Let us buy BYDs you fucking cowards!
50k! Holy fuck!
Just bought a '23 Audi e-tron with 12k miles. It was less then half it’s new sticker price. My neighbors are already asking to find out if they should take the plunge.
Nothing wrong with test drives. I tried and learned about EVs for at least a year before selecting one second hand.
I really want an e-tron, but they don’t make it for my model (Q7). I was hoping the Q9 might, but it doesn’t look like it. I’m the guy that carpools everyone for friend outings, I need my SUV lol
If you consider depreciation and increasing gas prices, getting a 1 or 2 year old EV today is the best financial decision for those having that budget. It will also work for lesser budgets.
If you consider depreciation, that 1 or 2 year old EV today will take a much deeper plunge over the next 5 years than a 1 or 2 year old ICE vehicle, unless something changes rapidly or they change battery warranties to be 15 years or more.
I’m glad someone else is talking about EV depreciation, although it is not a popular subject in this community.
I’m still very much pro-EV, and it’s undoubtedly the future. But I think not talking about this one negative thing does a disservice to new potential EV buyers.
Unless you are getting an old Nissan leaf, you’re probably going to be fine. Todays EV batteries are so energy dense they undergo less strain than the old versions.
There were 2 problems with early EV batteries. First, they were not actively cooled and could cook themselves to death over time. Today’s batteries have their own climate control.
Second, they were not very energy dense, so when they were being charged or discharged, you were moving a larger proportion of overall capacity in a short amount of time. Batteries do not like that. But as the capacities grew, the instantaneous load on the batteries dropped, so they didn’t have to work as hard to do the same thing. So they weren’t as abused and last longer.
Event first gen Chevy volts are rolling around happily on their original batteries with no noticeable loss in capacity to this day.
I still worry about people like me who drive a LOT. I do about 35-40k miles a year. I don’t think I can trust a battery to last through the loan with the kind of mileage I put on.
I can wrench on an ICE vehicle pretty easily to keep it running for a couple hundred thousand miles. I have a used 2004 F150 that’s about to hit 600k miles on its original engine.
You’ll need to show data for that. Depreciation is not linear. The first year is worst and then not so bad.
You can look up used car prices yourself. But sure.
That 5 year old one is starting to look like a pretty good bargain already. The 2 year old one not so much.
I can find you tons more pairs for EVs that have lost a ton of value going from 1-2 to 5-6 years old if you still don’t believe me, but we’ll have to discuss my hourly rate if I’m going to be working for you.
In 2003 I bought a 1993 Mercedes for 5% of its sticker price, inflation-corrected. 80K Km, new-looking. Everyone warned me about maintenance costs but the '93 was a rugged beast. Family road trips and multiple moving days and a lot of mileage. I was prepared for some expensive repairs due to money saved in purchase costs but got through another 10 years no problems, other than the 4matic AWD computer which just turned it into a solid RWD until I bought a used replacement.
Gaming the ripe time to pick a used model really depends upon design and manufacturing, but the sweet spot for reliable brands seems to be 5-10 years.
In 2019 I bought a 2003 Mercedes for somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of its sticker price, I guess pretty close to 5 if inflation is accounted for. Maybe even less.
It had 380k km on the odometer, but it had been through Lithuania so some of the modules showed 700k km when interrogated. Previous owner also told me that there’s no way the 380k km is original.
I did have to do maintenance on it, but the only thing that really let me down was the steering rack. It failed and then a reman replacement unit failed too. Only reason I got rid of the car, otherwise I’d still be driving it. Bulletproof engine and transmission.
Bulletproof is just the beginning. A British car show did a multipart series of segments trying to ruin a w124 model, a 300te seven-seater ‘station-wagon’ and I think the cannonball ended it.
Lots of great features. The memory-adjusting drivers seat, third row, flat deck when seats were down that’s just long enough to sleep on, the cargo cover, the crazy stable 5-point suspension and self-leveling system, sensitive AWD drive, skookum quiet sunroof, great wipers, wood trim, and ultra rugged mb-tex seat fabric. Also relatively safe, for the time.
Non-luxuries saw even bigger drops. Check out the Nissan Ariya, 2 years old already going as low as $20k.
