[HN Gopher] EVs are depreciating faster than gas-powered cars
___________________________________________________________________
EVs are depreciating faster than gas-powered cars
Author : belter
Score : 255 points
Date : 2025-10-17 10:56 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (restofworld.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (restofworld.org)
| bell-cot wrote:
| You know you're old when - the headline instantly reminds you how
| fast those newfangled "desktop computers" depreciated, compared
| to the adding machines and typewriters that they were trying to
| replace.
| gladiatr72 wrote:
| Well, sure. EV'S are smart phones on wheels. Are you going to
| grab your Samsung 5s in 2030, power it back up and use it to
| store your most sensitive personal data? Even the lowest-end
| varieties are always-on, internet-conected devices. Their safety
| and function is on the same tier as today's phone models.
| Expensive today, junk in 5 years.
|
| Thanks, but I'm hanging in to my old Subaru.
| electric_muse wrote:
| I think the most accurate part of your analogy is how fast the
| technology changes and renders yesterday's product obsolete.
|
| Just saw the Audi etron gt has amazing deals on used cars. Then
| I saw a new model coming out with better battery, more power,
| better range, and more features. Suddenly last year's model is
| way less compelling.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| True. At this point in time I'd only lease an EV. That being
| said, given that 100% of cars on the road won't be EV by 2030
| as some have tried to convince us, I suspect the rate of
| innovation in EV land to slow as EV investment is greatly
| curtailed by the car companies.
| mindslight wrote:
| As someone who is half in the market for a new vehicle, this is
| exactly where my thoughts went to. If I buy a car, I'm
| expecting that to be a 10-20 year purchase. Whereas the
| surveillance industry's churn culture considers five years of
| software support for a cell phone as some kind of amazing
| thing. And since more of an EV has been newly designed around
| software control (including the chief wear part, the battery),
| I would expect them to be much more wed to that disposability
| culture overall. Am I going to be able to get a new battery for
| a 20 year old EV at a market-competitive (with other cell
| packs) price?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Most non-Tesla EVs aren't notably different from a
| software/surveillance perspective than the comparable ICE
| car.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Trying to compare an EV to a smartphone is self-serving, you
| wanted to convince yourself that your already-made decision was
| the right one. Reality wouldn't be so kind.
| YeahThisIsMe wrote:
| Weird that this is presented as a problem for some reason.
|
| They're objects that lose value when you use them. That's normal.
| high_na_euv wrote:
| Dafuck? No.
|
| It says that it deprecates faster than other type of cars which
| should be worse in this particular criteria
| electric_muse wrote:
| Hey, did you read the article? The newsworthy point is that the
| EVs depreciate faster than gas counterparts.
|
| But hey, that just means better used EV prices for the rest of
| us. You can get some high end gently used ones for a great
| price.
|
| --
|
| " For Tesla owners in the U.S., their 2023 Model Ys are worth
| 42% less than what they paid two years ago, while a Ford F-150
| truck bought the same year depreciated just 20%. Older EV
| models depreciate even faster than newer ones. "
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Better used EV prices for buyers just means that EV sellers
| get ripped off
|
| Why buy a car that depreciates hella fast?
| linsomniac wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd call an F-150 a "counterpart" to a Tesla
| Model Y, especially when the F-150 Lightning exists. I assume
| that it is because F-150 vs F-150 Lightning disproves the
| premise of this article.
| dabbledash wrote:
| Because people prefer their objects to lose value more slowly?
|
| Not sure why this would be hard to understand.
| rjdj377dhabsn wrote:
| If they're losing value primarily because better options are
| becoming available rather than their own functionality
| decreasing, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
| xienze wrote:
| It is because people are incentivized to just wait for the
| "better options" that everyone knows are coming soon. Or,
| let's say you bought one and had an accident that totals
| the car but oops, the steep depreciation curve means you
| have to go out of pocket to pay off a total loss. No one
| wants that.
| rjdj377dhabsn wrote:
| Always waiting for "better options" is often irrational.
| You should buy what's best for you today.
|
| If the value of your EV has dropped to $10k and you get
| paid out that much for an accident, then in theory you
| should be able to buy a similar condition EV on the used
| car market for $10k. What's the problem with that?
| xienze wrote:
| > Always waiting for "better options" is often
| irrational. You should buy what's best for you today.
|
| If you're trying to get people to switch en masse to EVs,
| it's not good for everyone to be in perpetual "ehh
| there's gonna be way better ones around the corner" mode.
|
| > If the value of your EV has dropped to $10k and you get
| paid out that much for an accident, then in theory you
| should be able to buy a similar condition EV on the used
| car market for $10k. What's the problem with that?
|
| The problem is when your loan balance is $20K and you're
| only getting a $10K payoff...
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Again, you're attempting to use logic to convince reality
| to change.
|
| People make irrational decisions. That's a fact.
|
| People "should" do things they don't. That's a fact.
|
| The question is not, "What would a logically-driven being
| do?", but "What are people doing?"
| joshuaissac wrote:
| > you bought one and had an accident that totals the car
| but oops, the steep depreciation curve means you have to
| go out of pocket to pay off a total loss
|
| That can happen with a conventional car as well, which is
| why gap insurance exists. The regular insurance should
| still give you the replacement price (which would be the
| depreciated value).
| xienze wrote:
| Yes but again, the steeper depreciation curve makes it
| more likely to happen.
| RhysU wrote:
| The gap insurance will be more expensive. Resell still
| matters with gap insurance.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Tesla lowered the prices dramatically in Jan 2023:
|
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1F5IQOynIawoXiJPV.
| ..
|
| It does not seem remarkable that a new product takes some
| time to find its market price, and COGS goes down as supply
| chain improvements are made.
|
| And there was a $7,500 tax credit at time of purchase
| introduced in Jan 2023. At least the graph comparing Model Y
| to Ford F150 seems expected.
| rpigab wrote:
| Wierd that we're presenting SpaceX rockets that explode shortly
| after takeoff as a problem.
|
| They're objects that disintegrate in the atmosphere at some
| point when you use them. That's normal, it even has a name:
| rapid unscheduled disassembly.
| gregoriol wrote:
| If something looses value faster than something else it can be
| compared to, then it's considered as worse, meaning fewer
| people are going to buy it, meaning if you have one, you'll be
| able to afford less than others in a few years.
| rjdj377dhabsn wrote:
| Something's ability to store value is only one factor, and
| probably not the most important, when you're not buying it as
| an investment.
|
| A bar of gold will hold value a lot better than a car, but
| that doesn't mean a car is a worse purchase.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Depreciation is huge factor if you buy something for
| utility.
|
| I think we can say that EV and ICE has nearly same utility,
| perks on either side. Faster refuelling vs. being able to
| do it at home.
|
| Now next we can compare operational costs, what is the cost
| of fuel/electricity and maintenance. With home charging yes
| EVs are ahead.
|
| But if we take into account Purchase price minus price you
| get when selling. Well EVs are often more expensive to
| start with. And then they depreciate more so you get less
| as an percentage from original purchase price.
|
| Now it can very well be that you come lot of ahead in
| scenarios where you replace car with new one every 3 or 5
| years with ICEs.
|
| So total cost of ownership does matter. And big chunk of
| that is depreciation. Unless you are one of the few who buy
| new and then drive it to junk yard.
| rjdj377dhabsn wrote:
| Unless a 5 year old EV has lost a lot more functionality
| than a 5 year old ICE, that situation doesn't seem
| likely.
|
| If in 5 years, your EV (that had similar utility as an
| ICE when you bought it) has lost so much value relative
| to a new EV, then the new EV must offer much more utility
| over both the old EV and the old ICE, in which case your
| ICE should have lost a similar amount of value.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Are you trying to use logic to convince the resale value
| to be higher?
| rjdj377dhabsn wrote:
| My point is either the assumption that their
| functionality doesn't decrease rapidly is incorrect or
| that they won't continue to depreciate at a much faster
| rate than ICE in the future. It just doesn't make
| economic sense.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Neither did Beanie Babies, and yet...
| kreetx wrote:
| While I don't dispute EV depreciation (it's a fact, no
| matter the explanation), then I don't think depreciation
| is as "huge" of a factor as you make it out to be. People
| buy new cars all the time, while the added utility over a
| used car is negligible.
|
| I.e, I've _only_ bought cars that are 10+ years (exactly
| due to the depreciation factor!), but most other people
| buy or lease as new of a car as they possibly can afford.
| Doesn 't make financial sense to me, yet it's done so
| very often.
| gregoriol wrote:
| As I said: "than something else it can be compared to"; if
| we are talking about cars, you compare to other cars, not
| to gold or even bikes. If this car looses more value than
| another, then it's shit.
| rurp wrote:
| Why would we compare a car purchase to a gold bar purchase
| when they are completely different things? The article is
| comparing two products that substitute for each other, so
| it's notable that the market treats them differently.
| Someone looking to buy a car is either going to get an ICE
| or EV; not an EV or a gold bar.
| 127 wrote:
| Easier way to change the battery would decrease the cost of
| ownership by a ton and decrease the profits of EV companies also
| a ton. Which I guess is why it doesn't happen.
| cr125rider wrote:
| Do you have a source that the labor is more significant than
| the materials of a new battery?
| 127 wrote:
| I don't claim that. I claim that the process could be
| improved by a significant margin if there was incentive to do
| that.
| nomel wrote:
| > decrease the profits of EV companies also a ton
|
| Nobody profits from EV sales except Tesla (and 1/7 Chinese
| companies) [1].
|
| [1] https://www.carscoops.com/2025/03/only-four-ev-brands-are-
| pr...
| pm90 wrote:
| Well, that just means that secondhand evs might cater to people
| who could not or don't want to shell out a lot of money for new
| EVs.
|
| As the battery tech and service infrastructure matures we
| probably will see less of this though.
| christkv wrote:
| We are not at the top of curve where we get getting small
| incremental upgrades between models. Until the curve flattens out
| depreciation will be high.
| a3w wrote:
| gas-powered cars will become much more expensive to operate.
| Perhaps not in the US and A, but everywhere the Climate treaty of
| Paris has any value.
|
| In Germany, you can buy used luxury cars at high discount due to
| being fuel inefficient for years now, and that is with barely a
| price increase for gas and barely 1 l/100km to through 3 l/100km
| cars taking up more market share.
| wil421 wrote:
| Beside fuel efficiency and the long charge time for EVs, many
| EVs seem more like non-repairable iPhones than their ICE
| counterparts. Tesla's look very safe but seems like you can not
| replace body parts. Same with Rivian. I saw a guy dent a rear
| quarter panel and the quote was $45k. Only because the crazy
| way they manufactured things.
|
| Is BYD any different?
