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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.

Don't know about the us but all models mentioned were well over 50k (most nearing 75k+) with incentives where I live and thus fall in the top 1% income bracket range. And expensive mass produced cars lose value faster than cheaper models as they have to be sold second hand to the next lower income bracket which is an exponential curve hence the high dropoff. This used to be the same for ice cars.

Of course both can be true as well.

I wonder if COVID distorted the market enough to show up here?

I have anecdotes of friends/family/coworkers who bought cars (or second cars for the household) to avoid public transport.

And 2nd hand prices for cars gere (Australia) went batshit insane for a while during and as we chose to pretend that COVID was over - and those artificially inflated prices are mostly over now.

Not just the extra demand from people avoiding public transport but supply chain disruption caused by COVID affected the supply of new cars (and spare parts), so people who wanted a new car were now considering new-ish cars.

We had a whiplash effect in the US.

In late 2020 and early 2021, Used car prices plummeted due to so many people trading in 2nd vehicles. I remember tire kicking a 2008 vehicle that was 2000$ then...

Whiplash on used cars started later in 2021, as people were starting to go back out more and in some cases beginning to RTO.

The combination of rising new car prices and rising interest rates in 2022 only further hurt the market. On top of that the newer cars are in many cases less reliable so people are holding on longer.

Fwiw I just double checked and For reference that same 2008/make/mileage is now more like 5000$...

Just to be Mr pedantic here, the same mileage means you have a much better vehicle 5 years later. I would add 25-40k extra miles to account for typical mileage added per year

Sorry im not following; unless it is a 'special' car, a 2008 car with 120k miles, except accounting for inflation and market dynamics, would be worth less in 2025 with the same mileage. Except of course for the factors I mentioned (as well as inflation)

Op was comparing the same mileage 5 years later. Being pedantic about an apples to apples comparison would require adding additional miles.

Sorry that was difficult to grasp I will try to be clear in the future!

I have colleagues who bought new EVs and made money selling them one year later, because the market was so wild back then. For a while you could still add some deductions here, some credit there, sell an old car and “girl math” your way to a “free car”. Now people are surprised pikachu when the bubble has burst.

I know of someone who sold their _place in the queue_ to get a new RAV4 Hybrid and made 8K on the deal, while actualy delivery of the car was still tow months out.

Not just EVs, the entire car market was insane. A friend of mine sold his minivan for $10k over what he had bought it for a year or two before.

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.

> 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...

Right, because the other $26k is being subsidized by the party. And much like the US found out with rare earths: once China has the market cornered, the price will rise and/or they’ll use access to their goods as a tool of war.

They’re playing the long game and western nations seem unable or unwilling to do the same.

https://insideevs.com/news/763687/china-zero-mile-used-evs/

That might be true, but it doesn’t matter for the buying decision of the individual consumer.

It will matter a lot if (replacement) battery prices skyrocket…

Most individual buyers are unable or not willing to take global perspectives into account, otherwise Japanese cars would never make impact on the American market for example. You need people in power to make informed decisions, and even then you risk the only result will be people getting very angry that politician mess up with the market.

I don't really see a prospect of that, since the batteries are steadily getting both better and cheaper. What makes you think so?

For E-Bikes at least communication between the engine and the battery pack is encrypted and you can't replace either without the manufacturer's consent.

This seems more like an added feature of some E-Bikes, rather then an essential design element of E-Bikes in general.

And even if true, it doesn't follow for me that "therefor, batteries must become more expensive in general, despite the current trend".

I think you're implying lock-in and extractive profits, rather than rising cost of manufacture. It's an argument for diversity of key industries, and that batteries might become such. I agree with that. But as an argument that (in parent the comment's words) "so, battery prices will skyrocket", it seems a bit thin to me.

battery prices are expected to "Plummet" not "Skyrocket": https://cleantechnica.com/2025/10/15/plummeting-battery-pric...

I don’t think the argument is „batteries are getting more expensive“, the argument is that manufacturers will start maximizing profits once they have sufficiently handicapped the competition.

They might, at which point the argument for diversity of key industries kicks in. Batteries are key to the near future of hand-held gadgets, e-bikes, passenger cars, many other vehicles and to power grids, so the tolerance for extractive monopolies might be limited.

Yes, we should not let one manufacturer or one country be the sole supplier. The scale is large and will only grow, and if the profit margins are large, then there is opportunity.

The past and future evidence is firmly on the side of batteries getting steadily cheaper. I'm not saying that the opposite is impossible. Just that to make that claim, there is therefor a substantial burden of proof to be met, and I don't see it at all in this thread.

That's a hard argument to make as long as the relevant antitrust authorities are diligent about mergers & acquisitions.

Batteries are not a differentiated product. They're basically completely defined by 3 numbers: capacity (in watt-hours), power delivery (watts), and weight. Once those are optimized (which is the process going on now), the chemistry, construction, and manufacturing of batteries is basically a solved problem. Any barriers to entry are purely in the technology and manufacturing. About 200 years of industrial history shows that these are not durable barriers to entry: eventually, technology and know-how diffuses, and knowledge of how to make even very complex machines becomes a commodity. (See eg: power looms, memory chips, hard disks, agriculture, TVs, automobiles, drones.)

Durable competitive advantages usually take the form of either a.) complex consumer interface, eg. with software or CPUs b.) network effects, eg. telecommunications, payment networks, software again, utilities or c.) regulations, eg. payment again, airplane manufacturing, healthcare, and shortly software. These are industries where factors outside the company in question ensure that there will only be one or at most a small set of companies in the market.

When you have a commodity product, the only route to extractive profits is to form a cartel and lobby governments or consumers to believe the cartel is in their interests, eg. with oil or diamonds. But this is a hard sell because the cartel is not in their interests. You can generally only fool people for a decade or two before they decide they've had enough and legislate your monopoly out of existence.

People tend to overindex on the software industry when it comes to "maximizing profits" because that has been the big story of the 2010s, ignoring that Big Tech very carefully implemented every play in the "build a monopoly" playbook to get there, and that millions of indie software developers actually do not make a very good living because their products are commodities.

"The relevant antitrust authorities" aren't going to be able to touch anyone who manufactures in China, and that is currently the centre of battery manufacturing. I have nothing against batteries and EVs and solar panels made in China. They are a huge benefit to humanity as a whole. But it should not be a chokepoint.

But the rest stands. The barriers aren't that high. How soon it is diversified, depends on how much attention the other countries and companies are paying.

Remind us all how that’s working out with insulin.

Free-of-charge to patients where I am. I know that the US takes a different choice on the consumer price of insulin, but it is exactly that: a choice.

[dead]

There are/were plenty of subsidies on EV cars in US/EU.

Also chinese companies innovate better and have more efficient supply chains that western ones.

The push to ban chinese automakers is stupid because it punishes customers at the benefit of automakers. Crony Capitalism at its worse.

>Also chinese companies innovate better and have more efficient supply chains that western ones.

Yeah because they just steal and copy everything from Western companies and others worldwide. Why spend hundreds of millions and 10 years doing R&D when you can just hack in and steal it? It's the Chinese way.

Chinese hackers took trillions in intellectual property from about 30 multinational companies

- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-hackers-took-trillions-...

The annual cost to the U.S. economy of counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets is between $225 billion and $600 billion.

China is the world’s principal infringer of intellectual property, and it uses its laws and regulations to put foreign companies at a disadvantage and its own companies at an advantage.

- https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/china-exec-summary-risk-...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_intellectual_pr...

Salt Typhoon is an advanced persistent threat actor believed to be operated by China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) which has conducted high-profile cyber espionage campaigns, particularly against the United States.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Typhoon

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora

Industrial espionage: How China sneaks out America's technology secrets

- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64206950

etc etc etc

Yes GM is lagging behind BYD not because it's leadership and managerial culture but because "chinese copy".

And the solution is to punish consumers and enrich GM's totally failed leadership and irrational shareholders by throttling competition chinese.

Here in europe cars have become so expensive compared to just 10y ago.

Some of it is because of stupid green policies, but most if because EU carmakers have been successful in reducing the competitive pressure from China by the use of tariffs on chinese firms.

> Here in europe cars have become so expensive compared to just 10y ago.

Check the ownership of the different brands and you will discover from the dozens of brands in Europe, there are really only a few companies making cars. And the "mother company" then shares chassis between models, engines between models. So you can have a a Lada with a Renault engine, with a Dacia chassis. We see 3 brands, but in reality, its one brand.

* Groupe Renault's owned brands include Renault, Dacia, Alpine, and Lada.

But wait ...

* Stellantis was formed from the 2021 merger of two major auto groups: PSA Group (which included Citroën and Peugeot) and FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles). Therefore, the brands Stellantis owns are now a part of Citroën's parent company, which include brands like Peugeot, Fiat, Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, and Opel.

You see the issue very fast. If you own many brands, do you compete against each other, or do you "stabilize prices for max profit". Same issue with other brands...

Its like in the US, where if you trace back the brands, like 3 or 4 companies, own like 90% of the known US food brands. And when you have only a few companies, gentlemen's agreements about not competition too much are a thing.

Hey, why are HDD not dropping in prices for the last 10+ years. Well, there are only 3 brands left (with two that are huge). Hey, why did SSD/NVME prices suddenly skyrocket. Well, only a few brands make the stuff, and when one decided to increase prices, all of a sudden the rest also followed. Strange is it not...

We are in the age of monopolies again, and that is linked to a lot of the price issues.

At this point IP seems to be less of a moat to competition than manufacturing ability. And that is what America and other western countries gave up on. It is easier to focus on branding and profit margins than the fine points of high volume production.