The Arya was overpriced and way too late in the first place. Nissan blew a huge lead.
Unfortunately the Ariya is something I find completely uninspiring. Somehow the interior seems even more dull than Tesla’s. For the same price I could have a Mercedes EQC. For even less, I could have a Jaguar I-Pace, just have to go a bit older with those.
If the fuel crisis goes on, I may just get an early I-Pace in a few months though. Otherwise I was planning on waiting a few more years till slightly newer luxury models are similarly depreciated, preferably something non-crossover.
Basic interior, but very comfy and amazingly cheap used in the US! One of the few cheaper models that had a heat pump standard and should comfortably be able to do a 150 mile round trip in snow without stopping to recharge even as the battery ages.
Logistic curves tell us that there soon will come a time when ICE cars are basically stranded “assets”. And I dare to say that time is closer than most think.
That’s a good thing, is the point of this article and general wisdom. Cars last 10+ years so for the used market, the sooner the car depreciates the better. Unless you plan to sell your car, depreciation rarely matters right? You buy a car to run it into the ground, so the cheaper to start the better.
Yes, it’s a good thing for buying a very used car. You’d have to be a fucking idiot to buy one brand new and mildly stupid to buy a lightly used one.
It’s not a good thing if you want to buy an EV that’s still worth something with the intention of being able to sell it before it becomes a heavy heap of problems. Heavy depreciation is good when you’re buying 10+ years old, not when you’re buying 2-3 years old with warranty still intact. For that case you’d want moderate depreciation, where it’s already lost some price, but you know it’ll still be worth something in 5 years. Plus most people still need to get financing of some sort on a ~20-30k purchase. If it depreciates too quickly and something happens to your finances, you’ll be underwater on that loan or lease while trying to get rid of it.
Meaning any EV under 10-15 years old is currently a really bad deal financially, meaning an early Tesla Model S is basically the smartest EV purchase unfortunately.
That’s some weird logic. If you’re buying used, the more it depreciates before you buy it the better. Let the first owner pay the price for that new car smell. Assuming no issues, why on earth would I want to pay more for the same quality used car?
Oh no, you’re not getting me, I love depreciation. Re-read the first sentence.
Yes, it’s a good thing for buying a very used car.
Depreciation doesn’t stop after 2 years. If you’re the second owner of a lightly used car you intend to sell before the battery and powertrain warranty is over (as most do with EVs, at least here), you still get a fuckton of depreciation happening in the next few years with an EV, less so with ICE. If you’re looking at something older, the extra depreciation benefits you a lot.
Personally I’m waiting for good 7-8 year old EVs to exist that are not Teslas. We’re just a few years out from that for many popular models, at which point you can have the car of your dreams for 20k. For cars that were 100k new. If you get one that’s 2 years old, it might still be 60-70k. Once that 100k car is around 20k, there’s so little left to drop, you give no fucks. Even in my country there are now EV shops that will repair battery packs instead of replacing them so a few years of warranty isn’t worth paying tens of thousands more for a car if you can probably get a battery pack repaired for <=5k in the very unlikely event that it fails. I’m not talking about gradual degradation, that’s natural and not a big deal IMO with modern battery packs, I’m talking about actual sudden cell failure that leaves the car as a paperweight.
I’ve been looking at Jaguar I-Pace as I consider these sufficiently depreciated (can have one for ~15k), but I’m not a huge fan of crossovers and I dislike that most have no tow hitch and even if they do, they’re rated to tow only 750 kg.
And to clarify while normally under “very used” I would mean 15 years or so, which is about what it takes an ICE vehicle to become properly cheap, for EVs this is slightly less, as you can get them super cheap at, like I said, ~7-8 years already.
I just meant that buying one that’s 2-3 years old is still hella stupid because the next few years will continue to be brutal.
Still not following. You’d rather buy a 7 year old car that’s depreciated the same amount as a 2 year old car, regardless of any difference in quality of the two? I’m out the same amount either way and in EVs I’d rather have the more modern tech.
You seem much more into looks than pure cost of ownership anyway. Which to each their own but I can’t fathom talking about price and then targeting luxury brands. Even used, you’ve got higher maintenance costs than the standard brands. EVs still need tires, windshields, etc and even off brand parts for luxury are a lot more expensive.