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| > Tesla's look very safe but seems like you can not replace
| body parts
|
| What?
|
| https://parts.tesla.com/en-US/landingpage
|
| https://epc.tesla.com/en-
| US/catalogs/dab210aa-2a7d-43b3-9e9b...
|
| Anyone can by them directly from Tesla.
| kreetx wrote:
| Just what I've heard, but an Uber driver told me how he
| upgraded his older Model 3 suspension to a newer variant
| because they attach the same way. So at least this part you
| can swap if you want.
| xnx wrote:
| > I saw a guy dent a rear quarter panel and the quote was
| $45k.
|
| The expected repair cost was ~1/10 that:
| https://www.thedrive.com/news/41000-rivian-fender-bender-
| act...
| Ekaros wrote:
| 4100 still sounds insane amount of money. An amount that
| sounds like something somewhere or everywhere has gone
| wrong.
| the_sleaze_ wrote:
| More a story about the body shop / car insurance
| interplay and blue collar skilled service industry /
| Private Equity dynamics.
|
| My beat up truck got quoted 6k to replace a dent caused
| by a fender bender.
| hypeatei wrote:
| Basically, we don't understand batteries and their lifespans that
| well while we understand wear and tear on an engine quite well.
| Sure, these concerns are valid, but it seems like you could voice
| the same concerns over any "early" technology.
| Retric wrote:
| EVs range degrades in a meaningful fashion with time and new EVs
| are improving faster than ICE cars, thus faster depreciation.
|
| The flip side of this is a general over correction as the new car
| tax break ends used EVs are really compelling today. A slightly
| used Long Range Model 3 is a far better option than their new
| Base Model 3.
|
| Eventually ICE cars were designed for their resale value so
| people buying a new car every 3 or 5 years could afford to spend
| more money. That's coming for EVs as the technology improves
| battery degradation means the range sweet spot will be chosen to
| keep the used market happy not just new buyers etc.
| interstice wrote:
| > EVs are improving faster than ICE cars, thus faster
| depreciation. This, it's a bit like comparing the depreciation
| of gpus in peak innovation years to now. They do similar things
| but they are in completely different contexts
| IAmBroom wrote:
| It's relevant to current resale issues.
| silexia wrote:
| Why does anyone accept the government enforced massive downgrade
| that is switching from gas to electric?
| IAmBroom wrote:
| What country are you in? What government enforcement are you on
| about? And why a massive downgrade? And why don't you change
| the channel off of Fox occasionally?
| Flamingoat wrote:
| > What government enforcement are you on about?
|
| UK and EU are defacto making Petrol/Diesel cars production
| uneconomical / illegal. California IIRC are also has a
| deadline for Petrol/Diesel cars IIRC.
|
| > And why a massive downgrade?
|
| The biggest ones for me are:
|
| 1) Range. I have a 700 mile range on my car. My old car
| before that could do 600 miles. I can travel from one end of
| the UK to another with 1/2 fuel stops. I have family I see
| regularly on the other side of the country. I can do the trip
| in 4 providing good traffic In an Electric vehicle that time
| is 5-7 hours due to the extra stops required. I know this
| because my mother and step father recently came to visit me
| and they have an electric vehicle. If you regularly do longer
| trips even 30 minutes off the road is a long time. I don't
| stop for anything other than a bathroom break when I do a
| long journey.
|
| 2) Charging time. I live in an apartment. I would need to
| charge the car away from home. That is a massive PITA IMO. I
| spend maybe 5 minutes in a petrol station, compared to 30
| minutes at a charger.
|
| 3) Almost every modern vehicle car has a bunch of annoyances
| in the vehicle. The electric cars I have seen have this
| dialled up to 11.
|
| 4) Cost. Electric vehicles are really expensive IMO. I can
| get a cheap second hand diesel for a few thousand in
| reasonable condition.
|
| > And why don't you change the channel off of Fox
| occasionally?
|
| Snarky responses like this is why people become resentful.
| Just because people have a different view point to yours
| doesn't mean they have been brainwashed by someone.
|
| A lot of us are happy with the vehicles we already have. I
| simply do not have an interest in ever owning an electric
| vehicle. I also prefer older vehicles and bikes because they
| are simpler and I prefer the way they operate.
|
| A lot of these themes btw was explored by Demolition Man with
| Sly Stallone. The "resistance" figures to the "regime" are
| eating meat and driving a v8 muscle car.
|
| I suggest you watch that, it is a fun movie and Sandra
| Bullock looks gorgeous in it.
| rightbyte wrote:
| I don't think the comparison is fair.
|
| The electricity and ICE fuel costs should be included if the
| battery is included. The battery is some sort of upfront fuel
| cost in a way the gas tank isn't.
|
| Since mileage wear is proportional to fuel use anyway.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| If we were talking cost of ownership, sure.
|
| But we're discussing resale value specifically, and it doesn't
| matter if you spent $25 or $50 "filling it up" last week when
| you sell it.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| I prefer to think of a battery as a transmission since
| rebuild/replacement costs and inconvenience are comparable.
| FabCH wrote:
| 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.
| natbobc wrote:
| 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).
| mortoc wrote:
| 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...
| interstice wrote:
| Not sure I understand the part about differentials being single
| speed, aren't they unrelated?
| IAmBroom wrote:
| 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.
| dahfizz wrote:
| 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.
| goalieca wrote:
| Control rods, suspension, alignment, etc are significant
| costs where I live. Winter climate and road conditions
| impact this.
| avn2109 wrote:
| Underrated point! Heavier EV's typically burn through
| tires and wear components in the suspension faster.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| 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.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| And less brake bits, because of regenerative braking. But
| the rest stands.
| klaff wrote:
| 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.
| cogman10 wrote:
| 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.
| rickydroll wrote:
| 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.
| toast0 wrote:
| > 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?
| cogman10 wrote:
| I'm outside the range. I have 170,000 miles
| sowbug wrote:
| 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.
| jopsen wrote:
| 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.
| guerby wrote:
| 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.
| thegreatpeter wrote:
| if its a tesla you can probably get it replaced under
| warranty. i think its 8 years
| cogman10 wrote:
| 70% is when they do the swap, but also under 150,000 miles.
|
| No dice for me, I'm at 170,000 miles.
| ggreer wrote:
| 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.
| cogman10 wrote:
| 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.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| > 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.
| FabCH wrote:
| 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.
| TechRemarker wrote:
| "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.
| FabCH wrote:
| 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.
|
| ...
| NobodyNada wrote:
| 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.
| aclindsa wrote:
| 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".
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > 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?
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| 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.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| So likely the resale value is more percieved tham actual.
|
| Another market failure to adequately assist us in making the
| best choice.
| rasz wrote:
| >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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| 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.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| 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).
| ghaff wrote:
| >the infotainment system
|
| Though this is true of ICE vehicles as well although
| CarPlay has eliminated that to a significant degree.
| xp84 wrote:
| 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
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > 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.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| > _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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| slavik81 wrote:
| > 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
| FabCH wrote:
| Well ok, the _perception_ of battery health :)
| RRRA wrote:
| 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 :)
| Marsymars wrote:
| 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.
| yardie wrote:
| 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| 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.
| Marsymars wrote:
| 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.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| 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
| Marsymars wrote:
| 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.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| 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.
| themafia wrote:
| > 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?
| PeterStuer wrote:
| So much of this, but not all, could be mitigated with a
| guaranteed battery "refurbishing" program. Large part of an EV's
| value is tied up in the battery, which is a (longer term)
| consumable. So when an EV hits the second hand market, and there
| is no battery guarantee (or clear and trusted state and history
| reporting), the estimates on battery value will have to be on the
| low side, and the overall car value depreciated accordingly.
|
| Traditional gas cars also have wear and tear with parts on the
| "consumables" spectrum, but these are considered more open to
| state inspection by a semi knowledgeable amateur, and the car's
| value is less tied to one specific black-box item.
| interstice wrote:
| I think modular and replaceable battery regulations are
| desperately needed. The sheer volume of waste from used ev
| batteries even through non battery issues like insurance write
| offs is likely to be staggering otherwise
| thijson wrote:
| That requires a standards body and government mandate. It
| might not happen for a while.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Initial studies show that EV batteries typically last longer
| than the car. Making a car 10% heavier so the battery can be
| replaceable will put a lot of strain on our roads, our grid and
| our wallet for little benefit.
|
| https://www.p3-group.com/en/p3-updates/battery-aging-in-prac...
| energy123 wrote:
| 10% figure can be substantiated?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| https://www.laserax.com/blog/structural-batteries
| theideaofcoffee wrote:
| > 10% heavier so the battery can be replaceable will put a
| lot of strain on our roads
|
| No it won't. Road wear scales as the fourth power [0] in
| relationship to axle load, so even a modest increase in
| weight is still hugely outweighed by the damage done by a
| fully-loaded semi tractor-trailer (80k lbs). Cars, even EVs,
| are negligible in terms of road wear.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
| wat10000 wrote:
| Are they not replaceable already? Older Teslas could
| literally change the battery in a few minutes. Newer ones
| aren't quite so easy, but it's a fairly quick matter of
| lifting up seat cushions, undoing some bolts and connectors,
| and connecting the new one. If your battery dies under
| warranty, they're replacing the battery, not giving you a
| whole new car.
|
| The issue isn't that the batteries can't be replaced, it's
| that a new battery is quite expensive. Substantially more
| than a new motor for a typical ICE car.
| Etheryte wrote:
| An average mid-size EV weighs somewhere in the ballpark of
| 2000kg. Surely making the battery replaceable would not add
| 200kg, that claim makes no sense.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Tesla saved 10% by converting to a structural battery, and
| even before they did so their cars were considerably
| lighter than competitors.
| general1465 wrote:
| That could be done if manufacturers went with some "standard
| battery factor" like on PCs is 3,5" slot and you can put there
| HDD, SSD, or whatever fits.
|
| Now you could just exchange battery as a module and replace NCA
| for Solid State in the future like HDD in the computer and car
| would be driving just fine.
| kube-system wrote:
| We're at the laserdisc part of the evolution of EVs. It's too
| early to standardize now, and besides, there are a lot of
| real performance advantages that can be gained from
| customizing battery packaging to the vehicle chassis.
| loueed wrote:
| Computers get old and EV tech is constantly improving. ICE has
| been stable for decades. Tesla believes they can increase the
| market value of older EV's eventually by pushing autonomous
| driving.
|
| I like the direction of https://slate.auto. Module, bring-your-
| own-computer. We'll see if they allow affordable trade-in's for
| upgrading battery/motors.
|
| They could also work with CommaAI for autonomy.
| tcbawo wrote:
| Is it really true that ICE has been stable? Cars seem to have
| been getting many innovations, especially with power, torque,
| and reliability. We probably don't hear much about it because
| it is low profile stuff and a mature product.
| trashb wrote:
| Actually ICE has improved significantly in the last 20 years,
| even though progress was held back by emission and safety
| regulations. In the year 2000 a sports car would have around
| 200/250hp while these days any sports car that wants to boast
| power has around 500hp or more.
|
| Perhaps you're not into cars much but if you compare top cars
| on track days etc. you will know there have definitely been
| huge changes. Though during the last 20 years repairability
| and reliability also took a hit.
| xnx wrote:
| > held back by emission and safety regulations
|
| How so? Are those not improvements?
| trashb wrote:
| Those are improvements overall for the environment and
| safety of course. However as usually improvement in one
| area is not necessary an improvement in another area. I
| was referring to "sport" performance of a car or ICE
| engine then the emission regulation held back the power
| output and performance of the drive train and the safety
| regulations added a lot of weight and size to the cars
| therefore hurting handling.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >Are those not improvements?
|
| Said no pedestrian hidden behind my A-pillar (just
| kidding I still drive a 1980s minivan, one of the poor
| people ones, not the hipster one, don't get your hopes
| up).
| tim333 wrote:
| >500hp or more
|
| But are they fun? My main experience of powerful cars is
| you hit the speed limit or a traffic jam within about 10
| seconds.
|
| I have more fun on my 1/3 hp ebike than my 200 hp car which
| suffers from the above.
| PyWoody wrote:
| The must fun I've ever had while driving was with the
| family '99 Honda Civic. Zero power. Zero torque. But,
| man, it was like driving a go kart in the streets. I'd
| zip through mountain passes with the engine revving to
| hell but in reality I'd only be barely going the speed
| limit.
|
| I did the same mountain pass in my Subaru recently and
| didn't even notice I was going 20mph over the speed
| limit. The engine was silent and still responsive.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| >I did the same mountain pass in my Subaru recently and
| didn't even notice I was going 20mph over the speed
| limit. The engine was silent
|
| How about the transmission lol
| everdrive wrote:
| >200/250hp while these days any sports car that wants to
| boast power has around 500hp or more.
|
| And it'll only weigh 4,500 lbs.
| tim333 wrote:
| I'm not sure they've improved that much. Comparing my 1990
| miata/mx5 with modern cars I prefer not having electronic
| screens and bleeping things all over the place. The only
| thing I'd chose to modernise is engine efficiency which is
| maybe a bit better now.
| everdrive wrote:
| > and reliability.