Even if that was true in the past, it has been many years since companies in China can actually do a better job at design than their western counterparts. And engineering, and manufacturing.

They also hired a ton of european designers for their house brands. They have no need to copy anything.

Yes, the west let this happen, and it’s too late to cry about it, action needs to start happening (and I don’t mean import barriers or a trade war) if we don’t want to be dependent.

Maybe intellectual property is not something you should bet the company on then? The customers don't give a shit who made the original idea. We live in a global market, eventually you need to Realpolitik about things

Considering the documented history of the US government spying on and pressuring allied countries (just look up echolon) for their own economic gains, I always find it ironic how people are complaining about China. Shouldn't we base our trust on past behaviour? Has the US not proven to not be trustworthy.

Your also forgetting that Chinese cars have a large import tariff.

Current rates are BYD (17%), Geely (18.8%), and SAIC (35.3%).

> And much like the US found out with rare earths:

Rare earths is not rare at all. China has a cornered the market on processing those minerals for cheap. The problem is that we in the West have no appetite to actually support companies to process those "rare" earths.

And the US is really the last country to even talk about batteries, when the arrested 300+ Koreans that worked to get a US battery plant going.

> They’re playing the long game and western nations seem unable or unwilling to do the same.

Its not just a government issue, its a companies issue. You think that car companies in Europe do not get subsidies? Have you ever looked at how much subsidies they get opening new plants or renovating plants?

Reality is that a lot of car companies enjoyed their little monopolie positions in Europe. Sure, we got a lot of brands, but in reality its a illusion of competition, as most brands are owned by a few big companies.

China had a different situation, where yes, there was subsidies from the government (and a lot of misuse of those subsidies), but you had 100's of car manufactures entering the markets. I mean, we talk about BYD often but BYD was not even a car manufacturer until 2005 ... The result is a strong competition between car makers, what resulted in a lot of technological development and a push to be better then the next guy(s). Constant copy and innovation work. Work to reduces prices to be able to compete better, as remember, their competitor also go those subsidies.

We have this issue with our car industry only to thank to our own car industry. Frankly, i am happy to see the Chinese enter the EU market, for the simply fact that it pushed the EU car makers to actually start innovating again and offering more to the clients.

The issue with competition to dead was a issue in new upcoming industries, like solar. Because their both sides started with the same level vs +subsidies. The car industry is a totally different beast with deep pockets and manufacturing capabilities. So lets not act like "poor EU car makers".

>the lack of charging in the city

This would be the killer for me. I have a private garage with plugs, and even at 120V, I can out-charge my typical driving needs. I work from home and only occasionally take trips beyond a few miles, with a few longer road trips a year.

My IONIQ 5 (USA) does 300 miles (480 km) on paper, but in practice, I've seen a fair bit less. That said, it does charge up 20->80% in under 20 minutes at a fast charger.

Disclaimer: never owned a car, no driving licence. Also talking about Norway with generally good charger infrastructure.

Was on a road trip last summer, around Norway, in VW id.Buzz. Charging time of 5min vs 20min doesn't matter. When you're on that long trip, you need time to eat, go to bathroom, walk a little so your legs/back doesn't hurt. In the whole trip there was maybe one forced trip to a shop, because we had time to burn (the only charger was too slow and needed a whole hour to charge).

OTOH have a friend with first gen Leaf and his max charging speed is pretty slow. He additionally can't charge at home and this makes the slow charging time a little off a nuisance.

I hear Norway has good charging infrastructure. Here in France, on highways, there are usually chargers at gas stations, with spots available (don't know the specifics; I don't own an EV). However, it should be noted that I avoid driving during very busy days, so I can't comment on what happens in that situation, especially since traffic would reduce an EV's range.

However, where I live in Paris, there are three parking spots with chargers available around my apartment. Some apartment buildings have underground parking, for which I understand there's a push to set up charging infrastructure, but many buildings do not. Mine doesn't. If I had an EV I'd have to wait around for one of the three places to free up, wait for the battery to charge, then go move the car to a different spot.

Now, I don't particularly need a car, which is why I don't own one, but for my use case, an EV would be an all-around hassle to keep charged. I also mainly use vehicles to go on trips to remote places—I very rarely take highways. Hell, a few years ago I was in the mountains, and gas stations were so far apart that I was running on reserve when I got to one.

I'm not against EVs, and it's clear there are many situations where they're great. But I think we're still in a transition period with plenty of situations that aren't covered yet.

> especially since traffic would reduce an EV's range.

Very much a misconception; unlike in an ICE, you're not consuming energy idling in traffic, in fact your efficiency tends to go up with the lower speeds in traffic.

I was thinking more about stop-and-go traffic, as opposed to moving slowly but at a steady pace. I'd expect the repeated accelerations to consume more than just going at a constant speed. Is that not the case?

Not terrible unless you are lead footing both the accelerator and brake.

Also as far as Stop and go... its typically also lower speed; wind resistance is not linear based on speed, so 'crawling' is not that bad.

Im in the US and drive a hybrid rather than an EV, that said 'stop and go' is when I will often seem an MPG -increase-, so long as I gently accelerate (in severe stop and go, just letting my foot off brake and not touching gas).

That's also some of the justification for 'mild hybrids' that have an auto stop and maybe at best a 11kW/120Nm electric motor to kick things off. If you don't drive with a lead foot they can improve efficiency (but overcomplicate things compared to Toyota HSD)

I suppose main counter condition would be in low temperature conditions; AC is fairly efficient, Heating less so, and then in severe cases the batteries need to activate their own self heaters.

You get a lot back (70% or so) from the regenerative braking.

> Was on a road trip last summer, around Norway, in VW id.Buzz. Charging time of 5min vs 20min doesn't matter. When you're on that long trip, you need time to eat, go to bathroom, walk a little so your legs/back doesn't hurt.

That is often the argument that i see but people forget a lot:

Fast charging if often 20 > 80% for 20min. If you want 80 to 100, its a lot less fast (think how your phone slows down).

While you can drive down to 5% of less, it can become a issue if you do not find a charger. When the summer vacation happened, a lot of north traffic goes south, over France ( and reverse).

What happened? People ended up waiting 15 a 25min at the chargers traffic jam in their cars. Then they charged up to 80% (because the stations had people to manage the flow), and needed to drive out (or pay more/fine).

This resulted that your range was already reduced by 20%. You ended up wasting 15 a 25 minutes stuck in your car. And with airco's on because its summer, so more battery drain. Aka, you did not really tank X km range, but X - waiting usage - 20% less limit.

Its always fun to compare a gasoline engine 5 min tank job, vs "not a issue, we need to stretch our legs", but when the reality of long trips that often coincide with vacation periodes... Yea, then the disadvantages of that statement come into play.

So the irony is that, a EV with a realistic 500km range, got hit with a 20% at chargers, then another hit from the waiting, o and you had no choice, it was fast charge or no charge.

I remember warning people to not see EVs based only on short trips or long "out of season" trips but also on those typical school vacation trips that many take. Ironic part, if you drove a hybrid, 5 min tank job for 100% fuel at the regular price.

In the european school holiday season, gas stations can also build up long queues, it's not exclusively an EV problem, though slow charging cars can compound the issue. Most people travel by plane or train anyway [1].

Every EV route planner already assumes you'll only charge to 80% (and won't discharge below 10%), because that's the range where you can charge at high speeds. In practice, when compared to a combustion engine, a 2x 15m stop trip becomes a 3x 15m stop, or 2x 20m stop trip

It's not a big deal especially if your average stop is much longer than that. Or if you have a car with battery swapping, which only takes 3 minutes from 0% to 90%.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Hit by A/C is negligible in most EVs. What you're saying is more that there is a current charger shortage, supply/demand will take care of that in the future.

> Charging time of 5min vs 20min doesn't matter.

I think that’s only true if chargers are sitting idle. Otherwise you’re waiting longer in a queue before you can begin charging, and this delay compounds.

It may take only 20 min to charge to 80% but in practice you might have to wait until a charger becomes available or drive around to find one that's available.

That was not my experience on the single road trip I've done since getting this new EV. I charged 7 times in total, and did not have to wait for a charging bay at all.

I'm honestly not that bothered by it. I'm very much a "type B" road tripper. I don't care if it takes me an extra hour or two to get there, as long as I'm having a good time. Heck, I might go down some random road named "Old Priest's Grade" and add an extra hour to the trip just because the descent has beautiful views.

A lot of new cars in western Europe are bought as company cars or leased by a company.

Companies never buy used, so I think a lot of those sales are from buyers who wouldn't consider used. So those buyers are only now starting to create supply in the second hand market

I have the 2024 Model 3, traded for a 2020 Model 3.

The Highland revisions made the car much quieter, less rattly and boxy. The windows are two-ply for sound reduction. The suspension feels better and less rattly. The panels fit. Water doesn’t come up inside the doors now.

I don’t know if there’s any significant new EV tech in there, but they significantly upgraded the rider experience by improving their car-building.

Of course, VW, Audi, etc have been making doors that fit for a long time, so this could be a Tesla-specific thing.

Both versions are super fun to drive. Just whizzy and responsive. Fun. The new one also doesn’t suck on noisy highway cruising like the old one did.

Tesla is a bad example here because it was the best by a large margin 5 years ago, and it more or less stagnated (especially in markets where FSD is not available). But - at least in Europe - the cheapest Tesla you could buy 5 years ago was over 50 grands, now you can have one for 35k with no subsides, depending on the market.

This alone has a giant effect on the second-hand market (of Tesla, which again was the dominant brand years ago so it's also the dominant second-hand brand)

I thought nobody wanted Teslas in EU because of Elon Musk? I wouldn't expect it to be the dominant second-hand brand.

