It’s a brutal time to sell and a helluva time to buy. The used EV market is in freefall, and it’s current owners that are holding the bag. But if you’ve been looking for the time to get into a modern, long-range EV, it may be now.
New data from Edmunds shows that EV values have fallen 20.5% year over year. That’s a seismic shift. The overall used car market, for reference, has cooled by 6.8% over the same time period. That’s a big swing for the market as a whole, but the EV swing is gargantuan. Compared to average used vehicle values during the second quarter of 2022, EV values in Q2 2024 are down a whopping 38.5%.
It’s hardly a surprise. New EVs have been highly priced for the last many years and considered to be luxury or marketed towards the first mover market.
There has only been a tiny used market until now, so obviously availability can only increase which brings down the prices. Demand will tail behind because many first time buyers will be scared to buy used. It’ll stabilise somewhere.
It’s not a bad thing, unless you want to sell right now and buy new again.
When I switched to EV I did the calculations based on writing off the car entirely after 10 years. It’ll probably last longer, but just to get the full depreciation into my calculations of whether it was worth switching at that time. The equations crossed after 6 years, so anything I could sell it for then would be profit in comparison to my car budget.
Anyway, my point is that the current value doesn’t change my situation in any way. It was and is still a good deal for me to switch to EV. Gotta get on the train somewhere. Waiting for the market to adjust down to the sticker price on ICE cars is more expensive than worrying about resell value, unless you already know that you need to sell it again shortly.
My god it’s like we’re twins. Exact same thought process.
What are these calculations, like expected cost of electricity vs. cost of fuel and so on, imagining a maximum lifetime of 10 years?
Yes. There are soo many variables that you need a spreadsheet to figure it out. There is no easy way to say that EV is cheaper than ICE unless you know the purchase price, your expected mileage, cost of fuel, depreciation, potential subsidiaries, financing, servicing, repairs, etc. for the time of owning the car. It might not be.
Nobody can know all the variables in advance, so what I did was to calculate the worst possible scenario for the EV against my somewhat more known cost of continuing buying beater cars (which was the cheapest option for me in comparison to buying new ICE cars also, and also on my budget because I knew how much I spent on it previously).
The EVs worst scenario was way ahead of the best scenario ICE, but it was very mileage dependant. I commute 50 km (30 miles) every day and then some. I get my electricity tax free because of government subsidiary and my financing was cheaper because it’s an EV (less than 1% interest), but this is obviously very local. ALL variables must be known to some degree, but it’s never as simple as comparing the purchase price. While that’s the most easily known factor it doesn’t actually matter much after 10 years, because all the variables make up for it long before.
Also, charging at home vs. subscribing to a charging service and getting the right electricity subscription are completely different calculations also depending on location, usage and availability. I live in Denmark (Europe) and charging at home with variable price and feedback subsidized commission is absolutely the cheapest option unless you’re a traveling salesman putting thousands of kilometres every week.
By doing worst case against a known case I am always pleasantly surprised when we have negative electricity prices, because the actual calculation would break down at that point. My actual costs are continuously better than my expectations, so if my expectations are good enough, well then my actual situation is a lot better.
I can only urge people to gather their data, figure it out and have a look. There will be cases where an ICE car is cheaper, but in my situation, I can’t find it at all.
That’s really useful to consider, thank you for going into some more details on that.
Good news for me I guess.
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Still too much for me, but I’m glad we’re finally getting down in prices.
Wait until solid state batteries start making it to the market 😎
And please, make them swappable. I’m afraid to buy used because the battery is a gamble. If I could just go to the shop and have them pop a new one in in about half an hour, I’d be really interested.
It’s not a gamble, just EV haters keeping that myth alive. You don’t worry about the replacement engine cost of an ICE, do you?
No, because I know I’ll get at least thrive the mileage out of them I typically use them. I have no experience on EVs though.
The fact that the battery is usually the part that has the longest warranty should tell you everything. I have never seen a warranty on an engine longer than 5 years and 100 000 km, but batteries are routinely 10+ years.
What percentage of capacity does the warranty cover? I had batteries covered under phone plans before and it turns out even a significantly lower capacity counts as “working like normal.”
Tesla’s covers 70% if I remember correctly
They’re still shitboxes but 10 year 100k mile power train coverage is out there.