|
| The newest vehicle reliability advances are _less_
| reliability via:
|
| - cylinder deactivation
|
| - ubiquitous turbos
|
| - gasoline direction injection
|
| - more computers
|
| - generally higher cost of repairs (eg: if a car from 2023
| needed a headlight it would cost much more than a car from
| 1998 needing a headlight, and even if they both had the same
| failure rate the reliability of the new car would be worse
| from cost alone)
| topspin wrote:
| This is well informed and correct. Understand this if you
| buy a new ICE vehicle: the drive train is uneconomic to
| repair out of warranty: do not imagine you'll keep it long
| term or hand it off to a kid or whatever.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Costs drop like a rock once vehicles get old enough that
| they can't be financed, which means dealers won't sell
| them, which means they won't be bundled with 3rd party
| warranties and service plans, which means that the owner
| will be the one paying and there's actual pressure to
| control costs (because the owner has no party down the
| line to pass costs onto).
|
| For example, for the longest time Nissan CVTs were
| "nonrebuildable, send it back and buy a reman" now any
| idiot can rebuild one for under a grand in parts.
|
| 4L60 and E4OD rebuilds were also $$$ for a long time now
| they're dirt cheap too.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > do not imagine you'll keep it long term or hand it off
| to a kid or whatever.
|
| i don't agree, my friend has been driving the same Toyota
| LandCruiser for 20 years. I will have no problems handing
| my 2016 4runner down to my kid who turns 16 this
| December. The 4runner will last another 10 years easy.
| topspin wrote:
| > Toyota LandCruiser for 20 years
|
| Respectfully I specifically wrote "new." 20 year old SUVs
| predate the issues of _new_ vehicles.
|
| > my 2016 4runner
|
| Even a 2016 vehicle predates what I'm pointing out. A
| 2016 4runner likely has a 270hp naturally aspirated V6
| with modest power and a relatively basic 5 speed auto
| transmission. A 2025 4runner is a turbo charged 4
| cylinder making nearly 2hp/cu in. and an 8 speed
| transmission. The former is _much_ simpler and thus
| economic to maintain and repair compared to the latter.
|
| ICE vehicle drivetrains have changed radically in only
| the last few years. They're almost universally using
| forced induction, integrated into unserviceable castings,
| to attain far higher volumetric efficiency, equivalent to
| high performance engines of not long ago. Gone are the
| 4-5 speed transmissions and transaxles: 8-10+ speed is
| the norm, and the complexity follows here as well. They
| are absolutely intolerant of neglect and abuse. Repairs
| are complex and likely to fail: manufacturers have taken
| to replacing major assemblies in leu of attempting
| repairs as they would have in the past. Part of that is
| due to the unserviceable nature of these components.
| Another part is the lack of dealer talent to deal with
| their own products. Another part is that the
| manufacturing lifecycle of major assemblies is now
| extremely short: only a couple years, whereas 10+ years
| was normal for common platforms as recently as the the
| 2010s.
|
| What this means is: when these _new_ products are no
| longer supported by manufacturers, who will drop their
| supply obligations rapidly as they legally can due to
| short lifecycles, parts will be fabulously expensive and
| difficult to obtain and the skills and tools necessary to
| repair them will be rarified and also expensive. Post-
| warranty ICE vehicles will be uneconomic, full stop.
| prerok wrote:
| Not even mentioning that you cannot change the headlight by
| yourself.
| kube-system wrote:
| But you can't change a headlight _bulb_ if they 're a
| sealed unit, because those don't have bulbs, but with
| basic tools, you can certainly change a headlight.
|
| But also, if you have a vehicle with a sealed headlight,
| you're probably not having to change it every other
| winter.
| dave78 wrote:
| also:
|
| - tons of sensors with limited lifespans
|
| - more complicated transmissions with more gears
|
| - auto start/stop
|
| Pretty much all of these reliability reducers are
| manufacturers trying to eek a little more MPGs by throwing
| lots of complicated technology at the problem, which
| introduces a lot more failure points.
|
| Headlights and taillights on my current vehicle are
| supposedly around $1500 each, mostly due to a bunch of
| sophisticated sensors being built in.
|
| Back in the 80s headlights were standardized (in the US at
| least) - you either had rectangular or circular. They were
| available at every auto parts store. Now they're a special
| order item from the dealer.
| everdrive wrote:
| Oh, and new "high" oil and fuild change intervals.
| They'll get you through warranty, but your car won't make
| it to 150k or 200k.
| kube-system wrote:
| New synthetic oils are very durable. They actually do
| last a long time.
|
| There are oil tests that confirm this. Also, 10,000+ mile
| oil changes are not new, and there are tons of used
| vehicles on the market, running around with long oil
| change intervals, and high mileage.
| anovikov wrote:
| Aren't they deprecating mainly because new EVs are better? In
| this case, it is not "derailing" but simply the actual
| replacement happening. And this effect will become smaller as the
| industry matures and EV prices stabilise.
|
| At least that's what happened in 2022-2023 when prices of EVs and
| ICE cars quickly converged. No surprise existing EVs on the road
| deprecated rapidly.
| diego_moita wrote:
| The upside of this story might be a change of culture in EVs in
| North America. Everywhere else in the world, EVs are cheap cars
| to urbanites. In the U.S./Canada they're muscle/status cars for
| rich people. This cheaper second hand market might help
| popularize them.
|
| I live in Canada where the distances are long and the weather is
| freaking cold. These are 2 circumstances very adverse to EVs.
|
| But, still, I love my Kia Niro EV. It is the best car I've ever
| had. The driving experience is so good that it made me enjoy
| driving; I always hated driving before this car.
|
| EVs run much smoother, are more stable and more powerful.
| Besides, if you charge them at home, they're far cheaper; even if
| you don't have solar panels (I do have them, too).
| IAmBroom wrote:
| I have never heard of them described as "muscle cars". In the
| US, they seem like "green" virtue-signalling tech toys for the
| middle and upper-middle class, to me.
|
| I'd happily buy one if I were a bit more comfortable with their
| use, but I'm a tech "dawdler".
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| In the UK I think most EVs are leased, especially through "salary
| sacrifice" schemes from employers (which saves the whole income
| tax on payments). Is it the same in the US?
|
| In such case I suspect the impact is mostly on leasing companies
| with issues on viability and leasing costs (for consumers).
|
| In UK/Europe this might also explain why depreciation after 3
| years is so high: Leasing companies trying to dump EVs returned
| at end of leases.
| JohnFen wrote:
| According to Experian, a bit over half of EVs are leased in the
| US (https://www.experianplc.com/newsroom/press-
| releases/2025/con...)
|
| > through "salary sacrifice" schemes from employers (which
| saves the whole income tax on payments)
|
| I don't know if such a thing exists in the US. I'm not aware of
| it, but it could easily have escaped my notice.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Interesting! My take is that this is partly caused by people
| not trusting their long term value and reliability, and at
| the same time it contributes to their depreciation because it
| means the EVs are dumped on the used car market after 2-5
| years (I think 3 years is popular for leases in the UK).
| nicoburns wrote:
| EVs are simply immature products. The first truly mainstream
| models (car manufacturers making EVs their flagship model)
| outside of Tesla were released this year, or maybe last.
|
| The first few generations of smartphones didn't last very long
| either (1-2 years). But now they last much longer (5-7 years). EV
| lifespans will expand in the same way as they mature as a
| product.
| epistasis wrote:
| I don't know where this idea comes from. I had a Fiat 500e when
| it first came out, about a decade ago, and it was fantastic
| even though unloved by the manufacturer, and it had to go in
| for a recall for two days once which was a hassle. Still better
| than the BMW that I bought when the 500e lease expired, because
| the BMW was in the shop for a whole week for some sort of tail
| light recall. I only bought the BMW because I was waiting for
| the Model 3 to come out, and switched to that eventually, and
| it is far far more mature than any other car of the era.
|
| I bought a minivan when I had kids, and it's such a huuuuuuge
| step backwards on every front from the Model 3. There's so much
| ridiculous maintenance for a gas car, it really really sucks.
| And Toyota's build quality is absolute shit compared to Tesla,
| which supposedly gets dinged for build quality. All the plastic
| in the Toyota is falling out, the window seals are terrible,
| the whole thing is terrible in comparison to Tesla's supposedly
| bad build quality.
|
| I've taken EVs on thousand mile road trips with an infant, and
| it was fantastic.
|
| My EV is going to outlast my ICE by a long long time. The
| amount of fake FUD around EVs is mystifying to me. I can not
| understand why anyone would want a gas car wheee you have so
| much maintenance and always have to stop to fill up. So much
| wasted time and money on that BS.
| instagib wrote:
| I've noticed hybrids are filling up dealers lots as well. They
| can't sell them or won't take a big loss on them. "Too heavy,
| expensive, less cargo space, and not enough benefits." per sales.
|
| There aren't many EV's on the lots either as the configuration
| team doesn't see a need to order them from manufacturers if
| people aren't buying them.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| A hybrid has a smaller battery, so it goes through more cycles
| for the same milage than a pure EV. An EV might get 250,000
| miles from a battery, a hybrid only half that.
| wood_spirit wrote:
| This story doesn't really gel with my understanding as an EV
| owner in Europe.
|
| The post says that Tesla hold their value better than Chinese
| newcomers but that absolutely isn't the prices I'm seeing in
| Europe.
|
| In Europe Tesla resale value has plummeted due to brand
| destruction. Tesla was super popular when they launched as the
| first realistic EV to hit the main time. But they quickly got a
| poor reputation for build quality and never delivering on self-
| driving, and that was before the political damage the owner did
| which seems never recoverable in at least a generation.
|
| Meanwhile comparable Chinese entrants are so new they aren't yet
| at the 3 year mark where fleets sell off to second hand market.
|
| Another interesting thing about non-Tesla EVs is that there
| aren't a lot being resold; if you got one, you likely hang onto
| it. Personally I've just not yet let go of my Kia EV6 even though
| it sailed past the normal trade in point recently.
| trashb wrote:
| Tesla mostly focused on the American market anyway. In my
| understanding there are a lot of facilities for Tesla's that we
| don't have in Europe like the program where you can buy a
| refurbished Tesla from Tesla.
|
| Additionally there is a political drive to not trust Chinese
| manufactured products so those EV's are probably harder to
| maintain, get support for and in general it is socially
| considered less status to have a Chinese EV instead of a Tesla.
| Where in Europe this cultural drive is not as present in Tesla
| vs Chinese . In my experience in the EU the drive is more about
| is it EV and the Chinese EV's often offer more features/value
| for less money.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >Tesla mostly focused on the American market anyway.
|
| There a lot of them in the UK (although I haven't seen so
| many newly registered ones lately).
| blibble wrote:
| I keep a vague eye on the market share of the railway
| station car parks around London
|
| it's a good representative sample of affluent london
| commuters (mostly leasing via salary sacrifice)
|
| I've seen close to zero new teslas in the past year
|
| BYD seem to have entirely replaced them
| hylaride wrote:
| > Tesla mostly focused on the American market anyway.
|
| Not true at all. In 2023, before the brand became toxic, they
| sold more cars outside the US than internally. They were a
| huge percentage of the market in parts of Europe, especially
| Scandinavia. There was a lot of noise about the manufacturing
| centres in Germany as Tesla fought around labour laws and
| traditions, too.
|
| They also bet big on China where they almost got to the point
| where they were selling as many cars as in the USA. Elon fell
| hook, line, and sinker for the classic Chinese government
| move to invite them into the market and then steal the tech
| and flood the market with domestic brands (this is not to say
| that they haven't improved on it, though).
| RickJWagner wrote:
| I'd love to have an EV. I'm not even too frightened about the
| battery.
|
| It's just that the cars are aging like iPhones. Last years
| hardware package, hardware compatibility with latest software,
| etc are all people seem to talk about on Reddit. I think that's a
| factor in the steep depreciation.
|
| I just bought a new Corolla hybrid, it gets 60 miles per gallon
| and should last a good while. Maybe next purchase.
| linuxftw wrote:
| I'm currently leasing an EV for 24 months 7.5kMi/yr. The residual
| price is over $20k lower than MSRP. Without subsidy and steep
| discounts, nobody would buy these things. And IMO, the residual
| is about $5k higher than it will be worth based on low-mileage
| used vehicles of the same model for sale. That finally gets us to
| the price, almost 50% lower than the MSRP, which I personally
| value this car new with 0 miles.
|
| These EVs should be much cheaper. Either batteries are so
| outlandishly expensive that this will never be economically
| viable for the vast majority of the world outside of cities, or
| companies are playing accounting games.