That drove down new cars sales in a few countries indeed. Also there are viable alternatives for new buyer's (although Tesla is still probably the best value for money). But the second-hand market is different and if you want a second-hand EV that you can actually use for long trips, Tesla is the only option.

Yes, there are people traveling with Kona or Leaf but personally I would not do it.

There are still lots of Teslas on the roads where I am, relative to to other EVs. Cars are big expensive assets, they don't vanish, usually. Even if you now regret the purchase, you may be stuck with it for a few years.

For any given brand, the number of vehicles on the road isn't a function of the brand's popularity this quarter. Its the sum of popularities over the last decade or more. So, loss of reputation takes a long time to feed through. And people wanting to unload them won't make them less prevalent on second-hand markets, quite the opposite.

But also, the % of EVs that I see that are Teslas is slowly declining, as other brands proliferate and the EV market gets larger.

Tesla sold close to 1/2 million calls LAST QUARTER. Their record quarter. They’ve not slowing down.

OK, but that doesn't invalidate anything that I said.

I discussed what I see, that's inherently local not global. There could be places where Tesla sales are slowing down, even if they're net growing globally.

Local is London, UK for me, btw.

I discussed Tesla's as a % of EVs total. A brand such as Tesla could still be e.g. growing sales at 5% per year, but if the EV market is growing at 10% per year, they're still becoming a smaller % of the total number of EVs on the road.

The more interesting trend to me is the proliferation of many different EV brands. Time was when Tesla was the only EV. Then there were a few challengers. Now it's all-in from traditional German brands such as BMW and VW, The Korean Hyundai-Kia group have a lot of new models, through to BYD and the other Chinese newcomers. Even Toyota and Skoda are there now.

I think that something like this Tesla "relative decline even as sales grow" is happening, and this is a natural consequence of the EV market diversifying and maturing. If you really want an EV it doesn't have to be either Tesla or Nissan Leaf any more. There are lots of options and ruling out one specific brand for whatever reason is not going to prevent that.

If you want records, I'll note that 1) The largest EV maker by worldwide volume is now BYD and 2) BYD is pushing hard into the UK market, and others. It's early days for them in the UK, more so for the other Chinese newcomers.

I'm sure you can understand local growth vs. global growth when you look at BYD: They are number 1 globally, but have negligible EV sales in the USA.

And BYD being number one globally underscores that, in a growing market, Tesla can have a record quarter and still be losing % share of the total market.

"Chinese EV giant BYD sees UK sales soar" : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3w5jl2jgqwo

There are a lot of them on the roads in Europe.

Tesla is still the cool geek car. And geeks care more about tech and gadgets than politics.

People think that people generalize with political labels because they say things like “liberals are not buying Tesla’s because of Trump”. But when it comes to the EU they just say that everyone acts like the same kind of person.

Most EVs are basically high end luxury tech mobiles now. What ICE manus charge $5k in their tech package is basically standard across most EVs nowadays. It's insane the amount of bells/whistles cheap EVs come standard with now.

> Most EVs are basically high end luxury tech mobiles now.

I am fairly baffled when I come across positive vibes for modern cars. I'm not declaring those vibes wrong.

I'm saying I don't understand the lack of angst and resentment for

    what vehicle owners have lost (full ownership - what they've
      bought can no longer be assumed to be theirs. features and 
      operations can be [and are!] stolen by manufacturers.
      whole vehicles have been effectively stolen when
      a manufacturer declares a vehicle is no longer operational
      [because something something violation].
      other things owners have lost: safe tactile controls,
      non-extortionate repair costs - which insurance companies
      will pass on to every policy holder they can)

    how drivers are mistreated by manufacturers (relentless surveillance,
      driving data collected to exploit owners and empower other entities
      [ex:insurance] to financially or otherwise mistreat them
      - inc deeply personal data like mental health and other
      personal trips. nothing is off the table.) 
    
    how drivers are forced to mistreat everyone around them (continually
       blinding drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians. 
       continually robbing other drivers of critical distance visibility.
       leaving inches on both sides of their parked car for passengers in
       adjacent cars to exit)

    how they are forced to be less-safe drivers (forcing eyes away from the
       road to make routine adjustments to climate, etc - adjustments that
       for generations were trivially done by touch) 

This is why we need to pass right to repair (or modify) legislation , return control over your own belongings.

This must supersede any TPM/copyright restrictions or other encumbrances.

Let's have a look at the standard range.

2021 Tesla is on the Intel processor, so the software runs laggy and is missing some updates.

It would likely have the heatpump which was introduced 2020 but some markets only got it 2021 if I remember correctly.

You are also missing on cooled seats, have worse noise isolation & worse dampers, no lfp Batterie, 130km less range and so on

What makes them better?

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.

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.

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.

Electric vehicles are improving at the rate that batteries are improving. That is faster than you may think.

If you look just at Teslas, they go further and charge faster on smaller batteries (higher energy densities). These batteries cost less and will last far longer. And Tesla uses an older battery tech than Chinese companies use so, in fact, batteries have improved far more. And with sodium ion, there is about to be a massive improvement over the next few years.

>Are they really, though?

Yes, if you look beyond progress within a specific model line. For instance, there is a marked difference between the range and towing capacity of a 2023 Chevrolet Silverado EV and the Ford Lightning. The Kia EV9 offered a substantial price advantage over existing 3-row EVs when it was introduced in 2023. I think you're right that actual pricing vs MSRP is probably the biggest factor, but real and rapid improvement in the products also contributes. I know I've put off buying an EV van because I know that better options will be coming within the next 18 months.

> the now-discontinued Bolt (which was the cheapest road-tripable EV)

FYI the Bolt is back, at least for a limited run. [1]

1: https://news.gm.com/home.detail.html/Pages/news/us/en/2025/o...

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.

tesla's cars literally just got remodeled what on earth do you mean bz4? toyota? yes they made their terrible impractical car actually practical in its latest form.

the teslas are newish, with new parts and better sound suppression. they also improve marginally in efficiency every year. so the 2023 will have slightly better mechanicals than the 2021 etc.

not too different ... they are very different. much improved. go read a review comparing them.

how much different is today's durango from last year's or here lemme remind you durango hasn't been updated in 15 (count them!) FIFTEEN years. other zombie gas models are out there too.

Personally I chose a new over a used Model Y this year because the Juniper release includes a new front bumper camera which could prove crucial in certain unlikely scenarios, and improve overall self-driving. It’s important enough that there are rumors they’ll offer the option of retrofitting it onto earlier versions: https://evannex.com/blogs/news/how-to-identify-your-model-y-...

Also HW4 likely unlocks significant self-driving performance that the earlier hardware stack cannot accommodate, and will support features that are yet to be released for a longer period of time.

Which is all to say: looks to me that the progress is significant.

> Which is all to say: looks to me that the progress is significant.

Assuming you care about self driving enough. That's a big premium to pay for that alone. Fine if that works for you but I can't imagine that being a reason for many.

Getting a new battery or newer design battery is probably much more of a driving factor

I'm looking at getting a used F-150 lightning, with the caveat that towing anything absolutely decimates your range.

The new redesign coming out next year addresses this with a huge battery size increase.

Does real progress matter? What about the perception of progress?

Cars don’t need to be better, customers only need to think so.

Just look at the smartphone market.

I'm sure for newer EV models makers cut down on production costs but they may also cut down on quality as well.

Disagree; I drive a 40 year old Mercedes-Benz turbo diesel sedan for the exact opposite reason that nothing made today is as effective and reliable with comparative economy and comfort. My huge tank of a vehicle is safe, comfortable, and economic. Runs entirely on plant based biofuels and delivers an experience that no modern machines can rival. The cost of these old sedans steadily increases despite being 4 decadea old. Mine has 550000km on the odometer and rising. Simple and affordable to maintain, and can be worked on with standard hand tools. No computers on-board.

> Runs entirely on plant based biofuels

You forgot, "and pollutes like crazy."

The environmental calculus of driving a new car, versus driving a 40 year old diesel engine is challenging, I admit. Moreso if you are distilling your own fuel. I would bet that a gross polluter (as California calls them) from 40 years ago are probably a net loss compared to a 20 year old ICE today.

What’s the cost of biofuel, and what economy does the car get? And have you looked at how it’s crash test ratings actually stand up against a modern vehicle?

> And have you looked at how it’s crash test ratings actually stand up against a modern vehicle?

My first thought for sure. Especially because vehicles are getting demonstrably larger and heavier again in the US.

You also get a steering column pumped through your skull in an accident, but that's another discussion I suppose.

>vehicle is safe

Sure if you ignore all the safety improvements made to driving over the last 40 years...

agree here

vehicle safety improvements are one of the primary motivators (for me) to drive new cars. driving is dangerous and i want the best odds when the inevitable occurs

My favorite aspect of biofuels is that allows for the machine-energy economy to compete with the human-energy economy. It allows for first world folks to use their buying power to compete with food in the 2nd and 3rd world.

What’s extra great about it is that we use fertilizer to grow the biomass to be converted to fuel. And by some measures the energy cost of doing so is higher than just burning the fertilizer (which I’m sure everyone knows is a petroleum product) directly.

Kind of the worst of all worlds sort of technology

> some measures

EROI for biodiesel is well above 1:1 from what I can tell. Please elaborate on your sources.

markets are good

Yep that's why the US had slave markets instead of central planning. /s

Whats the model may i ask?

> 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).

There is a lot of fear around battery degradation. People don not like EVs that have come off warranty.

So, while the batteries may last 800,000 km, people start to discount the replacement cost before they even hit 200,000 km.

Consumers do not have even experience yet to value used EVs properly. It is a great time to be a used EV buyer.

