 0 miles.
These EVs should be much cheaper. Either batteries are so outlandishly expensive that this will never be economically viable for the vast majority of the world outside of cities, or companies are playing accounting games.
In any case, when purchasing a used EV, you're essentially risking the entire purchase price if you get a battery lemon. Buying a Bolt or what have you for $15-$20k, and having to replace the battery at 60%+ of your purchase price, that's too much risk. Whereas if you bought a used ICE vehichle for $15-20k, and your engine fails, you might might need to spend $1500-5k for a repair, it's not all or nothing. And with a moderate amount of research, you can determine which makes or models are prone to early large repairs.
If EV manufacturers would sell a no-questions-asked insurance policy that guarantees the life of the battery to 250k miles, there would be no issue.
Manufactures could offer battery inspections and extended warranties. Maybe with more data, I assume at 15-20 years old no one really knows what the failure modes of these batteries will be.
Well, a warranty would be a cost to the manufacturer. An insurance policy would be risk-adjusted recurring revenue.
Man, I wish this were true, because I would love to buy a cheap second hand EV right now.
Looking across fhe used car sites and KBB, I'm probably going to buy new instead.
There's a concerted PR effort to slander EVs out there, take all articles with a huge grain of salt.
As someone who made the mistake of switching to EV recently, I can see why, battery issues aside. They have a higher cost of ownership, and provide zero benefits beyond smoother acceleration. They are such a pain in the ass to keep charged, and I have to borrow a car for road trips unless I want to make it a very long road trip for no good reason.
Most people just don't want another after their first one. So there is not much demand. Dealerships are practically giving them away right now, which is how they snagged me.
Luckily, I can get out of this lease in a couple of years. Unluckily, I will have to spend more on a very quick ICE car now that I've experienced EV acceleration. Luckily, it'll still probably be cheaper than an EV.
You're seriously the exception. Everyone I have spoken to who switched to EV don't want to go back to ICE.
ICE cars have way more things that break down and less reliable for the most part. As for always having to charge... most people driving an EV recharge every night at home and rarely require a charging station. Road trips are a different story but most people don't have regular road trips.
Get a PHEV dude.
I wish the market had a wide selection of 40-50 miles electric range PHEVs ... but a 20 mile EV mode range PHEV will still electrify 80% of your city driving in lots of situations.