|
| In any case, when purchasing a used EV, you're essentially
| risking the entire purchase price if you get a battery lemon.
| Buying a Bolt or what have you for $15-$20k, and having to
| replace the battery at 60%+ of your purchase price, that's too
| much risk. Whereas if you bought a used ICE vehichle for $15-20k,
| and your engine fails, you might might need to spend $1500-5k for
| a repair, it's not all or nothing. And with a moderate amount of
| research, you can determine which makes or models are prone to
| early large repairs.
|
| If EV manufacturers would sell a no-questions-asked insurance
| policy that guarantees the life of the battery to 250k miles,
| there would be no issue.
| megaman821 wrote:
| Manufactures could offer battery inspections and extended
| warranties. Maybe with more data, I assume at 15-20 years old
| no one really knows what the failure modes of these batteries
| will be.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Well, a warranty would be a cost to the manufacturer. An
| insurance policy would be risk-adjusted recurring revenue.
| trashb wrote:
| I think there are other factor's beside the battery and EV's
| being dumped in the market that may affect the resale value that
| are not mentioned in the article.
|
| First of all I believe that the car manufactures (especially for
| electric cars) these days use planned obsolescence tactics to
| limit a car's lifespan at one side, while also promising the
| buyers that the car could last for far longer compared to their
| old ICE cars. However this promise often doesn't seem to hold up
| in the real world which will decrease confidence once the cars
| start breaking earlier. This is especially problematic when you
| are running an business calculating in the promised lifespan
| instead of the actual lifespan, once a business finds out (and
| does the math) often it will make economical sense to dump the
| fleet.
|
| On top of that I think a big problem with certain cars on the
| second hand market is big onetime investments. You can see that
| already in certain internal combustion engine cars that are know
| to require a costly fix after x amount of miles. This is quite
| important in the second hand market since you often have to
| expect to do the "big maintenance" once you purchase a second
| hand vehicle as people like to sell slightly before this
| maintenance is due (and often not tell you).
|
| Where EV's may run for a long time without problems they require
| costly repairs once they do break. Most EV's are build in a
| mostly non repairable way, like many modern vehicles, and you
| have to pray that the parts will be available after 10 years.
| Also a lot of maintenance on EV's can not easily be done by an
| enthusiast in a shed as it requires special equipment,
| certification and skills. Where with an ICE engine you may run
| into smaller maintenance earlier you are paying these fixes
| incrementally, and may be able to do a lot of the maintenance
| yourself.
|
| On top of that I think there is a certain saturation in the
| electric car market where people that care about buying an EV
| increasingly have a EV and the people that don't care (or prefer
| ICE) don't want to invest the additional premium, or uncertainty
| to buy an EV. For example I don't buy an EV because it's very
| impractical to charge it where I live and I like the added
| flexibility (miles) that an economy ICE car can provide.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| A $25,000 used EV with 80,000 miles is not a good deal if you're
| going to have to spend $20,000 to replace the battery.
|
| If you can get another 150,000 miles out of it with almost no
| maintenance or repair costs, it's a screaming good deal.
|
| The latter is far more likely than the former, but people don't
| realize it yet.
|
| https://www.p3-group.com/en/p3-updates/battery-aging-in-prac...
|
| P. S. I will likely be buying a used EV soon.
| Uvix wrote:
| But why spend $45,000 on a used EV when you can get a new one
| for the same price or less?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I'm not, I'm going to spend ~$20,000 and I expect to save
| many thousands over the next 10 years in reduced maintenance
| compared to my ICE vehicle.
|
| Edit: Oh I see the confusion. I should have been more
| explicit in my original comment that the second case involved
| not ever replacing the battery.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| > A $25,000 used EV with 80,000 miles is not a good deal if
| you're going to have to spend $20,000 to replace the battery.
|
| What makes you think that you would have to do that?
|
| 1) that car would still be under warranty until it is older
| than eight years or drives more than 100K miles. So if it needs
| a replacement at 80K miles, you might get it for free because
| it's not supposed to fail.
|
| 2) There's a lot of data that suggests batteries last a lot
| longer than their warranty period both in miles and years.
| There are plenty of EVs with 150K or more miles on them that
| are still fine. And define fine, is it such a bad deal when the
| battery has 75% of its original capacity instead of 85%?
|
| 3) It's hard to get numbers on when they actually do fail on
| average for the simple reason that the overwhelmingly large
| majority of EVs ever made are still driving around with the
| original battery they left the factory with. They've only been
| on the market for about 15 years. And the majority of them is
| much younger than the eight years of battery warranty they left
| the factory with. Most of the EVs on the road have been sold in
| the last few years only.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Sorry, my original post was originally formatted correctly.
| Some readers are reading the inverse what I was trying to
| say. The link shows that EV's are lasting up to 300,000
| kilometers on a single battery.
|
| I'm going to buy a used EV, and I don't expect to replace the
| battery.
| jasonthorsness wrote:
| It's clear a lot of good fundamental innovation is still
| happening in the EV space (as opposed to IMO negative innovation
| in digital features in ICE cars). This is why I leased my
| electric car; my family's pattern is to keep a car forever (ICE
| car is circa 2009) and I don't want to be stuck with something. I
| think resale value partially captures this problem.
| specialist wrote:
| Agreed. The OC conflates a lot of unrelated & outdated issues,
| yet doesn't get near the most likely cause: Leasing.
|
| --
|
| Many of the EV influencer/reviewers (that I binge watch) do
| advise leasing over purchasing. Misc reasons (at least in the
| US):
|
| Continued high rate of improvement. So for EV enthusiasts
| (early adopters), who are likely to upgrade, leasing avoids
| eating the entire depreciation in value.
|
| Manufacturer incentives for new purchases drive down used car
| prices.
|
| Many of the models are simply too expensive. (Esp with the
| current overstock.) Their resale value will normalize once new
| EVs reach price parity with comparable ICEs.
|
| With so many leases expiring, there's more supply than demand
| (for used EVs).
|
| --
|
| Anecdatally, I held off buying (or leasing) a new Kia EV9 this
| year. It's just too expensive; implicitly reflected in their
| generous incentives. Kia's software is still immature. Knowing
| I don't intend to keep the vehicle, with their turrible resale
| value, I wasn't able to stomach the depreciation.
|
| FWIW, My future perfect vehicle is a Toyota Sienna EV, over
| 350mi range, fast charging, and equiv to Tesla's software.
|
| I predict, based totally on vibes, that sales of city cars (eg
| Kia Kona, Nissan Leaf) will be just fine once their price is
| 1:1 with ICE. Ditto roadtrippers (eg VW ID.Buzz) once their
| range is over 300mi.
| xp84 wrote:
| > leasing avoids eating the entire depreciation in value
|
| Assuming the bank's predictions are correct, that's not true.
| The lease agreement simply predicts a specific residual value
| and you pay the difference between that and the purchase
| price (in other words, the full predicted depreciation
| amount) in your payments. Of course, the less you drive the
| leased car compared to your mileage allowance, the worse you
| do, since the residual value prediction assumes you used all
| 10k miles a year or whatever.
|
| Not saying leasing is bad, just that the opportunity for them
| to be a better deal _strictly financially_ depends mostly on
| whether the bank overestimates the residual value (as I
| suspect happened with my off-lease used EV, which cost me
| less than half the sticker price, with 16k miles, at 3 years
| old).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| My observation is that the manufacturers (who are
| originating the majority of leases) are intentionally
| eating the depreciation and going with unrealistically high
| residuals in order to make the leases more attractive. Just
| another way of structuring an incentive to move cars off
| the lot.
| specialist wrote:
| Also, OC wrote:
|
| > _Battery-as-a-service models are emerging as a potential
| lifeline..._
|
| Not for consumers. Maybe for fleet vehicles.
|
| The rate of innovation has to slow down before that kind of
| standardization can take hold. And battery tech, from the
| chemistry to the packs, shows no sign of slowing down in the
| immediate future.
| smoovb wrote:
| I was doing the math on leasing an EV and really seems to work.
| With the EV deprecation, you are actually coming out ahead of
| buying in many cases. A friend did this with a Kia a few years
| ago and looks like its a valid option.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It works because the manufacturers are willing to defer the
| hit and eat the depreciation themselves in three years. If
| the leases were honest and the residuals accurate, it would
| be a wash with buying.
| TheChaplain wrote:
| Well, I don't entirely agree.
|
| But where we live there is a huuge fanbase of veteran cars like
| Chevrolet, people are nuts about them and arrange day long
| cruising around the city a few times a year.
|
| Considering the complexity and rapid technology changes of
| electric cars, I doubt we'll see many working VW ID.5 in 70 years
| cruising the streets.
| senectus1 wrote:
| My MG4 was bought exactly 1 year ago. for 31k on Carsales.com.au
| *older models are still selling for 28k....
|
| I dont think all EV's are dropping equally.
| Zambyte wrote:
| Human scale electric vehicles (e-bikes, e-scooters, etc) do not
| seem to suffer from this problem as much.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Because there is no major secondary market. Obviously.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| At least for my e-bikes - all the batteries are easily removed
| and replaceable (whether the vendor is still manufacturing it
| is a different question).
| mlsu wrote:
| And like cars, replacement ebike batteries are absurdly
| expensive. $500-600 for a few 18650 and a BMS.
|
| Part of it is that a battery pack is legitimately dangerous
| at that scale (so lots of testing/safety certifications etc).
| But those are one-time design costs that should be amortized.
|
| I would really like to see some standardization around
| battery packs for both cars and bikes, so that it could
| become a commodity market for packs.
| kube-system wrote:
| They don't? I usually see them marked down 1/2 off or more if
| they're used even with negligible use.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I dunno, they all are going to have wheelie crash damage the
| way these teenagers ride them down the streets. I don't know
| why we can't federally require ebike electric motors to
| disengage when the front wheel goes off the ground
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Legal e-bikes are not really capable of wheelie-ing using
| their power alone since they are limited to 750 watts.
|
| These bikes are already illegal, so lets not introduce
| another silly regulation that adds expense and a point of
| failure just because teenagers do wheelies.
|
| Also, teenagers doing wheelies on bicycles is not illegal,
| nor should it be. Let people have some fun!
| epistasis wrote:
| Man, I _wish_ this were true, because I would love to buy a cheap
| second hand EV right now.
|
| Looking across fhe used car sites and KBB, I'm probably going to
| buy new instead.
|
| There's a concerted PR effort to slander EVs out there, take all
| articles with a huge grain of salt.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| 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.
| gtowey wrote:
| 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.
| mrits wrote:
| 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.
| jaggederest wrote:
| Wait until you find out about the proper trucks that use a 7
| to 15 liter turbocharged i6 and get 5-8 mpg.
| usefulcat wrote:
| Agreed. If the F150 is Ford's "light" truck, what does that
| make the significantly smaller Maverick?
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Maverick is styled like a truck, but unibody design is more
| like a ute. Same way the Subaru Outback is not a truck
| Marsymars wrote:
| 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.)
| Aloisius wrote:
| 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.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Heavy trucks are industrial/commecial. In comparison to those
| vehicles, a 5 liter v8 is indeed "light".
| bityard wrote:
| "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.)
| davey48016 wrote:
| The Ford Ranger is still (or once again?) sold in the US.
| jaggederest wrote:
| 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.
| sureshv wrote:
| 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).
| jaggederest wrote:
| Even the Maverick is GVWR 5100. The original Ranger was
| around 3200 GVWR, which these days almost makes it a kei
| truck.
| bob1029 wrote:
| The F150 achieves its maximum available payload capacity
| (over a ton) in the trim level with a 3.5L turbocharged V6.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| o10449366 wrote:
| 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)
| potato3732842 wrote:
| 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.
| xeromal wrote:
| 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.
| linsomniac wrote:
| Note: This article compares the depreciation of a Tesla Model Y
| to a Ford F-150. Seems like not an apples to apples comparison,
| and it'd be more interesting to have a more similar comparison.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I think they should take into account the fact that a Tesla is
| a steaming pile of FascistMobile now to many like myself that
| would buy them otherwise. How about other EVs?
| nostrademons wrote:
| 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.
| zvitiate wrote:
| 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?
| the__alchemist wrote:
| 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.
| kemayo wrote:
| 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.
| nostrademons wrote:
| 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.
| saltcured wrote:
| 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Have you bought or sold used recently? You can find a fair
| price, but it's a big time commitment, and stressful.
| brokencode wrote:
| 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.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I felt like my new factory order car buy recently was a
| big time commitment and stressful to get a fair price.
| fluoridation wrote:
| 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| fluoridation wrote:
| >"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?