ICE and EV are two market segments. They are partially substitutable, but for many ICE customers an EV is a non-starter because of charging infrastructure, which means that if one of those customers needs to replace their ICE vehicle, they need to replace it with another ICE vehicle, and cannot take advantage of price drops in new EVs. (I ran into this personally; I wanted to get an EV, but my garage does not have a charger, none of the circuits near it could support a charger, and so I need to rewire my house and get a main panel upgrade to do more than L1 charging.)

Likewise US and rest-of-world are different markets because of trade barriers.

Within the EV market segment, the resale value may be plummeting because new car prices are declining because of improved technology and higher volume. Someone who is replacing their EV or looking for a new one already has the required charging infrastructure, otherwise they wouldn't be looking. But this price drop affects only other EV buyers, because ICE buyers cannot take advantage of it.

This insulation lasts only as long as the price differential between them remains less than the capital costs of getting a L2 charger and associated electrical upgrades.

And there are a lot of other less rational reasons why people don't want to buy a standard electric car or a standard ice pick up truck.

Why is charging at slow speed at home such an issue for you?

At some stage, "improvements" become nothing more than marketing buzzwords.

I'd argue one reason ICE are "stagnant" are because they're "good enough" and any potential improvements required expensive R&D and manufacturing changes, for results that purchasers won't change their buying decision for. Maybe Toyata could make an ICE for the Camry that was 5% more efficient, but few people who were about to buy someone else's equivalent car will choose a Camry instead based on such a marginal improvement.

I think phones are a good current example of this. I have felt zero need to upgrade from my iPhone 13, because the "improvements" since it was new are of zero interest or value to me. I'm quite likely to do a battery replacement on this one instead of upgrading to a new iPhone any time soon. (And the only reason I bought the iPhone13 was to get the backside lidar, I was perfectly happy with the XR I used before that.)

Isn't that a different way of saying the same thing?

There's no denying that ICE Engines have been around for a long time, relative to EVs. A mature technology means that any low-hanging fruit for performance improvements was found a long time ago. Remaining gains require the expensive R&D for marginal improvements that you mention.

It's not that they're "good enough" - any consumer who can do the sums would prefer a 20% better price/performance, always. It's just that such improvements are not there to be had in ICE vehicles. There is no rush to improve them, as you said.

And therefor the performance of a new ICE vehicle, 5 year old vehicle or 10 year old vehicle is well-understood, predictable. Both in terms of what the tech was when it was built, and how it has aged. EVs are less so in both of these dimensions. e.g. I would have reasonable confidence in the durability of an EV battery for a 2025 model, but much less so for a 2015 model. They're just not the same.

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.

How many years/miles does the average new ev last and how much does it cost to own/operate for that time.

How many years/miles does the average new ice cost and how much does it cost to own/operate.

I tend to buy the bottom of the market. My last cost £1100 and has lasted 3 years/9k miles so far and seems reasonable.

I didn’t buy electric because they are far more expensive. That’s seems to be at odds with the claim they deprecate more.

There are 57 electric cars under 3k for sale and 30,000 petrol ones on auto trader.

At any price the ratio is about 10:1 rather than 600:1.

Second hand EVs are more expensive than second hand petrol cars.

Your arbitrary choice of a $3K price ceiling is skewing your interpretation of the data; cars at this price point are essentially scrap. Also, cars don't just get "used up", they get very expensive to maintain and keep operational. You might be able to find an ICE car in your price range that has a lot of things wrong with it but you can keep it going with the minimum, while for EVs basic operation is dependent on only a few, very expensive systems.

I chose that as roughly double the cost of the car I bought 3 years ago which has needed some new tyres, wipers, and a battery since then, hardly “scrap”

Yeah, but it doesn't die fast. Re-sale value is low because of the competition from newer models due to rapidly developing tech.

I feel like this shows a change in mindset these past couple decades.

More and more people buy things for the purpose of reselling them. Houses are now more investments than places to actually live in. Rubbing alcohol was bought up during Covid so people could resell. Cryptocurrency is bought with the goal of selling for double a few months later and nobody really believes in the "currency" aspect of it. Pokémon cards, originally made for kids and to play in a card game, are now all scooped up by cart load by adults so they can resell them on eBay, and those buyers hope to resell later. The 2020s has people trying to sell used cars for equal or more than their new value. Strange times.

> The 2020s has people trying to sell used cars for equal or more than their new value. Strange times.

Not wanting to eat 50% of a car’s value in depreciation in 2-3 years is a sane decision.

Expecting to sell a used car for a profit without a shortage of used cars is not sane.

I bought a Toyota RAV4 in 2021 and it’s depreciated about 20-25% in 4 years. I could’ve saved a couple thousand bucks and got a Nissan Rogue instead, but that model has depreciated about 50% by now, and I’d be worse off.

Just pulling this from thin air, but it may be the combination of rising costs of living + lack of options which were available in the bad old days (subsistence farming, sending children to work (although some idiots are advocating for letting that happen again), highway robbery,...).

But the overwhelming trend is the exact opposite of that. Maybe what you see is more a minority counter culture. It offers more feelings of control when people are still a couple of missed cheques away from bankruptcy.

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.

I care about the second hand market because that's where I'm going to get the car - the phenomenon of rapidly depreciating electric vehicles is all to the good for me! Resale value, though, is not something I care about at all.

Cars don't just "stop working" with no residual value, so this isn't how it works. They start to require very expensive repairs and maintenance and it gets tough to determine what you should get done. And why would you give a family member a car that's giving you problems and not good enough for you? "Here, take this EV that's likely to require repairs costing 10x the value of the car."

If the cost of repairs is more than the benefit of you having this car, it's worth zero to you and you should scrap it, sell it for $1 or gift it to someone who has more favorable math than you regarding repairs.

That's what I meant by stops working - stops working for you.

No longer operational meant broken and not worth repairing.

A lot of people clearly are willing to spend lots of money for irrational reasons in cars. I

Aside from battery longevity is there really anything better about a new model S compared to a 5 year old model?

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.

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 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

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.

Yeah this is literally exactly my experience as well. Best car I’ve ever driven and I’ve considered replacing with a twice as expensive Mercedes. The mirror camera is also the primary reason I don’t upgrade - I used FSD extensively in my commute and when I use FSD on newer models it’s obnoxious I can’t even change a song without it freaking out.

I also bought it for the safety. Even the FSD I consider a substantial safety feature. I don’t take naps in the back seat when it’s ok - I pay attention. The joint probability of it or me noticing a drifting car or whatever is considerably better than me alone.

You seem oblivious to just how mature the tech is for petrol and diesel so you shouldn't say anything about them really.

How are EV's progressing fast?

> 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.

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.

> The sales guy had clearly never considered this issue before.

This seems to happen far too often. I've come to the conclusion that salespeople pretend this is the case on purpose, since it benefits them for you to believe that you're the exception.

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.

I think it’s already happened with some teslas banned from charging stations and being gimped after sale for whatever reason.

Apparently a bunch of jeeps got bricked by a pop software update.

Depending on how mainstream and popular it is, china may come to the rescue. They’ve made some really cool drop in replacements for oem systems.

Which car + how do you like it?

2022 challenger srt hellcat redeye. I absolutely love it.

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.

100% all of the advantages of bulletproof electronic motor are smashed by reliance on finicky little software systems

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.

This is the new normal, you just got lucky. For example someone in the comments mentioned his 03 Pontiac Vibe GT - he also got super lucky. Non GT Vibes were powered by factory defective 1ZZFE.

My ICE SUV has nearly 200,000 miles on it and is worth almost the exact same as when I bought it ten years ago. FJ Cruisers are popular.

There's no way I'm buying an EV. I can't charge it where I live, it won't easily refuel where I'm going, and I hate infotainment centers over knobs and buttons.

If I do buy a new car - and I really don't have to - it'll be an ICE without an annoying screen in the middle console.

Lucky you got the quirky FJ instead of more rational Tacoma, Tundra or Sequoia with their disintegrating frames.

Tacomas have incredible resale value.

The remaining driveable ones yes, because most were scrapped https://www.reddit.com/r/1stGenTundras/comments/1jb2h2i/toyo...

Well they are, it’s a common complaint about modern cars.

https://roadwarriornews.com/autoenshittification-allows-car-...

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.

Those cars are often bought and fixed and sold on the market. Others go for parts to keep the rest on the roads.

In my adult life I’ve owned four cars, three of them Honda Accords. Each Accord had around 85-100k miles when I bought them, and I’ve driven each well past 200k miles with no major issues. These cars are built to last if you maintain them. 1996, 2004, 2014 (Current) with 188k miles. Best advice, by 3 year old Toyotas/Hondas off-lease and then don't think about a vehicle again for 8-10 years. I buy mine a bit older, but next time ...

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.

A 2012 Kia Soul will last until 200k miles. In the 2010s Kia used some good engines, with a couple notable exceptions (the highest end Stingers, etc).

The issue is that all those Kias got stolen and trashed by Kia Boys. :(

I had a 2011 Kia Soul that I was going to drive until it died. Someone else did the dying part for me.

>2012 Kia Soul will last until 200k miles

not the 1.6L GDI one

Ok fair. Souls came with a lot of different engine models. The engine in my 2011 soul was pre-gdi and is rock solid stable basically forever. I also had a 2015 forte with the 1.6L turbo which is, from my understanding, also super reliable so long as you change the oil every 3000 miles.

The absurd warranty Kia used to have encouraged them to put out good products. I had incorrect oil put in my Soul (at an oil change place!) and Kia warranty replaced the entire engine.

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.