That’s a ton of assumptions that I think do not hold any real water. The smartest car purchase for most urban or suburban commuters in the US (and likely most other car dependent countries) is a used EV. The best ones have heavily depreciated because of the top 10% churning their cars, they have 80-90% of their battery range (which most people don’t even need), and they cost almost nothing to own and operate.
I would argue no one should be buying a car with the intention of selling it later, because all cars depreciate terribly (COVID was a very unique circumstance).
The warranty does not care about the value of the car, it’s only for parts and repair so what you said doesn’t make any sense.
Your other point is if you buy a depreciating asset with a loan and then lose your income you’ll have a hard time paying off that loan. That’s literally true for everything in the world. No one should be buying a car they can’t afford, and definitely not with a loan they can’t safely afford. There’s always refinancing which would in your hypothetical would always be a better move as again the ongoing cost of an EV is something like 1/6th or 1/10th of a gas car.
I think you’re giving terrible advice and have been given very bad information.
The best ones have heavily depreciated
Yes, like I said, actually used cars. Not something that’s 2-3 years old. Those still have a ton left to lose.
I would argue no one should be buying a car with the intention of selling it later, because all cars depreciate terribly
They all do, but unless you want to be stuck with the same car until it literally dies, you’re selling it. If you’re buying a fairly new car, you’re likely not planning on keeping it for 20 years, because if you’re ok with driving a 20 year old car, you should just buy a 10 year old car and drive that for 10. And if you are planning to sell in about 5 years, which is what most people keep their cars for, used or not, wouldn’t you want the one that loses 30-40% of its remaining value in that time, over the one that loses 60-70%?
The warranty does not care about the value of the car, it’s only for parts and repair so what you said doesn’t make any sense.
Unfortunately it does for some manufacturers of nice heavily depreciated EVs I’m eyeing ctrl+f “current value”. I’m sure others will be following suit. Guy on reddit got told to piss off by dealer because battery replacement was going to cost 60k pounds and car worth 40k or less. Basically put up 20k of your own money to get a warranty job done, ridiculous. This with the manufacturer deciding the price of the battery in the first place because LG or whoever sure as shit doesn’t charge them anywhere close to that amount.
No one should be buying a car they can’t afford, and definitely not with a loan they can’t safely afford.
And yet most people do. So when you’ve got 15k left to pay on your car and get laid off with only 6 months of income saved up (which is about 100x more in savings than the average person in some countries like the US) and have no idea if you’ll get a new job in 3 months or 2 years, would you rather the market value of your car be 20k or 12k?
There’s always refinancing
Yes, pay even more money by extending your loan. On something that’s already underwater. This is why Americans for example are so fucked with vehicle debt. Many of them roll negative equity into their next loan, and the one after that and… you get the point. Soon the loan principals get much bigger than the cars are worth. Made worse by ever longer loans terms that are designed to sucker you into exactly that.
If you consider depreciation
Maybe I’m weird, but I never consider depreciation. If the car is worth anything more than scrap value, it’s not yet time for a new car.
That’s what I do too. I just thought I’d pull out depreciation before a genius does.
I drove a 20+ year old car up until I had a kid, and suddenly I started to care about those safety features from the previous 20 years (like airbags and crumple zone improvements).
Then assume straight line depreciation between the car brand new and the car when it is scrap. If a $60,000 car lasts 20 years and you own it the whole time, you can consider the depreciation to be $3000/year if you’d like.
Either way, at the end of the car’s useful life you need to be prepared to pony up more money to buy the next one.
Unfortunately, you can’t ignore depreciation. It’s rarely possible to actually drive a car into the dirt, as they can last for hundreds of thousands of miles if properly maintained.
Even if you intend to drive the car into the ground, you usually can’t. Every time you get on the road it’s a roll of the dice. Over enough time, eventually you roll snake eyes. You can be the best driver in the world, you can’t beat physics. If someone pulls out of a parking lot right in front of you, you’re going to crash. You can’t skill your way out of minimum stopping distance.