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| 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.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| There was a big change in the used market after Covid,
| that may not have fully worked itself out yet.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > 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).
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >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.
| bhelkey wrote:
| >> 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.
| BeetleB wrote:
| 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?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| jgilias wrote:
| 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.
| kube-system wrote:
| 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.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >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.
| nyrikki wrote:
| 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...
| jimt1234 wrote:
| 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
| thenobsta wrote:
| 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.
| goalieca wrote:
| 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.
| lazide wrote:
| Most people just see 'old, meh'.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| 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.
| kube-system wrote:
| Rich runs a youtube channel not a repair shop. There are
| independent EV repair shops, but you are right that there
| are not many.
| jonbiggums22 wrote:
| 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.
| shinycode wrote:
| 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
| beambot wrote:
| 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.)
| dangus wrote:
| 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.
| edbaskerville wrote:
| 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!
| idiotsecant wrote:
| >>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.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| 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.
| overfeed wrote:
| > 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.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| 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.
| platevoltage wrote:
| 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.
| dare944 wrote:
| > 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.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| None of the comparisons I made were between ICE and EV,
| They're between old ICE and new ICE.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Indeed, and didn't even mention ~30% inflation over the
| last five years.
| nwienert wrote:
| 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.
| dangus wrote:
| 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.
| nwienert wrote:
| 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.
| labcomputer wrote:
| 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.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > 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.
| dangus wrote:
| Hybrids with eCVTs existed 5-15 years ago. You just
| happened to not be driving one.
| Marsymars wrote:
| 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.
| nostrademons wrote:
| 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-...
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| 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.
| dchftcs wrote:
| Also ironically their Chinese made car is said to have
| better build quality than the US made one.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| 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.
| decimalenough wrote:
| 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.
| kube-system wrote:
| > Teslas are usually bought by U.S. consumers
|
| More than 62% of Teslas are sold outside of the US.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| 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...
| kasey_junk wrote:
| 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.
| khuey wrote:
| 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.
| jeffbee wrote:
| 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.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| 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.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| 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.
| dchftcs wrote:
| The only reason US doesn't have an EV cheaper than that is a
| >100% tariff on Chinese EVs.
| platevoltage wrote:
| 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.
| supportengineer wrote:
| 2026 Corolla is $25k.
|
| I saw a manual transmission Nissan Versa for $17k.
|
| How much cheaper can they get?
| kelnos wrote:
| 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.
| labcomputer wrote:
| 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).
| Eisenstein wrote:
| 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.
| Aloisius wrote:
| 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?
| thegreatpeter wrote:
| The new Model Y surely is safer, more comfortable and has a
| longer range and a better battery.
| halfnormalform wrote:
| 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!
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| 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.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| > 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".
| BoredPositron wrote:
| 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?
| TGower wrote:
| Yeah, pretty much all of them have long battery warranties.
| Tesla for example garuntees >=70% capacity for 8 years or
| 100k miles.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > 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.
| mulmen wrote:
| 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.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > 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.
| mulmen wrote:
| 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.
| BeetleB wrote:
| 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?
| mulmen wrote:
| 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.
| BeetleB wrote:
| "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...
| vel0city wrote:
| 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.
| everforward wrote:
| 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.
| mulmen wrote:
| > 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.
| NDizzle wrote:
| Batteries don't work like that and you know they don't.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| 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.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| 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.
| yibg wrote:
| > 03 Pontiac Vibe GT
|
| So a Toyota :)
| ricardobeat wrote:
| 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.
| maxerickson wrote:
| I have a 2013 CRV with a EPA combined mileage of 25 mpg
| (AWD):
|
| https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2013_Honda_CR-V.s
| htm...
|
| 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.
| avgDev wrote:
| 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.
| coredog64 wrote:
| 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.
| scythe wrote:
| >long battery warranties.
|
| My 2009 Prius is still running at 231k, for reference.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| 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.
| HPsquared wrote:
| And an early Leaf with 50% of its battery capacity is
| almost useless.
| Loudergood wrote:
| Early air cooled leafs aren't doing anyone any favors
| when talking about battery aging.
| hcknwscommenter wrote:
| 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.
| coredog64 wrote:
| 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.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I'd rather they guarantee a fairly inexpensive
| replacement. When electrics can already give you range
| anxiety, 70% capacity is a deal-breaker.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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!
| rurp wrote:
| 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| redmajor12 wrote:
| With ICE cars, typically manufacturer warranties only are
| valid for the original purchaser.
| encom wrote:
| That must be a US specific thing, because that sounds
| demented.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| vel0city wrote:
| 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.
| SirMaster wrote:
| 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.
| stalfosknight wrote:
| Tesla has an 8 year battery and motor warranty.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| 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?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > 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.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| 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.
| HPsquared wrote:
| That perception means you can get a good deal on a used EV.
| potatolicious wrote:
| > 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.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| > 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
| potatolicious wrote:
| 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!
| hcknwscommenter wrote:
| >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.
| jansper39 wrote:
| Range though is only one aspect to take into account when
| quantifying the "quality".
| Terr_ wrote:
| > 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.
| apelapan wrote:
| 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.
| numpad0 wrote:
| > ... 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?
| verdverm wrote:
| 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
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > I bought Hyundai, which charges 2x faster than the
| Tesla
|
| Your Hyundai charges at 500 kW?
| verdverm wrote:
| 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.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| 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.
| bmicraft wrote:
| Maybe the car is more efficient and it's twice the rate
| in "driveable distance-charged" per unit of time?
| zer00eyz wrote:
| > 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.
| Spivak wrote:
| 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.
| Spivak wrote:
| 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.
| jopsen wrote:
| 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.
| eikenberry wrote:
| 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?
| jacobr1 wrote:
| > 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.
| jansper39 wrote:
| 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.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| 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.
| econ wrote:
| 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.
| potatolicious wrote:
| > _" 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!
| koolba wrote:
| > 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.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| If you look at EPA efficiency in 2020 and 2025, it hasn't
| really moved that much for the same class of vehicle.
| maxerickson wrote:
| 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.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > 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.
| ianferrel wrote:
| 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.
| bhelkey wrote:
| > 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
| dessimus wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| 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).
| jonbiggums22 wrote:
| 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.
| supportengineer wrote:
| A brand new 2026 Corolla is $25k (asking price!)
| vel0city wrote:
| 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.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| A big part of it began there, and Covid just made it even
| worse by constraining new car supply for a while.
| cameron_b wrote:
| The higher cost of financing making people hold the cars
| they have has further reduced the supply.
| supportengineer wrote:
| Not to mention, all the excess dollars means that almost
| any older car has increased value for nostalgia seekers
| and enthusiasts.
| SirMaster wrote:
| 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...
| bombcar wrote:
| 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.
| SirMaster wrote:
| 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.
| array_key_first wrote:
| 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.
| znpy wrote:
| > ICE are stagnant. They retain their value because they're
| not improving at all.
|
| They aren't degrading either, though
| theothertimcook wrote:
| 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.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| 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.
| rasz wrote:
| 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.
| johnebgd wrote:
| 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.
| yellowapple wrote:
| 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.
| yibg wrote:
| 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.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Yeah, but it doesn't die fast. Re-sale value is low
| because of the competition from newer models due to
| rapidly developing tech.
| scotty79 wrote:
| 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.
| hcknwscommenter wrote:
| Aside from battery longevity is there really anything
| better about a new model S compared to a 5 year old model?
| supportengineer wrote:
| 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
| bunderbunder wrote:
| And those might be particularly poignant problems for
| used EVs because EVs are notoriously expensive to repair.
| array_key_first wrote:
| Battery technology in general.
|
| And, Tesla is an outlier here. Other EVs are progressing
| MUCH faster.
| bdangubic wrote:
| 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...)
| gambiting wrote:
| 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.
| joquarky wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| 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.
| aj_icracked wrote:
| 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.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| 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.
| highwaylights wrote:
| 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)
| stackedinserter wrote:
| That's not the reason why I'm personally not into EVs,
| but significant capacity loss == failure to me.
| highwaylights wrote:
| 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).
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| 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.
| throwawaylaptop wrote:
| 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.
| supportengineer wrote:
| 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.
| btilly wrote:
| 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.)
| eldaisfish wrote:
| 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.
| throwawaylaptop wrote:
| 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.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| 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.
| hibikir wrote:
| 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.
| ragall wrote:
| 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.
| labcomputer wrote:
| > 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.
| nostrademons wrote:
| 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.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| How does that impact depreciation in the US?
| nostrademons wrote:
| 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.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > 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.
| tartoran wrote:
| I'm sure for newer EV models makers cut down on
| production costs but they may also cut down on quality as
| well.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| 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.
| Fergusonb wrote:
| 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)
| Spooky23 wrote:
| 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_.
| jdeibele wrote:
| 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.
| aiauthoritydev wrote:
| > 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.
| organsnyder wrote:
| It's not like those used EVs are getting thrown away--they're
| just going further down-market than they otherwise would.
| xp84 wrote:
| 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!
| jerlam wrote:
| 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.
| nradov wrote:
| 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...
| jacquesm wrote:
| > You see this in computers, smartphones, TVs, and solar panels
|
| 3D printers!
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| 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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| 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.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| 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.
| strangattractor wrote:
| 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.
| c-linkage wrote:
| 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.
| quantumcotton wrote:
| 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.
| nradov wrote:
| 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...
| emmelaich wrote:
| 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.
| pmontra wrote:
| 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.
| shinycode wrote:
| 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
| fair_enough wrote:
| 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.
| jgilias wrote:
| 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.
| themafia wrote:
| > 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?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| 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).
| intexpress wrote:
| 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.
| fyrn_ wrote:
| 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.
| exasperaited wrote:
| I agree (just made an analogy to DSLRs in another comment)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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).
| wat10000 wrote:
| 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.
| floxy wrote:
| 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.
| spicybbq wrote:
| 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.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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)
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| jjangkke wrote:
| 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
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| "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.
| wffurr wrote:
| 2025 EVs aren't double the range of 2020 EVs. The batteries and
| power electronics are on a learning curve but it's 2-3% per
| year, not 10-15% like microprocessors.
| samsullivan wrote:
| 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.
| kulahan wrote:
| 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.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| 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).
| crowcroft wrote:
| 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.
| iAMkenough wrote:
| 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.
| kemayo wrote:
| > 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| thenobsta wrote:
| 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.
| ..