Each of my Audi A4 wagons has suffered catalytic converter failure around 200,000 miles / 350,000 km which has rendered them uneconomic to repair (at least in California.) But it's about the only wagon on sale in the US (SUVs do not fit in my garage) so I guess I am stuck with them. It seems more economic to buy a cheap one and drive it into the ground (one can buy two used Audis for the equivalent Toyota/Lexus.)

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.

>> as long as maintenance is done religiously.

Maybe, but an oil change & minor service for my Mom's off-warranty Mercedes is clsoe to $1000. You seem to be fighting yourself if you're after a long-term reliable driver and go Euro luxury.

And if you have deep pockets. My BMW at 120k miles started to cost around 2k a year to maintain. I ended up selling it for 6k.

"The average ICE car does not survive to 200,000 miles"

That's a fair amount of misinformation in your post.

1) Any reliable ICE brand goes well above 200k miles with basic maintenance. There's a long history here of reliability and why so many drivers choose boring yer reliable brands like Toyota, Honda, Mazda, etc. If you choose brands that do not prioritize reliability then that's on you. (i.e. Mercedes drivers switching into Tesla)

2) Mileage (distance) is not actually the determining factor here in longevity, car age is. Average age of ICE cars is around 12 years in the USA. That's average, which means there are many cars that are much much older than that. Battery cars will be lucky if they average out 8 years as a fleet. Probability is 75%+ you're looking at a battery replacement at the 12 year mark if not sooner. Vast majority of drivers will not replace said battery making the car a throw away due to cost (no one financially competent spends $10k-$20k on a battery for a car worth less than $10k). This will absolutely drive fleet age down, resulting in a younger fleet and more disposable cars. Replacement batteries are not plentiful or cheap and there's no reason for that to change due to the industry strategy.

"Tesla still averages being able to hold 90% of original charge"

3) Lucky you. It's well known in the community first year degradation is typically 5%-10% and there after 1-2% per year till a major failure. Do you know how to measure your original charge? Have you driven the car from 100% to 0% to verify total battery capacity or you just going of the BMS hoping it knows the true capacity. BMS is regularly off by 5%+ so for all you know your true capacity is already nearing 80%. If you know Lithium battery science then you know after 80% the capacity hits a cliff rate of degradation accelerates. Few people drive their cars below 10% battery so they don't really know.

What I hate are the dozens of little doodads in the car that fail after 10 years and are no longer manufactured. Mechanical knobs on the AC, servos in the mirrors, power windows, wiper motors, window seals, heck the shifter stalk on my 2006 forester broke (thank god for chop shops). I wonder what people are referring to when they say "this car won't last 200k miles". do they mean the engine, transmission, heater, what exactly?

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.

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.

> Even if the battery is $20k, now you essentially have a new car for only $20k.

By this logic, I get a new car every time I fill up my tank.

No, a better analogy for the OP's logic would be that you get a new car every time you replace the transmission (or some other major overhaul). A ICE fill up is equivalent to a EV recharge.

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.

[dead]

So true!

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?

A very rough estimate for phone batteries is that they last 1000 recharge cycles. If on average you recharge every day, that's 300+ charges a year, and there you go, an expected life of 3 years. That phone is up for a battery replacement. Just like oil or wheels need to be replaced in a car.

Now, how many charges does a car battery do, and how frequently it tends to need one? The same calculation from phones can indeed be translated to cars, the only mistake is translating the end results of the calculation. Maybe that helps with your father?

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.

Oh yeah, my daily driver is a 20-year-old vehicle. It has cost literally just a couple $thousand in maintenance/repairs in the time we've owned it (probably around 10 years? I forget). It's getting kinda rough, but like... at least it doesn't have a battery replacement looming around the corner that would cost more than the entire price we paid for the vehicle.

I want an electric vehicle, but I'm not willing to pay the insanely high prices they go for. I typically don't want to spend more than $10k on a vehicle and I only have once (and that one got totalled in an accident literally a month or two after I finished paying off its loan). The times I've found a used EV in that price range, it's old enough that it will need a new battery soon, instantly ~doubling the price of the vehicle for me.

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.

TCO is way important than range. You'll likely spend thousands less on maintenance on an EV.

The few oil changes on my recently out of warranty 2021 Toyota have already cost more than the entire maintenance spend on my 2017 Bolt.

> You'll likely spend thousands less on maintenance on an EV.

I don't spend many thousands on maintaining an ICE to begin with.

I've kept track of all car expenses since 2008 for 3 different cars. My average per year is $445. This is repairs and maintenance.

I'm not a gearhead. I know little about cars. I do whatever repairs my mechanic suggests. Things just don't break down much with reliable ICE cars.

TCO calculators are, in my experience, off by an order of magnitude. Ignore them.

> The few oil changes on my recently out of warranty 2021 Toyota

Are you doing them at the dealer? You're likely paying too much. And are you doing them on the manufacturer schedule or have you fallen prey to the "Every 3 months or 3000 miles" propaganda?

Most cars need it every 6 months. And unless your car needs some high quality oil, it's typically about $40 to get a regular mechanic to change it. So $80-100/year.

I have a car over 20 years old. I don't spend much money on maintenance. I don't have a car payment, taxes are very low, and insurance is decently cheap. Had it for a few years, have replaced brakes and some minor things. Didn't spend much on the vehicle, either.

Having a car payment would automatically be more expensive than my current vehicle. More taxes, more money each month, and so on. For electric cars, I won't get the incentives here in Norway for much longer, as they are being (mostly) phased out in the next few years.

To be fair, though: I walk a lot. I have a 5-10 minute walk to work (depending on snow). Driving takes longer. The car is used a few times a month. Realistically, my car is a luxury item and I'm lucky to live in a place that makes it so.

Range is often a hard requirement, it isn’t optional. The TCO is infinite if your vehicle can’t take you where you need to go.

The people you're discussing with most likely change the oil on their own.

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.

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.

> 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...

> Fuel efficiency on an ICE can drop up to 30% after 10 years.

Source? Both of my first 2 cars got a good 38 mpg on the highway (no AC) after their 10 year mark. 38 mpg is the same as brand new.

"Fuel efficiency on an ICE can drop up to 30% after 10 years"

Complete nonsense. Every 15+ year old ICE car I've known or owned was within 5% to 10% of original fuel economy, the reliable brands actually maintained their original fuel economy or surpassed it as fuel economy improves as engine wear in completes at the 20k-40k mile mark.

If your ICE car dropped by 30% then share the brand and your maintenance history.

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?

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.

> How long will the engine and transmission actually be good for?

Fortunately, there's a ton of data out there. Some manufacturers/models are known to be reliable. Just hone in and buy those.

I've had to do repairs, but never that expensive. Never had transmission issues (keep in mind my cars are often over 10 years old - one over 20). For engine stuff, it's just a part replacement once in a while.

I posted elsewhere, but since 2008, my average car expense is about $450/year - that's repairs + oil changes.

> How much will replacing it cost?

Individual parts? Usually, not much. The whole engine? Dump the car. You got a lemon. Did you get it checked out by a trusted mechanic before buying?

> 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.

Fair point.

> The whole engine? Dump the car. You got a lemon. Did you get it checked out by a trusted mechanic before buying

Ok, so ICE cars are incredibly reliable, assuming you write off a ton of them as "you bought a lemon". I might as well say "the whole battery? You bought a lemon, dump the car."

Like, yeah, don't get me wrong, I bought a 2000 V6 Accord with ~80,000mi on it from a friend who I know babied it. I sold it later still in good condition to a family member. It's now nearly 200,000mi and largely just fine, although every now and then the transmission behaves strangely. I'm tempted to buy it back when they're done with it, I loved that car! But it ignores the massive flood of these that ended up with bad transmissions (seemed like a roll of the dice on this generation) and cars that weren't well taken care of. Even if you were to think Accords are generally reliable, the next generation wasn't anywhere near as reliable as that one in the end.

And it ignores all the millions of cars that were scrapped in that same time period.

If your standard of reliability is "hunt for a unicorn", well, that'll happen with EVa as well. It's still a curve of failures, some will be worse and faster than others. Some might make it several hundred miles before significant failures. Some may barely break 100,000. At least I can see the current battery health on the OBD-II port, I can't tell if they actually did fluid changes properly on an ICE.

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?

> What was the remaining range for those replacements?

Who cares? Spending $15K on battery on a used car is a hard "No!", unless the car is under $10K.

I'm thinking of buying another car next year. $15K is my budget for an ICE car - and only if it has all the bells and whistles. Otherwise it's $12K. Spending another $15K on top of that is ridiculous.

> Is that high? I have no idea. How many ICE powertrains got replaced at the same time and what did it cost?

I'd love to know. All I have are anecdotes.

> Who cares?

Well I do because I only need to drive at most 75 miles a day and even a car with 30 miles of range would satisfy my commute requirements.

> Spending $15K on battery on a used car is a hard "No!", unless the car is under $10K.

Can you get a better car for $25,000.00? Would you spend $15,000.00 on a $1000.00 car?

>>> What was the remaining range for those replacements?

>> Who cares? Spending $15K on battery on a used car is a hard "No!", unless the car is under $10K.

> Well I do because I only need to drive at most 75 miles a day and even a car with 30 miles of range would satisfy my commute requirements.

The point is that when comparing dollar for dollar, I can likely get a used ICE for the same price that will work out better for me. If I already had an ICE car and was looking for a second car just for daily commutes, the EV may make sense. But the hassle of having to get a rental for longer trips - I don't know if it's worth it.

Also have to consider resale value - will people buy the (already used) EV from me if the battery has significantly reduced range?

(BTW, in my social circle, I don't know anyone who's bought a used EV - they all buy new ones out of fear)

> Can you get a better car for $25,000.00?