And this happens, depreciation matters regardless of your choices. The insurance company is going to offer you a settlement based on the depreciated value of the vehicle. Sure, in theory you could say, “well, they gave me the value of a 10 year old car, so I’m just going to buy another copy of the same car I just totaled!” But that rarely works in practice. Once they get that old, you really have to worry if the old owner took care of it properly or not. Driving a car into the dirt works well when you can be the original owner and know that the maintenance has been kept up with.
All cars get driven to the ground. You save money by being the only owner, and not changing car every 3 years. In that case, depreciation is irrelevant. Your insurance case is far from being average.
If you’re going to reply, at least address what I wrote. You completely ignored everything I wrote.
I said I’d drive my first car until the wheels fell off.
Well, one day it actually did, coming around a bend on a highway. Fortunately there weren’t many other people driving out at the time. I ended up flipping it over on the embankment, single-car collision.
I stayed true to my word. Never fucking said it about another car since.
Tell that to my 40 year old daily driver. Just fix your stuff…
Again. you can only do so much, especially if we’re talking about buying a new vehicle today and driving that into the ground. Sure, you can keep things maintained. But even if you’re the world’s most skilled driver, you can’t control other people.
Just this last year we lost a 15 year old Corolla. We had been planning to drive it into the dirt. Driving down a side street, maybe 30 mph. Some person doesn’t look both ways properly and pulls out right in front of us from a parking lot. No time to stop. Insurance declared it a total loss. Not worth fixing. Would cost more to repair than the thing is worth.
Can cost you more to maintain it though.
EV cost more to maintain then gas?
I mean not replacing a 20 year old car can cost you more than a monthly payment of a newer car. My ev has been going strong.
True that. Just got hit with a 2k maintenance bill for my 20 yo vehicle and looking to pivot to an EV. It helps that I don’t drive much and work from home but I’m certain that my wife would prefer to drive the EV to and from work rather than her hybrid.
Yeah, my friends are complaining about $50 a week for gas and I’m around $40 a month for electricity.
Here, it’s like 200€ to 30€ a month if you can charge home. That buys a lot of depreciation.
It matters if you are in a collision for the payout.
What a weird and useless metric to think of when buying a new car. They will pay you just less then the cost of a replacement, so why does buying a car with a higher book value mean anything? Like are you just picturing yourself in an crash when looking at cars?
This is like asking whether you would like more money and saying no. It’s also troubling some people have already forgotten the lessons of the 2008 financial crisis.
Cars crash; 6 million crash annually in the United States. They get sold. If you finance a vehicle, it may not be on your schedule. Loans are based on income, not residuals. Lose the income and the residuals are all that prevent negative equity. Crash the car and you may end up with a loan but no car.
If you are so high income or wealthy it doesn’t matter, congratulations. Otherwise, naivete is not a great financial strategy with tens of thousands of dollars.
This is like asking whether you would like more money and saying no.
Its like spending more money on a depreciating asset with the assumption of crashing it and needing the value to be high. Its the weirdest financial choice since the 2008 financial crisis. Hell like the 2008 crisis this is borrowing in such a stupid way that you are expecting failure.
People can not afford new cars, at all. Financing a car is always a losing proposition. And buying a car based off its potential payout in the future is very very odd. Even at 6 million crashed a year in the us, there are 297.5 million registered vehicles there as well. That is a 1/50 chance to have your car in a crash if you are average, and since I know of people who are crashing every year or two the mean driver should be above that. Are you crashing a car more? We are talking about a expected 20ish year lifespan of a car with those numbers, why are you acting like people are naive for not buying into this odd view?
If you are not a car salesman, maybe you should talk to less of them in your life? Since this sounds a lot like the sort of crazy koolade passed out at a consumer cult.
Just because an asset depreciates does not mean there is not value in a reduced rate.
The only value you are talking about is the book value, that all cars tend to lose over time making the whole idea of shopping with that in mind strange and pointless.
In the context of OP, depreciation means that a “$50K when new” car may only be worth ~$35K if you choose to buy it 1-2 years later.
So it’s not so much about it’s residual value at any point in time, but rather how EVs tend to have a steeper depreciation curve at the beginning - making lightly used models a more attractive bargain.