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > and Tesla started slashing the prices in 2024
|
| Jan 2023 was when prices were slashed, and the $7,500 tax
| credit came in.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| 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.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| 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.
| xp84 wrote:
| > 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| highwaylights wrote:
| 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.
| pmg101 wrote:
| Me neither. My fuel costs went from PS1000 a year to
| PS100. 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.
| adastra22 wrote:
| 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.
| cogman10 wrote:
| 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 PS32,400. 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
| PS5,500 (and has a 50 mile range).
| cogman10 wrote:
| 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.
| adastra22 wrote:
| For someone who doesn't drive an EV, what is that in
| $$/mi?
| cogman10 wrote:
| EV sedans use ~ 250Wh/mile. So PS0.18 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.
| wagwang wrote:
| The article literally says that tesla depreciates the least
| among evs.
| jacobolus wrote:
| 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").
| ribosometronome wrote:
| 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| tonymet wrote:
| 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > 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.
| leobg wrote:
| 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?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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?
| callc wrote:
| I'm in this boat. I'm voting with my wallet.
|
| All the power to the people who love their Teslas, you do you.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| 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.)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| 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.
| nradov wrote:
| 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...
| limabeans wrote:
| > (It's Elon. He's the reason.)
|
| Which is really weird isn't it? He did his best to help reduce
| America's debt while the Democrats do everything they can to
| increase it. Instead of showing appreciation, far left assholes
| attacked the Tesla brand, factories and Musk himself...for
| trying to help us get out of the deep debt hole we are in.
| wilg wrote:
| 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.
| bunderbunder wrote:
| 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.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Not falling for the ragebait
| abhinavk wrote:
| 2/10. Mainly for writing full sentences.
| fridder wrote:
| This is why I lease not buy now. I am watching the development of
| solid-state batteries as that has the promise of greatly reducing
| battery health issues
| AlexandrB wrote:
| The EV transition sadly coincides with auto manufacturers giving
| up on making their cars repairable. ICE cars are getting harder
| to repair as well, but have some "momentum" since they often
| reuse parts that have been around for years. Meanwhile EVs are a
| clean break where manufacturers feel comfortable taking a hostile
| posture to the 3rd party repair market.
| ruined wrote:
| sounds like retail price needs to drop
| robomartin wrote:
| I am going to declare my wife to be the authority on this topic.
|
| We were well on a path to purchase a couple of EV's (Teslas, new)
| and even installed a large solar array to support them.
|
| A couple of years later she learned about the cost of replacing
| the battery. And, just like that, the dream was over. No interest
| whatsoever.
|
| Anyone who is married fully understands you cannot argue with
| wife logic. She has no interest in having to spend $20K to $30K
| ever on any vehicle, of any type, electric or not, a few years
| after you paid off the loan.
|
| She would not even touch a used EV if it was almost free. In that
| case you are almost guaranteed to have to spend tens of thousands
| of dollars for a new battery at a random moment in time in the
| future. No deal.
|
| Her logic is cemented in a reality of life that we have lived:
| There are good times and bad times. And, as things go sometimes,
| you often find yourself in bad times with no money. Vehicles
| being necessary for mobility and work, if you have an EV, hit bad
| times and need to spend tens of thousands of dollars to swap the
| battery, you are absolutely screwed.
|
| So, I asked her: What would make you change your mind?
|
| The answer: A battery swap should be $5,000 or less.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >Anyone who is married fully understands you cannot argue with
| wife logic.
|
| This is the job the 4dr Wrangler was built to solve.
|
| "see honey, it's got a back seat for the kids".
|
| "don't worry, we can get a hard top if it's too loud."
|
| "there's a hybrid option available"
|
| It's the world's worst 4dr SUV for kids and car seats and the
| like and it's still loud with a hard top and gets shit milage
| for a hybrid but you'll never figure it out until after you've
| bought the thing and the honeymoon period is over.
|
| It's an absolutely brilliant exercise in checkbox engineering
| (and preventing couples from arguing in the dealership).
| dalyons wrote:
| It's not a random moment, they degrade predictably over time
| and at a very slow rate. They have less "random" big expensive
| failures than ice cars. How much is an ice whole engine
| replacement in a semi modern car? Not cheap and happens more
| often than an ev battery dropping dead.
|
| So I mean I'm sorry your wife is irrational about it, but I
| don't think that's indicative of the market as a whole.
| Flamingoat wrote:
| > It's not a random moment, they degrade predictably over
| time and at a very slow rate.
|
| So do traditional vehicles. You need to have them serviced
| regularly, but otherwise they work fine for literally
| decades. My uncle has a Volvo 240 GL that car is 50+ year
| old.
|
| > How much is an ice whole engine replacement in a semi
| modern car? Not cheap and happens more often than an ev
| battery dropping dead.
|
| Engine failure is extremely rare. My 1997 Landrover Defender
| 300TDI is getting upto 300,000 miles and lets just say it
| hasn't had the easiest life (it was on a farm before I got
| it). Landrover's aren't known for their reliability.
|
| My old Astra is still on the road (according to the DVLA) and
| that had well over 150,000 on the clock when I sold it.
|
| > So I mean I'm sorry your wife is irrational about it, but I
| don't think that's indicative of the market as a whole.
|
| His wife isn't irrational. I can get a mid-2000s Diesel that
| will have decent mileage for less than PS4000 in the UK. I
| see people saying "I only paid $30,000 for this EV". I have
| never paid more than PS10,000 for a car and they last for
| years and years as long as I get them serviced
| floxy wrote:
| In 15 years / 300,000 miles when the battery might need
| replacement, the pack (not cell) price for batteries will
| probably be around $50/kWh, or $5,000 for 100 kWh.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/average-battery-cell-pric...
| bentt wrote:
| 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.
| mckeed wrote:
| 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.
| bentt wrote:
| 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.
| themafia wrote:
| > 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.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Isn't that to be expected? First, battery technology continues to
| improve, and being battery-constrained ought to reduce the value
| of the older technology. Second, the battery degrades faster than
| an ICE.
| Aunche wrote:
| One factor that I don't see getting discussed is that more price
| conscious consumers are also more likely to have to live in
| apartments or park on the street. Even if they have a garage,
| their commutes may be too long to rely on level 1 charging and
| can't afford to upgrade. As a result, demand for used EVs is
| significantly lower than a comparable ICE.
| xp84 wrote:
| You're correct with that concern being the biggest holding-back
| factor now. However, I think that the removal of the price
| barrier that we've seen here with used EVs becoming competitive
| with gas cars is still a vital prerequisite to adoption. Even
| if you gifted an apartment dweller a free charger in their
| carport, in 2021 when most electric SUVs were about $65k at the
| cheapest compared to $40k for a comparable gas car, it would be
| hard to convince them to buy electric.
| gnarlouse wrote:
| Currently: $36,000 buys you a used 2020 Tesla Model X with FSD
| and a 35,000 mile odometer, maybe 5-10% battery degradation.
| Traster wrote:
| In the UK, there are _massive_ incentives for "tax efficient"
| purchasing of vehicles. ie, there was a point where everyone who
| could was driving around in a Porsche Taycan because the tax
| implications of buying it were comically positive. Of course,
| those benefits don't translate to the secondary market, so of
| course there's a glut of 3 year old electric vehicles. No one
| wants them. Oh, and you can't buy a petrol car because the car
| companies are under the hammer to sell EVs.
| caycep wrote:
| I'm kind of hoping for more plug and play components like the old
| days of coach building if EV technology really is more
| mechanically simple than gas cars. Would love to put the
| latest/greatest drive train and battery tech into a BMW i3 carbon
| monocoque chassis and just have everything plug and play like
| plugging in USB connectors or something.
| AfterHIA wrote:
| As pointed out by Scotty Kilmer on YouTube we currently lack the
| infrastructure both in terms of mechanics trained to work on EVs
| and the necessary electricity infrastructure to make a full
| transition possible. The answer isn't, "new types of cars" it's
| building the, "you don't necessarily need a car" society the
| Europeans and the Japanese enjoy.
|
| Yes we're doomed is what I mean.
| p1dda wrote:
| People are fed up with being forced into buying a technology they
| don't want or need. It's idiotic throwing away the mature tech in
| petrol and diesel cars in favour of electric. And yes, I still
| drive petrol and I love it!
| hbarka wrote:
| Happy owner of a 2017 Tesla Model 3. I couldn't care less about
| resale value. I'm driving it, that's my value, and will do so
| until it can't. I'm just glad my garage doesn't smell like
| gasoline, I never have to do an oil change, and I never have to
| go to the gas station. Eight years of no gas stations, it fills
| up overnight every week in my garage. Stop reselling your car and
| you won't have to worry about resale value.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I have a 18mph petrol fueled SUV. My garage does not smell like
| gasoline. All your other points are fair though :)
| Marsymars wrote:
| > Stop reselling your car and you won't have to worry about
| resale value.
|
| I mostly agree, but not-at-fault collisions throw a real
| wrinkle into this.
|
| There's a non-trivial chance that even if you were planning on
| keeping your car for 15 years, you get rear-ended after 5
| years, your car gets written off, and you receive a low value
| from your insurer.
|
| All of the extra care and maintenance that you put into your
| car to make it a car that would be nice to drive far 15 years
| also becomes wasted as your insurance won't compensate you for
| that.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| It is only wasted if you accept their valuation and don't
| keep the vehicle. Insurance companies allow you to buy back
| your totaled vehicle, which can then be resold as-is, parted
| out, or used as a donor parts vehicle when shopping for the
| same make and model.
| Marsymars wrote:
| Yeah, but if it's an actual write-off because the frame is
| structurally unsound, there's really no way to get that
| sunk value back. (And storing an extra vehicle for parts is
| really... not practical for the vast majority of people.)
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| If you get rear-ended, the liability is on the other driver,
| your insurer need not be involved, and will never be the one
| paying out, barring an underinsured motorist claim. The legal
| obligation to property is that you are made whole, that you
| have what you had before the crash (which is a used car). The
| party at fault/their insurance have to give you the amount of
| money that it would take to buy a comparable car (year,
| condition, options). You are legally entitled to the amount
| of money that will get you back into a practically identical
| car.
|
| The extra care and maintenance is something that can get
| factored into condition. If you disagree with a valuation,
| they typically will entertain an argument for a higher
| valuation, if it is grounded in reality and especially if you
| have comparables. They know that it is better to pay more
| when it is fair, than to get dragged into court, and be told
| to pay more and told to pay for lawyers, etc.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > If you get rear-ended, the liability is on the other
| driver, your insurer need not be involved
|
| Not in jurisdictions with no-fault insurance.
|
| > The extra care and maintenance is something that can get
| factored into condition. If you disagree with a valuation,
| they typically will entertain an argument for a higher
| valuation, if it is grounded in reality and especially if
| you have comparables. They know that it is better to pay
| more when it is fair, than to get dragged into court, and
| be told to pay more and told to pay for lawyers, etc.
|
| Maybe, or they might win in court, and then it's you who
| should have known it was better to just accept less rather
| than get dragged into multiple appeals and be told to pay
| for lawyers etc.
|
| e.g. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/vehicles-insurance-
| accident...
|
| "The judge awarded him $6,000 in damages but when the
| insurance company appealed, his award was cut to $1,500 and
| he was ordered to pay legal costs for the other side. In
| the end, he was $1,000 in the hole."
| stackedinserter wrote:
| I would happily prefer eight years of a gas station 2-3 times a
| month over having 10 apps with different accounts that allow me
| to charge my car in merely 45 minutes (if I find one that works
| and not occupied)
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| How much of this is due to a high level of pre-purchase
| excitement followed by buyer's remorse? Anecdotally, I know
| several people who were gung ho about getting an EV, fully
| willing to pay its cost premium, who initially loved their EVs
| but sold them within a year or two after encountering issues that
| only become apparent with semi-long-term ownership:
|
| -- In the US, charging infrastructure is still quite poor, with a
| high amount of disabled or damaged chargers that aren't apparent
| on maps. Nothing worse than planning a route around the only
| charger within a few dozen miles and arriving to find it broken.
| The overall overhead of having to plan driving/parking around
| chargers is also too onerous for some people.
|
| -- Similarly, people underestimate how much harder long road
| trips are on EVs, especially when fast chargers are damaged and
| don't actually supply anywhere close to the advertised amount of
| current.
|
| -- People underestimate how much range degrades in cold weather.
| One person I know bought their EV in the spring, loved it until
| winter came around, and then promptly sold it the next spring. In
| a similar vein, people don't realize how poor and battery-hungry
| climate control can be in an EV, especially in models without a
| heat pump.
|
| It would be interesting to rigorously study this, examining
| whether people buying EVs are more likely to sell them within the
| first couple years of ownership versus people buying comparably
| priced ICE cars.
| xethos wrote:
| > especially in models without a heat pump.
|
| Oh for- who the fuck is putting _resistive heating_ in an EV?!
| What brain-dead PM greenlit that pants-on-head jackassery? Was
| it GM? I can see an American OEM getting that close to the goal
| line only to snatch defeat from the _jaws_ of victory.
|
| Really though, that's just disappointing; I had earnestly
| assumed every EV that made it to market (in North America at
| least) would be using a heat pump.