I have a list of things I want and need from a car. I can find plenty ICE for $15K that matches my requirements. $25K is the max I'll go for an EV, figuring that I may save $10K over about 8-10 years in gas based on the calculators I've used.

I can't find even one EV that matches my requirements for $25K. Each one has some problem - too little room or some other annoying problem (e.g. Ioniq 5 not having rear wipers).

I can get great ICE cars for $15K. I cannot get a single used great EV for $25K.

> I can get great ICE cars for $15K. I cannot get a single used great EV for $25K.

You absolutely can get good used EVs for $25,000.00. That buys a 2022-2024 Kia Niro. You can get the 2019 model for even less, barely more than your ICE budget. 2023 Nissan Leafs are also around $15,000. All of these cars still have 70,000 miles and 5-9 years on their factory battery warranties.

> You absolutely can get good used EVs for $25,000.00.

You're missing my context: I'm not saying "good" by some objective standard, but in terms of my preferences for a car. When most people go car shopping, they have an idea of what attributes they want (leg room, cargo space, safety features, fuel efficiency, etc).

What I was saying was that I can find many ICE cars at $15K that meet all my requirements, but none at $25K.

I spent a lot of time pondering the Kia Niro, Chevy Bolt and Hyundai Kona - all deficient in some way or other. I realized that had they been regular ICE cars, I would not have wasted any time on them, and that I shouldn't get a car I wouldn't otherwise like just because it's an EV. They're totally good cars for some people, but not me.

Ioniq 5 came really close, but lots of people have AC problems that they so far have not fixed. Simply not an option.

> How long will the battery be good for?

I average a little under 7000 miles a year of driving.

Based on charge/discharge cycles my EV battery should be good for roughly 20 years.

> Will the savings on gas more than compensate?

At $26k for a top of the line trim, my Bolt EUV cost me less than a comparable ICE car. I'll never save any money on gas, but I don't need to.

Not having any maintenance needs is nice though. Just an air filter.

>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.

Batteries don't work like that and you know they don't.

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.

OTOH Leaf is a proof that old batteries can be replaced and upgrade an old car.

Original Leafs were sold with a 24kWh capacity. Current ones have 48kWh for the same price, and 64kWh replacement batteries are available. So you can go from half of the crappiest range to 3× more range than when the car was brand new.

Old batteries with reduced capacity don't even have to be thrown out. There are projects that reuse old Leaf batteries for grid energy storage (any capacity is useful when they're sitting on the ground).

I'm betting that the current-gen mainstream cars will benefit similarly, especially that production volume is orders of magnitude higher now (lots of brands share the same platform and battery modules).

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?

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.

> 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.

> 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

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 mean until this year we also massively subsidized every EV sale so pot calling the kettle black.

There is a big difference between domestic subsidies and export subsidies.

One is a policy to promote adoption the other is akin to economic warfare.

> There is a big difference between domestic subsidies and export subsidies.

Nice goalpost shifting.

The OG tax break on Hybrids and EV's first caught on with the Nissan Leaf, and Toyota Prius.

That isnt the government subsidizing an EV for export.

https://www.electrive.com/2025/08/22/china-discloses-subsidi...

> 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?

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.

> Maybe it's just where I'm from

I mean it's pretty obviously this. You don't become the worlds largest EV seller if nobody is buying.

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

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.

> 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.

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.

Why not just have more rapid charging and do away with the ICE engine and small hybrid battery altogether.

> "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.

Batteries need to be split into several replaceable modules, so the entire car isn't a write-off if there's a fault or damage affecting the battery

Ideally, these battery modules would be standardised and used across a wide range of vehicles.

This has always been the case for Maseratis.

[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.

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.

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.

> 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.

Until recently, for EVs it was more like 50%+$7k

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.

Why did they stop making the RHD version?

Because it was too expensive inRHD markets that have access to global EVs

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...

If we want to get nitpicky, Tesla no longer has the majority of US EV sales. Their market share has fallen to 42.3%. They still have a huge lead on the next closest brand however.

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).

I wasn't implying that throwing manual window regulators on a 2025 model car would be a significant cost reduction. It was just 2 examples that I could think of to back up my point that there are fewer affordable cars than there used to be.

My (admittedly very, very limited) personal experience owning cars actually suggests cars are getting cheaper over the past couple decades. Specifically, my data looks like this:

- A new Honda Accord LX in 2003 was ~$19k

- A new Honda Accord LX in 2020 was ~$23k

In today's dollars, that's roughly $33k and $29k, respectively. These numbers are very approximate, but it means the same car model in 2020 was about 12% less expensive than the one in 2003. And the new version has a whole lot of improvements and features the old one didn't. (They cheaped out and removed the lock from the glove compartment though!)

Stepping back and thinking about the complexities that go into manufacturing a modern automobile, it's wild to me that they can cost so little compared to what you get. It's a machine that can travel 200+ thousand miles and last for decades with barely any maintenance.

Commercial-scale vehicles (semi trucks, busses) cost an order of magnitude more than personal vehicles, yet share many of the same complexities. Like, how are cars so cheap for what they are? Manufacturing volume, I guess.

> Like, how are cars so cheap for what they are? Manufacturing volume, I guess.

That, and externalising a lot of the const on society, the environment, and third world countries.

A opposed to the commercial vehicles which don't?

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.

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?

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.

> 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.

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.

True but the range isn’t really outside of the average range and luxury cars aren’t that uncommon. The deals were because they were high priced but don’t nearly account for the difference. 125k msrp now going for 55k with low miles is really something else, even if people got them for 105 or so which is what I heard, that’s still the 60% I mentioned.

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.

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.

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 don't get your angle; EVs cost more than the comparable car new, cost way more to repair and depreciate faster. More electrical waste, but not cheap to begin with? Cars (in my mind at least) should last 15, 20 or more years; that doesn't seem to be happening here.

EV maintenance costs are way lower. There's hardly non-recycleable electrical waste in EVs. And they absolutely can last 15 years: depreciation doesn't mean they fall apart.

I am concerned about EV maintenance outside of warranty. My family has routinely gotten even American cars above 200,000 miles, or at least kept them going for 15 years or more.

This has gotten harder over the years. Cars from 2010 rust a lot less than cars from 1985. But they have more computers, and the computers die. These computers are often hard to replace. Even good mechanics tend to recommend going to the dealer. It's rarely less than a $1500 replacement.

And EV cars? They often have an extra half-dozen critical computers beyond what's in a gas car. So I worry that well-maintained Honda and Toyota EVs will fail sooner than their conventional models.

Perhaps this worry is misplaced. We'll see.

Our Leaf is still going fine after 12 years. But a 2013 budget EV is hilariously low spec by today standards. So yeah if you're looking for family heirloom qualities in a car it's a wrong choice. Most people don't drive old cars for sentimental value though.

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

There's also a whole lot of people without the option of charging at home, especially here in the UK (relying on on-street parking or living in flats)

Green tech is great if you're upper-middle class with a nice big detached home, plenty of space to install solar, a heat pump, and EV charger. But a large percentage of people just don't have a 'compatible home' even if they had the cash available to invest in such tech.

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).

The data in the article is kind of all over the place. But also at least one big distortion is that

* these are rental cars, which are used much more intensely than normal used cars

* a big chunk of the (US) stats are Hertz dumping Teslas, specifically. It had to dump 30,000 of them (which is a huge amount of Teslas to just flood the market with all at once); and Tesla specifically has people trying to sell their cars due to the brand of their CEO.

What EVs have 20% range depreciation after 5 years? That seems atypical for any car with modern battery temp management.

Mine is 2 years old, battery still reads 99% health and I regularly exceed the EPA range estimate. I've seen ones with hundreds of thousands of (fast charging!) miles that still only have 10% degradation.

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.

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.

I don’t think it’s that EVs are getting that much better year-over-year. I think it’s more that people are scared to buy a used EV, because they don’t know how long batteries will hold up and what to look for. To anyone who hasn’t done a bunch of research (most people) it seems much more risky.

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.

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.

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.

This really doesn't make sense. Cars have intrinsic value - they can take you from point A to point B. If that's not why people buy them then they're a luxury good, like a Prada bag, so it's kind of silly to talk about resale value.

It's more likely EVs have poor resale value because the batter is the car, from a value perspective. Once the car reaches a certain age, if the battery needs to be replaced the car is essentially worthless. This is also true of ICE cars, but not to the same extent.

Its probably more to do with demographics for EVs. Currently EVs and infrastructure around it cover mostly higher income brackets that do not want to bother too much with used cars, so the market around used cars is fairly small compared to ICE that cover both high and and lower end incomes. If you are in a bottom 50% and need a family car EV is still a significant financial risk. Once EVs cover lower income brackets we will see a much healthier used car market.

Also, tax incentives on new EVs push the used market lower, creating a false sense of depreciation.

I expect the market to reconcile the difference now that EVs subsidizes are ending.

Another possible alternative is that the consumer has to be educated that buying used EVs is not like buying a used cellphone, and that EV batteries do last 10+ years.

They dont seem to actually last 10 years though. Sure, in an old Prius you only care about the battery not being completely shorted out, and the price of battery degradation is slightly worse fuel economy.

However, every time I look at renting a Tesla on Turo, each and every example has reviews with stories about not making 100 miles to the next stop on their trip. These are cars that are only 3-4 years old, not 10.

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)

> smartphones

Smartphones aren't getting cheaper and generally aren't getting better for the last 3-5 years. In fact, I hated replacing my 4-year-old perfectly functioning smartphone just because its battery degraded and the charging socket wore out.

The replacement was about 15% more expensive, inflation-adjusted, BTW.

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.

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’.