I got a new 2025 ID. BUZZ for 63k a few weeks back. Any EV with that many seats is expensive and hard to find on our used market here. I think that was a decent price considering initially it retailed around 90K
My sister has my old leaf and 2 kids. The leaf is the household car. The grocery getter. The child fetcher. When they announced the buzz she wanted one so goddamn bad. It’s the return of the minivan in electric form. Exactly what she wants but alas cannot afford.
Hello fellow Buzz owner. I also bought a 2025 buzz new a couple of weeks ago. So far love having the EV kid hauler
Exactly 🤣. Make sure you get your electrify promo if you’re in Canada. Something like 1400 or 1600 kWh free charing over a few years.
I don’t have a stage 2 charger yet…
The average level 1 charger overnight is enough for the average driver, except on excursion days, then a fast charge will top you up enough.
If you live in a cold environment a level 2 charger can be beneficial because the battery heaters that need to be on when charging don’t have to run as long
True, L2 charger is much cheaper than a heated garage.
“1400 or 1600 kWh free charging” - that’s about $150.
Not quite.
If you math that, it’s actually $882
You didn’t even do any math.
1500 kWh x $0.20/kWh = $300
1500 kWh x $0.15/kWh = $225
1500 kWh x $0.10/kWh = $150
It says 50kWh cost me $31.50. I get 1400. 1400/50=28. 28*31.50=882.
Signed up for that. We also had to get a lvl2 installed right away, the kids school is just too far away for daily lvl1. 14-50 outlet + whole home surge protector $1200 installed
Ordered a LWB earlier in the year, still waiting on delivery - currently due mid-Nov., but with the Suez Canal looking to be off-limits due to the conflict in Yemen - not sure if/when it’ll land here in Australia. 😭
How’re you finding it, in these first few weeks? Any quirks/niggles you weren’t expecting, or adjustments you’ve needed to make?
Yeah some.
Personally I hate that it (and this is probably a fact for ALL new vehicles) is the level of tracking and data collection. Hard braking? Hard acceleration? A collision? Don’t worry, insurance knows. VW collects this and much more info and shares it with third parties 🙃. Just read the app ToS.
Level 1 charging is working okay, needing to too up at a paid charger once in a while but it’s still night and day cheaper than gas or diesel.
It’s super comfy and roomy. Overall I’m quite happy with it.
The charging connectors an unexpected quirk though. Once it’s charging you can’t release it. You need to either use the app, turn on the ignition and dig through the touch screen settings, or click your fob unlock button.
But this is my first ev and first vehicle I’ve ever owned that’s newer than 2010 so… Ya lol
Not a fan of all of that tracking, but as I’m doing a novated lease through work (so it comes out of my pre-taxed income) - I’m not sure I’ll have much leeway to figure out how to disable that.
We’re starting off with a level 1 charger, but as we’re in a 230V nation - we’re hoping that 12am - 6am charging (when our rates are ~8c/kWh) will suffice.
Good to know about the charging cable lock, and that does make sense - prevents jokers from randomly unplugging cars from chargers out in public. Can imagine having to explain that one to the missus a couple of times before it clicks though. 😅
It’ll be replacing our ‘16 Honda CR-V; we’re all pretty low-key excited - especially our 3yo.
How do you find the acceleration - any issues getting up to speed from 0 on freeway on-ramps?
We have the AWD version:
RWD: 282 hp, 413 lb-ft torque
4MOTION AWD: 335 hp, 413 lb-ft torque
AWD adds a front motor with 99 lb-ft of torque; the rear motor still produces 413 lb-ft.
0–100 km/h: about 6.4 sec for the AWD version.
So… Ya it’s pretty quick. No issues with the power st all.
Depending on how much you drive that window may be too small. You’ll get like 1.4kWh of battery recovered per hour, which is roughly 5-8Km of range.
EV prices falling to 50K 🫠 I’ll keep my shitty diesel for now, I’m afraid.
What are you spending annually on the diesel again?
Costs suck everywhere, but with an electric it’s a lot more manageable.
I work from home an if I need to commute I do it by train. So, if nothing goes awfully wrong, I’d say about 1K in maintenance and probably another 2K at the pump (high estimate). It is a small (~80bhp) old diesel, pre-AdBlue, so it is very economical. I sometimes get 900Km from a 50 liter tank.