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| I believe most new EVs have heat pumps [0], but this wasn't
| common until a couple years ago.
|
| [0] https://www.recurrentauto.com/questions/which-electric-
| vehic...
| stetrain wrote:
| > who the fuck is putting resistive heating in an EV
|
| Tesla before 2021.
| bluesquared wrote:
| Yes it was GM. My 2017 Bolt has resistive heating.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Tesla, Honda, Nissan, Chevy, Fiat and Volkswagen have all
| produced cars with resistive heat in the past decade (not an
| exhaustive list, just a list that I could find on the first
| page of search results). So no, not an exclusively American
| thing.
|
| Heat pumps are expensive, complex, prone to warranty claims,
| and subject to additional regulatory control (refrigerants).
| Resistive heating is cheap and simple.
|
| I'm guessing that the development costs for a heat pump that
| is good enough for automotive use is well into 8 figures, and
| would probably take at least a year to fully test.
|
| Given all those constraints, it makes a tremendous amount of
| sense that many cars were built with resistive heating.
| jansper39 wrote:
| Heat pumps aren't free to run, they still require a decent
| amount of energy and and on shorter trips resistive heating
| (which is required for other reasons anyway) is quicker.
| stetrain wrote:
| From personal experience over ~6 years of EV roadtrips, the
| first two really aren't much of a problem with a Tesla or a
| vehicle that can access Tesla's network.
|
| Other chargers can definitely be a bit more hit-and-miss
| although they are improving.
|
| These days if you stick to the big networks (Tesla, Electrify
| America, Rivian, IONNA, etc.) you're going to have a pretty
| good time. The one-off chargers in municipal parking garages
| are a different story, I don't really on those unless there is
| a recent PlugShare review showing that it actually works.
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| I agree that Tesla's network is universally pretty reliable.
| For the other networks, I've found it can be quite location-
| dependent, likely proportional to the density of EV drivers.
| Bay Area or LA? Pretty solid. Orlando? Not so much.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| > charging infrastructure is still quite poor
|
| Now that basically every car can access Tesla Superchargers and
| vice versa for Teslas, this is really not a problem anymore.
| We're at the << sometimes I'm grumpy the best stop for my car
| does not have the exact amenities I want >> stage now.
|
| I guess is worse than the << the stop with the exact amnenities
| I want is not the provider with the cheapest electricity that I
| wanted >> stage that we are in say, France.
| xp84 wrote:
| 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.
| smoovb wrote:
| 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"!
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 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.
| kulahan wrote:
| 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.
| Tade0 wrote:
| 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.
| jjfoooo4 wrote:
| For a two car house, having one electric and one ICE vehicle
| seems like a no brainer, assuming charging space at home
| whatever1 wrote:
| It is a combination of technology moving fast (aka nobody wants
| an old ev that does not have the latest advances in capacity and
| speed of charging) and also the real fear of battery replacement
| costs.
|
| For the second one insurance companies could help alleviate the
| uncertainty, but I don't see major vendors offering packages.
|
| People don't have 20k in a single shot to fix a battery failure.
| (Maybe cumulatively for a gas car one has to pay more, but it
| will be in small installments)
| CivBase wrote:
| I know I personally would not buy a used EV because I've heard so
| many horror stories about battery replacements. If EV batteries
| were commonly designed to be repairable (replace by cell or in
| smaller banks of cells), I'd be less hesitant.
|
| I also suspect there simply aren't many used EVs I'd want right
| now. I generally "techie" cars with tons of software features,
| big ol' touch screens, and half-baked self-driving features. I'm
| still not even comfortable with keyless start on my current
| vehicle and I hate the adaptive cruise, which I am unable to turn
| off. For better or worse, EVs seem to always be at the bleeding
| edge of these kinds of technologies.
| more_corn wrote:
| Control for: Companies that make it impossible to source parts
| for repairs (Tesla) Companies with absurdity expensive repairs
| for minor cosmetic damage (Tesla again) Companies whose CEO threw
| up a Nazi salute on national tv (also Tesla, seeing a trend
| here?) And the science might tell a different story.
| kube-system wrote:
| It's the charging.
|
| You have to remember that the market for new cars skews heavily
| toward wealthier households. These households are generally the
| ones that can afford a place to charge a car at home.
|
| The market for a used EV is much smaller than for a used gas
| powered vehicle. People buying used vehicles are much more likely
| to have housing situations where they can't charge a vehicle.
|
| This factor doesn't apply to gasoline vehicles because everyone,
| rich or poor, fills up at a gas station.
| klaff wrote:
| I think this is spot on. I bought a new EV 6 months ago. I brag
| about paying less than $0.03/mile even with a large EV, but
| it's completely dependent on charging in my garage and being on
| a plan that reduces my night-time electricity cost down to
| $0.07/kWh. At cheaper DCFC stations ($0.39/kWh) it's about
| breakeven with a similarly-sized ICE vehicle and at higher cost
| stations ($0.59/kWh) it's more expensive per mile than the ICE
| vehicle.
| kube-system wrote:
| I don't think most people are caught up on the cost per mile,
| but the inconvenience factor. If you can't charge at home,
| you going to have to go exclusively to a public charger,
| which is already pretty inconvenient for a lot of people, and
| for people of average or lower incomes, they might not even
| have one in their neighborhood.
|
| We'll probably see a lot more adoption once infrastructure is
| equitably available to everyone.
| stetrain wrote:
| Why would I pay $35k for a used EV when I can buy a new one for
| $42k with a $7500 tax credit taken off at purchase?
|
| This article doesn't seem to mention those credits, but they are
| likely a large factor in the difference between the nominal sale
| price of a new EV and the used market price.
|
| If you don't factor in those credits, it looks like someone paid
| $42k for an EV that a couple of years later was only worth $30k.
| When in reality they paid $35k for that new EV as a net purchase
| cost.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| What makes it a bad deal to own an EV is also coincidentally a
| great reason to buy one: they're getting cheap, fast.
|
| I bought a used 2023 Model Y for about $36k (only 15k miles) it
| even came with upgrades like acceleration boost and an extra
| (unusable) back seat. This particular model was about $52k new in
| 2023.
|
| I can't believe how much car I bought for my money. Autosteer is
| fantastic (FSD needs work). Early morning drive to the airport
| and the car was driving itself while I ate my breakfast and drank
| my coffee.
| nextworddev wrote:
| No shit.. you have gas cars that drives for 20+ years. Let's see
| if EVs can do that without costing a fortune.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| The nuance here is there is a much higher floor for EVs when they
| finally bottom-out in value. A 300,000km EV will be degraded to
| ~80% it's range, while a 300,000km ICE will need its powertrain
| and sensors rebuilt and replaced (timing belt, spark plugs,
| alternator, water pump, PCV, O2 sensors, etc. and very likely
| will be dripping motor oil all over the ground).
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| You may not realize it, but barring price, EVs (esp. Chinese EVs)
| are like smartphones. When you buy one, in 3 months there's
| another model with better tech and cheaper (ceterus paribus). Not
| ideal for buyers, but I like it this way.
|
| Let's say (Chinese) EVs never appear in the world. Why do car
| prices keep increasing while only marginally better?
| didip wrote:
| Or you can look at it from the opposite side.
|
| There are plenty of deals to be had from a used EV market.
| ben7799 wrote:
| Another reason that this matters (which is artificial) is that at
| least in the US so many car owners are on "permanent car
| payments".
|
| They never pay off their cars and trade them in on another one
| and just keep making payments without really ever owning a car
| outright. And increasingly as prices have gone up they are
| trading cars in that they are underwater on, rolling old debt
| into the next loan!
|
| If you're in this category of insane financial ignorance trying
| to appear rich but actually being "car poor" of course this
| resale is a huge problem. But for anyone who buys a car outright
| or pays off their loan and then drives the car for many years
| it's not a problem at all whether you bought new or took
| advantage of the massive depreciation and bought a lightly used
| one for a great price.
| physicsguy wrote:
| In my country (UK) it's entirely caused by a policy that means
| people in well paid jobs can pay for a lease agreement direct
| from their salary and save tax. It also can be used if you're a
| high earner to bring you back under a threshold that gives you a
| subsidy for childcare. So if you earn more than PS100k and have
| kids under 5 you are almost stupid not to take a lease for an EV
| if you have the need for a car anyway.
|
| As a result of the above, EVs that are ~three years old are
| flooding the used car market and you can pick up a Tesla for <
| PS20k
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Perception of failing battery risk is vastly overstated, creating
| real opportunity for savvy consumers to pick up a good used EV,
| so long as it isn't the very first EV's (e.g. those old Leafs)
| which had terrible battery health management.
| dpierce9 wrote:
| I wonder if the terminal value of an EV will be higher than ICE.
| This seems possible if there are secondary users for batteries,
| motors, or if the mineral content is more valuable (e.g.,
| obviously rare Earth and lithium but also the frames tend to have
| more aluminum).
| elnerd wrote:
| It is strange how EVs are measured by how far they can go full
| charge when this is a metric I never have seen for fossile cars.
| It tells a story how inconvenient EVs or the charging network
| really is
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It also tells the story that the energy price per mile is
| insignificant. Vehicles that use gas advertise miles per gallon
| because it significantly affects costs. They also advertise
| range (or maybe fuel tank capacity), but not as prominently.
|
| An electric car's miles per energy is not as relevant, because
| current electricity prices are sufficiently low such that
| people won't really care whether it's 3 miles per kWh or 5
| miles per kWh. They will care about how far they can go on a
| single charge, hence range is a metric that is often
| advertised.
| kogasa240p wrote:
| IMO the biggest issue is the lack of aftermarket cheap battery
| replacements, and the fault of that lies on car manufacturers.
| mring33621 wrote:
| Batteries degrade over time. And the perfect-conditions range of
| many EVs isn't great to begin with.
|
| Also, have you seen the out-of-warranty maintenance/repair costs
| for many EVs?
|
| I assert that these 2 things contribute heavily to the rapid
| depreciation of EVs.
| grigio wrote:
| Finally the battery car scam is over
| k__ wrote:
| Seems like we need electric houses.
| j45 wrote:
| Might be a great time to buy EV.
|
| And/or maybe it should have been the time of the PHEV first.
| wcunning wrote:
| This is mostly a function of the markets for used EVs and used
| ICE vehicles being the same and the used EV purchaser is not a
| target market for EVs in general.
|
| Not that many people can afford a new car now at all, and of
| those who can, they're getting luxury end cars, generally. Luxury
| vehicles depreciate faster than non-luxury vehicles, generally.
| People who want used cars are frequently people who can't afford
| new cars, thus they want something that works in their area in
| their situation with their stuff as it stands. Many of these
| people live in places with poor charging networks or rent and
| cannot install a charger. Used EVs don't come with a free charger
| like new ones often do. EVs were also being priced and purchased
| based on the tax credit for quite a while, which meant that price
| was a little... soft? On top of that, many EVs that fit into this
| data are selling for less for real reasons, like the
| uninsurability of Cybertrucks and the range loss on the Bolt EV.
| This all drives demand down or shifts the curves and lowers
| prices. It's just a small market for now.
| kristianp wrote:
| > Not that many people can afford a new car now at all, and of
| those who can, they're getting luxury end cars, generally
|
| That doesn't really make sense. Cheaper new cars are more
| popular than new luxury cars. Plenty of people finance their
| new car buys.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Wouldn't you expect a field with rapid technological growth to
| depreciate faster?
|
| ICEs are a stable technology. There's little learning curve. Next
| years EV could be a step change up from last years at the same
| cost.
|
| How is this a bad thing?
| stackedinserter wrote:
| You can't dismiss the fact that EV dies faster and more
| expensive than ICE.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Without evidence you can. I dismissed your comment without a
| second thought.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| As someone who made the mistake of switching to EV recently, I
| can see why, battery issues aside. They have a higher cost of
| ownership, and provide zero benefits beyond smoother
| acceleration. They are such a pain in the ass to keep charged,
| and I have to borrow a car for road trips unless I want to make
| it a _very_ long road trip for no good reason.
|
| Most people just don't want another after their first one. So
| there is not much demand. Dealerships are practically giving them
| away right now, which is how they snagged me.
