Hacker News Reader

Comment by kemayo | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

View on HN

There are other factors, too. As an owner of a 2023 Model 3, I am acutely aware of them. It's not just image, but prices. The 2023 Model 3 & Y were expensive, and Tesla started slashing the prices in 2024. This absolutely destroyed the resale value for people who paid near the high point.

I suspect people don't really notice this as much because if you are familiar with regular manufacturers you are used to the price (well, the MSRP at least) staying rock steady for a year at a time. Tesla moves their prices around quite a lot by comparison, which can be very detrimental to the used market when it drops quickly.

This got me curious about tesla prices over time. Turns out someone has a nice spreadsheet of this. I don't know about the accuracy, but it's a cool spreadsheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F5IQOynIawoXiJPVarLD...

> and Tesla started slashing the prices in 2024

Jan 2023 was when prices were slashed, and the $7,500 tax credit came in.

You're right, I was off by a year. We have a 2023, but we bought it in December 2022. Not at the high point, exactly, but still before a big slash in prices, and before the credit. We mistakenly thought the credit wasn't going to happen.

If I sell the car anytime soon it will definitely be the most I've ever "lost" on a car purchase. Oh well.

That's unfortunate. I also had a few cousins buy a Tesla just before the price changes and credit happened. I paid $25k or so less than them at the end of 2024 for a better car. Early 2020s in general was an awful time to be a car buyer.

I bought 2023 April after first price drops and EV rebate at its highest point (this is in NZ). I was looking at used ones which were about 3-4k usd cheaper at the time. After some timewaster I figured savings are not worth it and bought new. Tesla did another drop next week and refunded me about 2k USD without me realising.

Fast forward to now it’s worth about 30% less but thats what I saved on fuel.

> This absolutely destroyed the resale value for people who paid near the high point

This is definitely true, but it's funny how much hand-wringing is being done about those people, who already bought EVs and really don't need to replace them like 3-4 years into ownership (they might want to for vanity, but if so they're either rich or love wasting money).

"Destroyed resale value" is just another word for "provided amazing prices to a great used market." These "destroyed value" cars are great almost-new cars available at prices competitive with gas cars. In California with horrific electric rates, if I charge my used EV at the "non-peak" time it's like buying gas for my old car at 2.50/gal. In places with much better rates it's more like $1 a gallon. And these are cars that are now available for the same price as a comparable gas car. I'd say this is a huge win for everyone.

Well yes, it's a matter of perspective, and good used prices are better for society as a whole. You're welcome :). Someone who buys my Model 3 for 35 grand less than I paid for it a few years ago is getting a pretty good deal. But despite my wife wanting something in a different form factor, we're keeping the Model 3 a while longer because selling it would realize what is just a theoretical loss right now. It's just psychological, but it definitely influences our choices.

I would personally run that model 3 into the ground.

In the UK the price of gas is currently around the equivalent of $7/gal at the cheapest due to how it’s taxed here and the absence of a subsidy.

Electricity is around 18c/kwh overnight.

I can’t understand how gas cars get sold here anymore at all.

Me neither. My fuel costs went from £1000 a year to £100. And I don't even do that many miles. Why isn't everyone jumping on this? Meanwhile a lot of moaning about the "cost of living crisis". People are strange.

Electric and internal combustion cars do not cost the same though. Even a plug-in hybrid which only has ~50mi range before the ICE turns on was a +$8k feature (in practice, $10k - $12k after dealer shenanigans and taxes) when I last bought a car. I'd have to drive 8+ years without ever using a drop of gasoline for that to make sense, by your numbers. A full EV was $20k - $30k more than similar ICE models.

That's in the US where we have a bunch of tariffs to protect the local auto industry.

In the UK, you can get really cheap EVs because the china ev and battery market is open to them and their importers.

Further, because of the nature of both public transport and the city layout of the UK, there's much less of a need for long range EVs. Almost everything there is both walkable and within walking distance. It's very unlike the US.

I survived in the UK for 2 years on foot. It was really not that bad.

The Hyundai Kona Electric starts at £32,400. Which is ~$43,500 freedom bucks.

But there's very little reason why the majority of brits couldn't survive with the Dogood Zero which starts at £5,500 (and has a 50 mile range).

Those comparisons were from the same manufacturer, so tariffs should be similar.

I ended up going with the RAV4. I just looked and the gas powered RAV4 is $29k, while the plug in hybrid model (toyota doesn’t do full EV) is $45k, so there is still a very big difference in price.

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

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

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

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

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

There are no subsidies for EVs in the USA.

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

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

I don't think I could understand not getting an EV in the UK. Everything is so close together and public transit is really good. You can practically survive in even the most remote regions with just a bike alone.

For someone who doesn't drive an EV, what is that in $$/mi?