No LCD screens, no subscriptions, no tracking. Just a car that takes me to places. Is there an equivalent car in the market?
Decent EV 3 years old 15 to 20k mileage with warranty run between 15 to 30k. Almost no maintenance and depending on the vehicle half to a tenth the price of gas. You can easily save 5k a year on maintenance and gas. Plus you aren’t killing people with air pollution.
Wait, easily save 5k/year? For how much annual mileage? I know for me with 11k miles annually, including service, the total annual cost is about €2k.
Gotta increase both the mileage and the price numbers to get something in the same class but as an EV. 36k EUR gets me in a 2023 EQE with 157k km. A6 and E-class are the same class of car (direct competitors) and EQE is supposed to be the electric E-Class. Using this one for the comparison because it’s highly unpopular so about 20k cheaper than a similarly aged BMW i5 and Audi A6 E-tron hasn’t been out long enough to get a 3 year old one anyway.
Now compare it to my 1800€ diesel A6 Allroad from 2007 with I don’t care how many kilometers because the warranty is over anyway. How many years for that price difference to pay off? Maintenance and diesel have been about 3-4k a year for me, charging would be ~800 a year if I only ever charge at home and never on a public charger and get the official consumption figures. Puts me at roughly 2-3k saved per year on a 30k price difference, in a car that will depreciate more than 2-3k a year for the next 4-5 years. And I know that if you get sudden battery failure, Mercedes will tell you the battery warranty only covers “up to the value of the car”, which is less than the battery costs at this point, so you have to put 10-20k up yourself. Suspect other manufacturers are going to claim similar bullshit.
And if you’re going to ask why I’m only comparing to the same class: even significantly newer cars from cheaper manufacturers don’t compare. Only recently tested a Volvo XC60, suspension was shit. A few years ago tested Hyundai Ioniq 5, suspension was utter shit. Rather be driving a 25 year old S-Class or A8 than a brand new Hyundai or Kia.
EVs will start making financial sense for us folks who know how to use a wrench when you can a used luxury one for 5k and know you can get a known good replacement battery for <2k and motor for ~500 AND can replace them at home.
I don’t use it that much to save those 5k.
2 year old Polestar is $25k.
I cannot afford it.
Yeah, its more ICE shitboxes for all I am afraid. Average car budget I know of around here is $5,000 to $10,000 CAD, no EVs in that range.
Right, because second-hand EVs have yet to be invented.
None that are under $10K so far. Issue here is that people just flat out don’t have the money for these yet. Maybe soon.
That’s not what it says
Average EV price is closer to $55KSame, gotta keep my paid off 2011 Silverado for now. At least I can use E85 in it 🤷
these prices are crazy
my honda 2008 109 hp lawn mower will be hauling my ass for the forceable future
what country is this? EV prices are lower
This is the US average transaction price. So someone who buys a new $150,000 car will get averaged in, same as someone who buys a new $30,000 car. The weighted average shows what people are actually buying but doesn’t say much about what is available. Most new car buyers are less price sensitive (if they were looking to save money, they’d be buying used), and the richest people are overrepresented because they buy new cars more frequently. Someone who buys a new car once every two years will have 5 transactions counted into this metric for every 1 transaction by someone who buys once every ten years.
Well that depends on if they’re using mean or median. Both are types of “averages,” but a quick skim of the original article doesn’t seem to indicate which they’re using.
USA is. Bought an EV last year for 19k, today I could buy the newer version used for probably 18k and my vehicle has a trade in value of 16.5k. last year maintenance was the cost of wiper fluid. This year I don’t see any maintenance costs. The car is new enough it still has a warranty.
The best part is I charge it at home @8 to 12 cent per KWH. Meaning I pay an average 6 cents per mile, depending on charge time and driving. Plus the electric company is 100 percent solar.Only under 25 k€ brand new electric in Finland now seems to be a JAC (never heard) E30X and BYD Dolphin Surf.
Mentions to Citroën e-C3 and Hyundai Inster for being non Chinese at 25ish.
Cheapest new ICE is about 19k, so almost no difference, but still some. Those will be much more ratty models, though.