> Instead of threatening to derail the EV transition

Looks like the wish is your thought’s father.

Currently the transition of EVs is a transition of cars from long lasting, repairable items into throwaway e-waste (like TVs, computers and smartphones).

And somehow this is more eco-friendly of course.

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.

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...

PHEVs break down more than full electric BEV or normal ICE vehicles.

Hybrids (ie not plug in) have the least defects, but basically equal to normal ICE vehicles.

But BEV is improving YoY relative to ICE.

I don't think this is true for smartphones anymore, new models bring only marginal improvements to the last ones, and buying a used model in almost new condition allows you to save around 50%.

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)

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.

Your in-laws are correct and your friend is wrong. Historically the largest depreciation hit on new cars is in the first few years. Getting a low mileage used car that's a few years old is typically the sweet spot for value. You have to price out new and used to understand where the best deals are but generally it's true.

That did go strange for a while during COVID but has mostly become true again.

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.

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...

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?

> 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?

Wait solar panels?? No one is buying used solar panels. They degrade rapidly and the cost of the panel is a small piece of the overall install

That's just not true. Lots of people buy used solar panels to do cheaper DIY installs.

Solar panels do degrade, but its not anywhere near "rapid". Go look at the lengths of warranties on panels these days

Sorry- yes there’s a used market, but the pricing is essentially handling and refurb cost. used panels are sold by the pallet for the price of a new single panel. Vastly different from a used car industry.

That being said… I might buy a pallet

I keep saying that in a few years cars will not be that much expensive than a big refrigerator...

It is scary that if cars get this cheap what it will mean environmentally (they physically can't last that long) and socially (everybody will be able to afford cars, flooding communities who are not built for it)

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 few years (maybe ~2017-2019?) you could lease them for well under $100 / mo in CA with standard down payments & fees. Total lease cost was like $1k per year.

One has to wonder... What's the reason for so much discount?

"Compliance cars" are cars that manufacturers need to sell to activate subsidies or avoid financial penalties.

As deadlines get close you got really good lease deals on these cars.

I know a bit unrelated but I leased the top-of-the-line Mazda MX-5 for $350/month for 3 years. Lease prices can be amazing.

Such a fun car to drive.

Simply not much demand. Not enough buyers of used cards want them. Dealers will bid in auctions to price point where they can make reasonable profit. I would expect something like say two thousand and then some percentage on auction price to make retail price.

They are doing it weekly. They know what sells at what price and how fast. So price discovery can work pretty well and mostly correct.

Now more questions can be asked why there is no demand? Is the initial price maybe too high? Or is there some other factors.

It's just too small for most americans' tastes lol

For a two car house, having one electric and one ICE vehicle seems like a no brainer, assuming charging space at home

My partner bought a used nissan first gen Nissan leaf with 70% battery health for 5k a couple of years ago.

So far it has saved her approx 2k on petrol costs alone.

Then there is maintenance costs....No major issues. Less than 200 per year so far if you exclude the fresh set of tyres we put on it when she bought it.

99% of our journeys can be done in it. It's rare for either of us to need more than 80mi in a day.

It can get a full charge off a standard british plug socket over night too, so we dont have a fast charger installed or anything. Most days we only do 10mi, so it goes for an overnight charge once a week and thats fine.

The result? We have to remind ourselves to take the petrol car out for a spin every 2 weeks just to keep it healthy.

One of the sources cited in this article says that at 70% battery health EVs are useless and need replaced.

It seems to be a common misconception, maybe based on the limits set for warranty repairs and then a weird logical leap.

Even early EVs that didn't have great range to start with are still useful to someone when range is lower. To make a blanket statement that all 10 year old EVs are useless seems like motivated reasoning.

That is so stupid it hurts.

We took her 'useless' 80mi range for a 350mi day trip in the mountains this summer while the petrol car got repaired.

Sure it meant a few stops at fast chargers, +60mi in 15mins for quick stops.

We had 3 meals at places with chargers so it got 3 full charges while we ate.

It was still a great day out despite taking longer than it would in the petrol car.

> Sure it meant a few stops at fast chargers, +60mi in 15mins for quick stops.

IF those are available, that's great. For a lot of people that's just not an option.

I should note I'm all for EVs but they're not the "win" for everyone they could be until infrastructure catches up.

The point was they're not useless, even for longer journies, not that they fit every person and every use case.

My family bought a used EV this year, car #2 is a 15 year old F-150. It’s the best possible situation I could conceive of. My wife commutes 25+ miles in the EV, I work from home, and we take the truck when going camping or pulling a trailer or whatever.

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.

Seriously. Most families outside the urban core have one car per adult, and a lot have one car per adult plus one for a teen. Often one of those cars gets driven 60-100 miles a day for commute purposes, which makes it an obvious one to make electric. Even if they're a family that's addicted to the infamous 1000-mile road trips where the EV charging infra matters, they can just take the other car for that trip.

Instead people just post long-winded rants about how the highway EV charging shitshow made it too hard to roadtrip in their EV, or make strawman arguments suggesting that EV promoters are trying to force them to have only EVs.

My partner drove 900km up from Sydney to Brisbane. 3 stops to charge, no issues, easy cruising, relaxing breaks. Admittedly it was not during school holidays.

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.

I know this isn't black and white but if you're worried about depreciation you just shouldn't buy a new car.

A car you buy new and sell after a short amount of time or not many miles driven is going to cost you.

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.

Up to very recently only Tesla had good battery management. Other manufacturers joked around with things like no active battery thermal management, Nissan Leaf finally got one this year lol.

Can you put a year to your „very recently“ claim?

Nissan Leaf: 2025.

Toyota Prius Prime: 2023

Scratch that Nissan date. They only released press notes this year about 2026 model finally using active thermal management next year, and this is precisely how clownish Japanese carmakers are

I knew the car situation was bad in the US, but I didn’t know you only have a choice between Tesla, Nissan and Toyota for EVs. I’m sorry for your loss.

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.

On the other side, I am not going to buy a new EV if it depreciates too quickly. Part of the 'new ride' buyer's consideration is trade-in value when it's time for another one three years down the line.

But great for us who drive a car into the ground.

If you care about the money aspect, why are you ever buying a new car though? You can get a massive discount by buying a barely-used one.

Why buy a new car? Less TÜV trouble, less mechanical problems, and as stupid as it sounds: I work in an environment in which the age of the car is a factor in determining seriousness as a business partner.

But even if these were not factors: I'd rather no buy an used EV car, because I'd rather not have a vehicle that has its battery die immediately after me buying it with no manufacturer guarantee. An ICE vehicle doesn't do that after three years - I just fill up the gas tank, and off I go.

Yes. Polestar 2 owner here. According to KBB it has held almost all of the value since I bought it. Used. Before that it lost over half from the new MSRP. I bought it for $5K under KBB.

Will need tires but otherwise no maintenance... and no continuing depreciation because it still provides all the goodness it provided when new.

But I hear a lot of myths about EVs and used EVs that seem hard to shake from the mainstream groupthink. One person tried to argue with me that batteries are only good for 100K, and then you're in for a $20K repair. Others worry if you hit traffic, the battery will quickly drain to 0%.

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> 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.

Yeah, this article says the 2023 price of a new Model Y was $48k, and then in 2024 it was worth only $33k used.

But in 2024 I bought a brand new Model Y for about $33k, after factoring in all the incentives/rebates. So if anything that $33k used price sounds high.

Reality is, prices came down a lot, and also depending on how incentives/rebates are factored in, the "sale price" might be fiction.

Same with other brands too. Back then you saw some companies like Hyundai claiming their EVs were really worth like $60k MSRP, and then turning around and leasing them for $300/month with $0 down. In some states people were leasing brand new EVs for $100/month with $0 down, or less.

Now with the federal rebate gone and states removing at least some of their incentives, the numbers might start to look a little more normal.

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.

Isn't it still a PITA to charge for more than half of the population ?

Most of EU cities have the same issues. Due to appartment density an EV makes sense only if you own your house, run a cable from your flat to the street, or win the charging lottery and/or fight for a spot at some shared location.

Alternatively you can make it a routine to charge at a public spot while you go shopping, but it means you're double annoyed when it doesn't work out for whatever reason (spots already taken etc)

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.

Plug-in RAV4, aka the Prime? I haven't looked in a while, but when we were shopping last we took a look at those and the price was insane. There was no reason to get it over the hybrid unless you wanted the extra horsepower.

Welcome to the EV market, where cars cost twice what they should because choosing to buy an EV is a status and conscientious choice rather than economic.

> Electric and internal combustion cars do not cost the same though.

They do in other (non-US) markets, without subsidies.

PHEVs are a bad deal, always were. Only make sense if there's subsidies or tax advantages for buying them over pure combustion cars (unfortunately a thing in some markets). Most PHEVs are never charged and PHEV batteries are roughly 4x more expensive per kWh than EV batteries, so there is no cost benefit in the electric drivetrain.

There are no subsidies for EVs in the USA.

When I buy a used car with a fixed budget then I can choose ICE or EV, at that same budget.

It's true that I could choose more luxury or spaciousness on my ICE vs... well, everything else being better on the EV. But I wouldn't.

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.

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...

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.

That’s a really L take on their part. Like, I’d probably respect them less if I knew them if they caved like that, and would tell them so to their face.

You missed a) That's not caving, that's living by your principles.

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 stock market has long detached from fundamentals.

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.

Yeah, I’d like to see F150 Lightnings compared with F150s. Model Y vs F150 is such a weird comparison to choose.

Don’t forget to also deduct tax incentives from the original retail price. It’s not surprising that the used market would require that the used price be below the net original price.