EV sedans use ~ 250Wh/mile. So £0.18 is ~$0.24. So you are looking at about $0.06/mile.

Much cheaper if you get a much smaller EV (which are much more available in the UK).

For example, the Dogood Zero uses 95Wh/mile which means $0.02/mile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The other reason is that Hertz was dumping most of their large inventory of Teslas on the used market. No one wanted those cars as rentals and they cost too much to maintain.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/06/ev-sales-slump-hertz-dump-ta...

A friend of mine sold their Model S recently because a)Elon and b)their neighborhood where Elon is not popular. They got a Lexus hybrid instead. They were bummed out because they loved the car. They don't tickle me at all - I like his Lexus better - but hey to each is own.

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

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

Not in my neighborhood. I’ve seen strong sales of the new models and tons more used Teslas on the road. The competitive used prices have helped expand their audience tremendously.

has TSLAQ ever been right? Maybe short term but never long term.

> has TSLAQ ever been right? Maybe short term but never long term.

Any rational view of TSLA's business and future prospects suggests that TSLAQ is right, but that the timeline for proving it out may be extended (and there's a saying about that, right? Something about the market staying irrational longer than you can remain solvent). TSLA is a meme stock at this point. I wish it were not part of the S&P500, because I hate to be exposed to that volatility.

But I'm often wrong, so maybe this is yet another example.

I’ve read that same sentiment back in 2016. Only difference being that “meme stock” wasn’t a word back then.

I also love the excuse: “I’m right. I’m just not putting any money behind my conviction because the market might deviate from my truth.”

What is that “insight”, that “prediction” worth, if you can’t put money on it without going broke?

I think I would eventually win the bet. I just don't think my timeline or funding is in a position where I want to wait it out. I think TSLA is detached from the fundamentals and I haven't heard a good rationalization that explains what I'm missing. I get that the stock market is aspirational, the price you see is the collective hopes & dreams for the future, but at some level there needs to be an explanation, a vision that seems plausible. What is Tesla doing today that leads to their current valuation, what does that path even look like?

the stock market has long detached from fundamentals.

The article literally says that tesla depreciates the least among evs.

It doesn't present any such data. Only this one vague quotation from the manager of Polish vehicle history report website autodna.pl:

"Premium brands consistently retain higher resale value than mass-market brands, for both ICE vehicles and EVs. No one knows what entirely new Chinese marques will cost in the secondary market – for instance, what a 5-year-old Omoda will fetch"

Everything concrete in the article is about how Teslas, specifically, have precipitously declined in value, except for one paragraph about how nobody wanted to buy used vehicles from BluSmart (an Indian company that "collapsed in April amid financial fraud allegations").

Yeah, that Tesla fares better than a Chinese brand we've never heard of doesn't mean much to me. Are there 5 year old ICE Omodas to compare their expected value loss? For Americans, I think it'd be interesting to put compare against several year old Rivians, Ford F-150 Lightnings, etc.

I think there is really not enough good data to draw conclusions yet. The EV market is so young, and Tesla was basically the only non-compliance EV for several years. At this moment the expected value on my 2024 Lightning is way closer to what I paid for it than the expected value on my 2023 Model 3 is compared to what I paid. But that could just be situational.

I have been telling people, though, on the Model 3 forum that they should be leasing unless they are extremely sure they'll keep the car for a lot of years. Tesla's residuals have been way more optimistic than what the used car market suggested reality would look like. Only a problem if you sell at about three years, but maybe worth hedging your bets.

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

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

Further in the article it says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m in this boat. I’m voting with my wallet.

All the power to the people who love their Teslas, you do you.

I completely support voting with your wallet. Where the anti-Tesla people lost me was when they decided that anybody who owned a Tesla was nazi/fascist/whatever by extension, and it would be totally okay to abuse them or their car.

Fortunately that has subsided a bit, I haven't heard as much chatter about it in the last few months. And anecdotally, there are still quite a lot of "just got my new Tesla" threads on the Model 3 subreddit -- I think sales totals have still been a disappointment, but they haven't tanked.

Yes, all the anti-Tesla people went to a meeting a decided that abusing cars was on the menu.

(hint: if even a small majority of them felt that way, there would have been many many orders of magnitude more incidents. more than any gap in reporting could cover. figure out where that narrative was born though.)

Point taken, it was just the loud ones ruining it. Though in my mind, when I think "anti-Tesla people" I am casually excluding the people who are not vocally so. Arbitrary, yes, but how I tend to think about it. I know a lot of people who are anti-Tesla in the sense that they will never buy one, but aside from that you will never hear anything from them.

If you decide to define vocal as willing to damage cars, that's your prerogative.

There a many (many) more people who are vocally anti-Tesla and not willing to damage cars, again, evidenced by the ratio of vocalized anti-Tesla sentiment to real incidents.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com