Is that the default warranty though? My PHEV has a 10-year warranty on the battery, 3 years on the rest by default, I didn’t pay for any extra coverage (Chrysler).
https://www.hyundaiusa.com/us/en/assurance/america-best-warrantyWith that said- Do not, under any circumstances, buy a Hyundai.
Good to know, thanks. Next car might have a charging socket
Recently in Thailand MG have started to offer lifetime, unlimited mileage warranty for the battery !
The battery wear was an issue for the first EV with bad thermal but more it is not really a problem anymore.
They are worthless. You can’t own them because of all the criminal proprietary crap. The cars are unserviceable. You don’t see anything newer popping up at general used car lots because the junk is simply untenable. No one can fix them. There is no second hand market in this neo feudal digital dystopia. Buying proprietary crap like this has consequences; it means you don’t actually own anything; it means you can’t offload it. You paid all that money to burn every penny all by yourself. Trading it in is a monopolistic dream land where you’re forced to sell it back to the true owner for peanuts, bent over, and take it again for a bigger gouge. You’ve sold autonomy, ownership, citizenship, and ultimately democracy, and you paid for the privilege… to subscribe to the scam of a highway robber. Your only vote is in the purchase. You can only fix yourself, not everyone else, but you alone in the paradigm are either part of the problem or part of the solution.
They are worthless. You can’t own them because of all the criminal proprietary crap. The cars are unserviceable.
That’s completely unrelated to propulsion technology, though. ICE cars are the same these days.
Yep but you can buy an ICE from 7 years ago and be fine. EVs are absolutely dreadful for poorer folks.
Jesus dude go outside, take a deep breath, relax a little
I’m guessing you’re thinking of Teslas? There are other EVs you know, without the whole proprietary crap, which is indeed loathsome…
Not really on a deeper level. The systems underpinning all present vehicles are all proprietary garbage. It has been that way since around 2013 when cars started having modems and acting as data mining stalkerware that steals your digital person for manipulation and exploitation.
There were already many schemes present where digital theft was already an issue, but after the acceptance of stalkerware as standard, you’ve completely lost true ownership of any vehicle. The worst offenders are ALL electric vehicles, but any vehicle in the last 10 years is completely worthless second hand. This shift made the poor of society far more impoverished in the long term and creates a massive barrier in wealth disparity that will become far clearer to see in the next 10 years.
I painted cars for these kinds of general used car lots in the aughties. I even dabbled in buying for dealers at wholesale auctions. I can see the market clearly when I see what these kinds of dealers carry right now. It clearly looks like the world is sinking into something like the Cuban embargo where dealers are doing anything they can to acquire and resell the last age of ownable models that can be found at dying auction houses. It is the end of ownership. That means the end of autonomy. This is not just an EV problem, but it is an E problem. And it absolutely is a soft coup against democracy.
You need to watch some mr rogers and cheer up friend
No, he’s right. Modern cars – EVs and otherwise – are a dystopian Hellscape of proprietary electronics and DRM.
I’m on their side of the argument, especially if they are broadening the complaint to cover all cars. They are all collecting shocking amounts of data. The touchscreen consoles are certainly not FOSS, who knows how long those will be maintained or if they can be replaced with something that isn’t garbage.
I was in a rental car (ICE) on a trip recently that decided to update its own software without driver consent during a gas station stop. First of all, why is it connected to the internet to be able to receive new software?
People lack an objective understanding of how the used car market works, the margins, repairs, etc. I’ll block the community fanboy club now so that I don’t intrude with any perspective reality. What I am saying will be clearly seen in due time. I don’t like it, but this is reality.
While not the best news, most car models from before 2018 that are connected only have 3g modems (and no 2g/1g fallbacks to save money), 3G has essentially been off in North America for a few years so most of the connected cars from that era can not connect to anything (at least not without new modems/adapters).
Although this ofc says nothing of facts like Mercedes charging $50+ a day to use their diagnostics/repair software thats required for just about anything from 2010+ and has many functions locked to their tools that cost a few thousand each.MB diagnostics price list
I don’t like the data collection and subscription features bullshit either.
Saying they’re worthless is not at all true though. I bought a used Bolt and I love it. Much better pickup than my old gas car and cheaper to own.