Further in the article it says:

> A U.K.-based study found 3-year-old EVs lost more than half of their value compared with 39% for gas cars.

so the difference isn't so stark as the F150 comparison

I bought my 2018 Tesla P3D for about 68k (back then FSD was only $2k).

I’m so glad I managed to sell mine during Covid frenzy for $74k lol, in 2021

I’ll never buy a Tesla again. Only Ferrari and Mazda for me.

Nobody cares about Elon. It's like saying Coca Cola's share price is being determined by children at american universities. It's just delusional.

The reason they are getting killed, is because their products are now worse than the competition. They had a huge lead on everyone for years, then everyone caught up. Now you can get a car with the same range, with a HUD, with massaging chairs, with swivelling 360 seats... or you can get the same tesla car they've been making for 10 years.

While I don’t disagree with your point on lineup and quality (and they’ve cancelled a new car model to work on humanoid robotics‽), I think you’re underestimating the Elon effect.

Basically everyone I am close with is in the demographic Tesla targeted pre-rightening-of-Elon. All of them would’ve considered a Tesla at that point in time.

Now, none would. And of those with Teslas - very satisfied with their cars - none are replacing them with Teslas.

I just bought an Honda Pologue and didn’t even test drive a Model Y or X. We recently got solar installed in our house (also the right demographic for that…) and didn’t even look at quotes for Tesla systems.

Sure, I live in a left wing bubble, but it’s that same bubble that was (enthusiastically) Tesla’s prime demographic ten years ago.

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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Not falling for the ragebait

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.

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.

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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.

I'll say is that Elon is a self described free speech absolutist, which is what he's enacted on X

There's an old saying: "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."

And you don't sound too outraged.

> Elon is a self described free speech absolutist

try not to overdose on that copium!

Regardless if you believe he actually believes in free speech absolutely... (what happened to the account that tracked his plane in real time? or if you want to move the goal posts, please define absolutist?)

He's parroted enough dog whistles that nazis love that it's fair to group him with the rest of the people who overly espouse nazism.

There's a difference between tolerating people who advocate for nazi ideals, and taking action to host, and more importantly amplify them. He proudly amplifies them. (and then tactically refuses to denounce them, please explain that behavior?)

When someone tells you who they are, you should believe them... and if they don't, you should judge them by the company they keep. I will gladly disavow anyone that advocates for racism or other bigotry, why won't you?

> Regardless if you believe he actually believes in free speech absolutely... (what happened to the account that tracked his plane in real time? or if you want to move the goal posts, please define absolutist?

Is it in the public interest to know where his plane is? Given the recent high profile assassinations and attempts there's good reason against it at least.

> He's parroted enough dog whistles that nazis love that it's fair to group him with the rest of the people who overly espouse nazism.

> When someone tells you who they are, you should believe them

That was my point I was trying to deliver before...let people say what they want, then they can be challenged. There are plenty of platforms, including X where you can voice opposition. Unpleasant people aren't going to stop being unpleasant just because they are stopped from voicing their opinions.

> Is it in the public interest to know where his plane is? Given the recent high profile assassinations and attempts there's good reason against it at least.

Lmao, so he's a free speech absolutist but only if there's a public interest in it? And who gets to make that decision? I would gladly make the argument that as someone in control of a government agency, the public does have an interest.

But I don't even need to make that argument, anyone with the capability to act on up-to-date information isn't gonna get it from Twitter. Flight information is public, you can look up flight plans by tail number. Everyone else is just going to wait for a local public event, and the flight details become secondary to that.

But the point is he's not a free speech absolutist, defending him using that shows either a complete break from reality, or is itself a dog whistle.

> That was my point I was trying to deliver before...let people say what they want, then they can be challenged. There are plenty of platforms, including X where you can voice opposition. Unpleasant people aren't going to stop being unpleasant just because they are stopped from voicing their opinions.

There is a social cost to tolerating such behavior. A good society stops broken people from inflicting psychic damage on others. There's a huge difference between, it should be illegal to express some idea/meme, and everyone should happy to enable toxicity and bigotry, and host the content of those who want to hurt others.

That toxicity is what you're defending after all. With transparent ignorance to the specific behaviors and actions that occurred leading to rise of nazism in the past, you object to calling someone a nazi who protects them without overtly denouncing them, while also leaning in really hard into the coded language and dog whistles.

What do you call someone calls for the mistreatment of others based on some identity? A nazi. You might want to reserve that term only for overt attacks against a specific named religion, but to agree would demand ignoring reality. The poem "First they came", doesn't start with jews.

And what do you call someone who not just protects, but amplifies and eagerly aligns with the culture of racism and people who gladly accept the epithet of nazi? Most people would call them a nazi.

It's weird to object to someone calling him a nazi, while also trying to defend him using the free speech absolutist argument. You want people to be able to be freely judged based on their behavior, but then object when they're judged for said behavior?

> Elon is a self described free speech absolutist, which is what he's enacted on X

lmao no he hasn’t. Unbanning racists and being a free speech “absolutist” are mutually exclusive concepts here.

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.

I don't own a Tesla

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.

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 :)

In that case, I’ll to cash in on this for my next car! I figured the degradation problem was much worse. My frame of reference is lithium laptop/phone batteries which definitely aren’t doing so hot 5 years in.

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.

I’d say 170k / 5 = 34 * 25 = $850. Throw in air filters, and a couple transmission fluid changes, and it would certainly be under $2k.

That’s assuming DIY, but even if you’re paying $80 per change. If you do them every 7,500… you’re still $1,800 total.

$12k is plenty for a whole new engine, possibly a new engine and transmission on an economy car. For example, Ford will happily sell you a brand new 2.3 Ecoboost for a Mustang or Ranger or Explorer for $6k: https://www.trackey.ford.com/part/M-6007-23TA

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.

My BmW gets OTA software updates, I assume most cars get them these days.

>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

>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.

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.

1. Parent included brakes, but I think brakes should be on the “ICE only” list. EVs maybe use brakes 5% of the time. Maybe less. (And I don’t buy corrosion from salt causing more wear than friction.)

2. The only thing left are tires and washer fluid. I’m not convinced that these make up 2/3 maintenance costs. All of the fluids — oil, coolant, transmission — plus components that wear down/need replacing (alternator, transmission) — there’s no way these are only 1/3 of all maintenance.

1. As I said, both time I needed to replace the brakes on my ICE it was due to corrosion, I’d have been in the same scenario with an EV.

2. Oil/coolant/transmission just don’t add up to much. Oil was $100/year, there was like one other fluid-related and one transmission related service over 13 years. There are many things other than tires and washer fluids (though tires are a fairly large line item) checking my spreadsheet for non-ICE-specific costs, there’s paint maintenance, general cleaning costs, a seatbelt receptacle, a cruise control buttons, roof exterior rubber trim, a headrest, a window switch, washer fluid spray nozzles, lug nuts, wiper blades, shocks, struts, door weather stripping, rivets holding the front plastic splashguard on, headlight bulbs, headlight buffing, washer fluid reservoir cap, replacement speaker, turn signal switch, windshield repair, backup light switch.

My costs lines up with much of the available data, e.g. see https://www.motortrend.com/news/government-ev-ice-maintenanc...

“According to the office, internal-combustion-engine-powered (ICE) vehicles cost $0.101 per mile to maintain. [..] Full battery electric vehicles, on the other hand, are much, much less expensive to run and maintain, coming in at just $0.061 per mile.”

That lines up fairly closely to my experience - their EVs still have about 60% of the maintenance costs of ICE vehicles.

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.

Wiper blades, cabin air filter(s), 12V battery, refrigerant dryer, suspension. Arguably drive unit oil. Very good idea to lubricate moving parts, hinges, apply protection to weather stripping, exposed steel on underbody.

Hasn't even crossed my mind to check brake wear on my 115,000mi Model 3.

In my somewhat limited experience, Japanese cars often need brakes around the 40k mark, and German cars go more like 60k.

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 was hoping you would have said that the issue is that article is comparing a $50k SUV to a $30k work truck, and then turning the price drop into percentage drop.

I'd like to see them compare two similarly priced SUVs.

I am sure the ICE vehicle will still depreciate slower, but perhaps not as drastically different.

The buyers of these two vehicles used in the example are very different.

So likely the resale value is more percieved tham actual.

Another market failure to adequately assist us in making the best choice.

> 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.

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 :)

> 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?

> 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.

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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.

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).

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.

Nothing, because electric cars have basically nothing to service. They don't use oil, they don't have timing belts. It's a battery and wheels.

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.

New cars with low mileage should have far less maintenance issues than older cars.

Hard to get a real sense for total cost of ownership for electric vs gas cars from that sample.

I hate to break it to you, but electric cars probably have the exact same "passenger occupant detection sensor"

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.

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.

Heavy trucks are industrial/commecial. In comparison to those vehicles, a 5 liter v8 is indeed "light".

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.

The Tread Unibody is describing a piece of equipment mounted to a regular truck chassis. Their product advertisement show they're mounted to conventional Westernstar, Mack...

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.)

Ok if it looks like a truck it's a truck

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.

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.

Nah, for me it's about utility. Big trucks are tools, and they spend much more of their lifetime putting that engine to use where nothing else will do.

The shocking thing about light trucks with fuel economy in the teens is that most of the time they never haul anything. They're driven to the grocery store and to soccer practice where they have little value.

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.

If you define SUV as body-on-frame, sure. But most people think of crossovers as SUVs, and most are unibody. It's a big umbrella and how it's made isn't how mainstream thinks about buying.

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.

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.

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

FWIW: Porsche depreciates just like any other car EXCEPT the 911 (and other GT variants) which is a rare outlier. But your point stands.

"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.