|
| Luckily, I can get out of this lease in a couple of years.
| Unluckily, I will have to spend more on a very quick ICE car now
| that I've experienced EV acceleration. Luckily, it'll still
| probably be cheaper than an EV.
| xutopia wrote:
| You're seriously the exception. Everyone I have spoken to who
| switched to EV don't want to go back to ICE.
|
| ICE cars have way more things that break down and less reliable
| for the most part. As for always having to charge... most
| people driving an EV recharge every night at home and rarely
| require a charging station. Road trips are a different story
| but most people don't have regular road trips.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Get a PHEV dude.
|
| I wish the market had a wide selection of 40-50 miles electric
| range PHEVs ... but a 20 mile EV mode range PHEV will still
| electrify 80% of your city driving in lots of situations.
| jwr wrote:
| I am impressed by the efforts of the fossil fuel industry (and I
| think many car manufacturers) to discredit EVs. Their campaign
| has been sneaky and devious and very, very effective.
|
| To spread good FUD, there has to be truth in it, so that
| debunking it gets very difficult. Over the years I've seen so
| much FUD it's not even funny (see for example
| https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/factcheck/electric-vehic...).
|
| This news story shows that the FUD has worked well (especially in
| the US), hats off to the fossil fuel industry. It's also a
| double-whammy: this story will spread, so people will be even
| more suspicious of EVs, which will cause their popularity to
| fall, which will cause their resale prices to fall...
|
| It's quite sad, but also impressive.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Of course they depreciate faster - battery life declines much
| faster than engine life (at least by age) and battery replacement
| (as well as other maintenance) is significantly more expensive.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Battery replacement is on par with engine replacement, and
| might be cheaper depending on which engine we're talking about.
| Batteries are also just getting cheaper every year.
|
| Plus, batteries will mostly last twice as long as the typical
| car is on the road before it gets scrapped for unrelated
| reasons.
|
| The depreciation is mostly explained by market distortions
| caused by subsidies.
| RatchetWerks wrote:
| I'm here to take advantage of it. I bought a 2022 Model Y
| performance. New price was 75k, used price 31k. Love the car. I
| plan on driving the wheels off it.
| torginus wrote:
| The chart shows the fallacy in the argument - EVs don't
| depreciate, but instead are subsidized by various public and
| private schemes - meaning their new asking price as paid by
| consumers is not the same as the sticker prices.
|
| The first hit of 'depreciation' is when this contradiction
| appears in the used price, after that they depreciate like
| normal.
| jjangkke wrote:
| that makes no sense. an EV that cost $50k with or without
| subsidy that now costs half that is depreciation.
|
| What's more interesting from reading the discussion here is
| that the depreciation of EV goes beyond the battery and
| thermal/geographic tax its that there is nothing special from
| the car market point of view that suggests a mass produced EV
| should hold its value against some truly sought after ICE cars
| that offer a unique novelty.
|
| Even the Porsche EVs have not held their value very well
| compared to their ICE cars. There is simply no appeal to taste
| when you have to generate ICE sounds via speaker and signals
| EVs aren't very fun to drive or offer much novelty beyond the
| fact that its an EV compared to ICE cars where each engine is
| unique to the maker and has ton of parts all synchronized into
| a controlled chaos.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Is the price before dealer markup or MSRP?
|
| Tesla dropped their prices a lot after covid boom, that
| completely distorted the market.
| eagerpace wrote:
| My 2023 Model Y depreciated quickly, sure fine. My 2019 Model 3,
| that I bought new, I made money on when I sold it used in 2021.
| With inflation and tax breaks the last few years the data for
| this means nothing.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Finally read the article
|
| This issue is for fleet operators overextending themselves buying
| too many cars, and probably collateralizing debt off of them
|
| Additionally, resale market demand and price discovery is one
| thing, but it really sounds more like the primary market is
| overvalued
|
| And this aspect just made me lol
|
| > 3-year-old EVs lost more than half of their value compared with
| 39% for gas cars.
|
| so around 50% as opposed to around 40%. wow. stop the presses.
| m463 wrote:
| > Plummeting resale values are threatening to derail the world's
| transition to electric transportation
|
| Used cars are usually sold to someone who can't afford a new car.
| It can also be cheaper to drive an EV than a gas car.
|
| So I think the opposite - Used EVs will create an opportunity for
| normal people to switch away from gas cars.
|
| As to low resale value - I think tesla was VERY aware of this
| problem and artificially propped up their used market when they
| were starting out by offering a buyback program.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| " Older EV models depreciate even faster than newer ones."
|
| So the problem is already in the process of solving itself? Seems
| like standard first mover technology stuff.
|
| This article seems not worth the pixels it's printed on.
| mbgerring wrote:
| This is another way of saying "EVs are getting cheaper," so it's
| hard to understand why this is framed negatively.
|
| Moreover, EV batteries are recyclable. The main thing holding
| back lithium recycling has been the supply chain of used
| batteries, because the batteries are quite durable.
|
| If the resale value of EVs is falling, that makes it easier to
| extract the batteries and use the raw material to build better
| batteries.
| gortok wrote:
| Why has Tesla depreciated so much since 2023? Could any of the
| depreciation be due to the character that is Elon Musk and his
| antics?
|
| As someone who bought a 2023 Model Y 7 seat Long Range, I can
| tell you my desire to sell the car was 100% because of the
| negative brand value caused by Musk.
|
| I'm not able to sell it because I'm currently $17,000 underwater
| on it and can't afford to dump it, but I would if I had $17,000
| to lose. I have a friend who did just that.
|
| I love my Tesla (for the most part, it has some basic annoyances
| that remind me that building and testing a car for California is
| not the same as building it for everywhere), but as someone who
| tracked the depreciation of my own Tesla, it started plummeting
| when Musk decided to buy Twitter and spend his time exonerating
| the alt-right, and culminated with his foray into public policy.
| vondur wrote:
| I don't think that's the case. I was looking at some used Chevy
| Bolt models, and they can be found for quite cheap. I found a
| nearby 2022 model with only 20,000 miles on it listed for
| $19,000. I'm pretty sure I can negotiate the price down a bit,
| too.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| When my wife got a 2020 Bolt (brand new), the out-the-door
| price was $24K. 19K is what we could sell it for in three
| years, coincidentally. 20% depreciation in three years is
| pretty good.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Why has Tesla depreciated so much since 2023?
|
| Prices were high, then the credit came back and Tesla slashed
| prices. Those of us who bought a 2023 got hosed pretty hard.
| kjeldsendk wrote:
| EVs are in the first phase of the mobile phones.
|
| Within very few years they will be like modern phones that you
| only update because they're worn down.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| The article is basically talking about Tesla.
|
| Buyers of new Teslas are basically the TSLA cult.
|
| Used buyers... aren't.
|
| Hm, what might have happened that might have destroyed the
| overall brand with sensible, probably-liberal buyers of used EVs?
| I vaguely recall some salute thing. Don't really remember the
| specifics. I just remember there was a bit of a hubbub.
| m101 wrote:
| There are many comments on here trying to justify why EVs lose
| value quickly. Why is it simply not the case that the price falls
| quickly because the market only clears at lower prices? Perhaps
| the demand curve just isn't there for EVs as it is for ICE
| vehicles?
|
| In which case: no it's not that they're amazing - it's that they
| are less desirable than ICE vehicles.
|
| (I used to own a Tesla now I'm back on a hybrid, and delighted
| about it)
| alistairSH wrote:
| A few thoughts...
|
| They compare the Model Y to an F150, but don't indicate if the
| 0-day prices are MSRP or actual sales (because F150s are usually
| discounted from list price and EVs have various subsidies). While
| each is best-selling by some measure, they're also different
| products - a truck VS a near-luxury wagon/crossover. I wouldn't
| expect them to depreciate at the same rate - they should have
| included a near-luxury gas-powered wagon/crossover as well (Lexus
| NX, maybe).
|
| Their argument relies heavily on data from India, where a
| bankrupt ride-share service flooded the market. If Enterprise
| went out of business and flooded the US market with Toyota
| Camrys, I'd expect some pricing irregularity for that model.
|
| Similarly, the US EV market (and probably some others?) is
| heavily impacted by federal and local rebates and tax benefits.
| Those surely skew the used car values as well - nobody actually
| paid $50,000 for a new Tesla (or whatever), they paid $50,000 -
| some subsidy (and that amount varied based on model, price, and
| the income of the initial buyer - my neighbor could by the exact
| same car as me for $7500 less than I could). Some of these
| subsidies also incentivized leasing vs buying, which then means
| more of those cars go on the market in 2-3 years (vs a typical ~8
| year ownership for a new car).
|
| Long story short, EVs are a nascent market, there's bound to be
| pricing issues. I'm not convinced we can extrapolate long-term
| used market values based on the last ~5 years of data.
| Robdel12 wrote:
| Depreciation off of the initial price, absolutely. EVs have
| always been grossly overpriced tech machines. They're not
| traditional cars.
|
| Look at Nissan leafs. They "traditionally" depreciate.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > While an electric vehicle is ideal for shorter trips in urban
| areas with moderate temperatures, they aren't as effective as
| traditional cars for long-distance travel or when the temperature
| is very high or very low
|
| On long trips, I plug in at bathroom breaks about once every 2-3
| hours. I don't wait for a full charge because (surprise
| surprise), I'm going to need to pee before I deplete the battery.
|
| Now that I've adjusted, I actually prefer it to gas, because I
| can just plug in and walk away instead of needing to babysit the
| car at the pump.
| Ken_At_EM wrote:
| Where's my Robo Taxi that's worth $250k because it drives people
| around while I work?
| sublimefire wrote:
| Another angle to look at it is that cars cost a lot, petrol and
| electric alike. The only way to reduce depreciation is for the
| folks to be able to buy used cars for a lot which means
| financing.
|
| > A U.K.-based study found 3-year-old EVs lost more than half of
| their value compared with 39% for gas cars.
|
| 40-50% depreciation is crazy, there is little reason why this
| should happen as cars do not change that much in such a short
| time. I bet they would not depreciate that hard if a new car was
| sold at 30k.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > 40-50% depreciation is crazy
|
| It's most likely a lie, they probably based the numbers on the
| original MSRP rather than the original out-the-door price.
| standardUser wrote:
| The difference is only around $4k. And there's an upside to have
| an affordable EV resale market. Plus, if you're planning to own a
| new car for 5 years or more, you have to wonder what the resale
| market for gas cars will look like in the 2030's.
| exasperaited wrote:
| Of course they are. It's the same process as applied to DSLRs,
| which depreciated much more quickly than film bodies did only a
| few years prior.
|
| Film bodies found their post-digital price floor quite quickly.
| DSLRs and mirrorless have only found secondhand price stability
| in the last three or four years and while a big part of it is the
| quality plateau at the end of the megapixel race (which might
| have some sort of analogue in the electric car industry, though I
| don't know what it is --- range, perhaps), part of that was
| driven by pandemic component scarcity and inflation holding up
| the new camera market prices.
|
| In short I think this depreciation will last for another decade
| until manufacturers feel confident they will sell enough volume
| to make cheaper cars.
| EasyMark wrote:
| bad for new car buyers, great for us used car people, so there is
| a silver-green lining to this whole affair.
| shellkr wrote:
| Comparing with Tesla is bad as there is a political aspect why
| people, especially in EU, do not want to buy it after 2024. Which
| means the statistics might falter. Also when I look at other
| sources the data say different. I mean if I look at data from the
| biggest reseller in Sweden KVD you have EV's that has ~80% of the
| original worth after three years.
| _heimdall wrote:
| The Volt I bought a few years ago is worth a small fraction of
| what we paid for it, 30% maybe?
|
| Its also turned into a mountain of problems recently. It was
| great until about a year ago, then the battery started acting up.
| With 10 miles of charge left it will drop to 0, go into limp
| mode, and require dealership software to disable the thrown code
| and restart the car. Now it has a phantom battery drain going on,
| killing the 12v battery after being parked for a few days.
|
| I really liked the car until these issues cropped up. Now I wish
| I hadn't saved the ~$2,800 in gas while the car depreciated by 4x
| that amount.
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