> 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".
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".
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.
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.
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 $22,000, the amount of depreciation you're calculating by starting from MSRP and the amount that the buyer actually experienced are off by more than a factor of two.
Meanwhile the credits caused more new sales than there would have been otherwise, which means more cars of that model available in the used market, and supply and demand is still a thing.
It's not evidence that people don't want them, it's evidence that if you subsidize something the price comes down.
Of course both can be true as well.
I have anecdotes of friends/family/coworkers who bought cars (or second cars for the household) to avoid public transport.
And 2nd hand prices for cars gere (Australia) went batshit insane for a while during and as we chose to pretend that COVID was over - and those artificially inflated prices are mostly over now.
In late 2020 and early 2021, Used car prices plummeted due to so many people trading in 2nd vehicles. I remember tire kicking a 2008 vehicle that was 2000$ then...
Whiplash on used cars started later in 2021, as people were starting to go back out more and in some cases beginning to RTO.
The combination of rising new car prices and rising interest rates in 2022 only further hurt the market. On top of that the newer cars are in many cases less reliable so people are holding on longer.
Fwiw I just double checked and For reference that same 2008/make/mileage is now more like 5000$...
Sorry that was difficult to grasp I will try to be clear in the future!
I see from the EV my parents bought, they got for 22k euro, a car that does 240km on paper. Now a few years later, you can buy a BYD for 26k, that does 450km (ext version) on paper. That same BYD is WAY more fancy, tech gadgets etc...
But that is comparing a lower market segment where this effect is stronger.
On the higher end market, where the Tesla's used to dominate, we see less movement as those cars already came with tons of tech, and large batteries.
Thing is, i am still not buying a EV despite them being better. The same arguments we had with EV disadvantages is still present today. I rather buy a second hand gasoline engine simply because of the convenience of the default 600 a 700km range on most vehicles, the 5 minute tank job, the lack of charging in the city, the prices despite the heavier depreciation in the second hand market are still worse.
Ironically the gasoline car we bought 10 years ago, for 7.5k, still sells today for 8k in todays market (added 50k kms on the car). So even if we take a cut, the actual gasoline engine depreciation is strangely less strong. I track several gasoline cars where i had a interest in from years ago, same phenomenon.
For some reason you expect gasoline cars to drop more in pricing because now in EU 17% of new cars sales are EVs and 36% are hybrid. So more gasoline cars on second hand market? No ... because people are also buying less cars because of the economy, more work from home etc. Resulting in actually less second hand cars as people hold on to their vehicles longer, waiting out this transition periode.
Right, because the other $26k is being subsidized by the party. And much like the US found out with rare earths: once China has the market cornered, the price will rise and/or they’ll use access to their goods as a tool of war.
They’re playing the long game and western nations seem unable or unwilling to do the same.
And even if true, it doesn't follow for me that "therefor, batteries must become more expensive in general, despite the current trend".
I think you're implying lock-in and extractive profits, rather than rising cost of manufacture. It's an argument for diversity of key industries, and that batteries might become such. I agree with that. But as an argument that (in parent the comment's words) "so, battery prices will skyrocket", it seems a bit thin to me.
battery prices are expected to "Plummet" not "Skyrocket": https://cleantechnica.com/2025/10/15/plummeting-battery-pric...
Also chinese companies innovate better and have more efficient supply chains that western ones.
The push to ban chinese automakers is stupid because it punishes customers at the benefit of automakers. Crony Capitalism at its worse.
Yeah because they just steal and copy everything from Western companies and others worldwide. Why spend hundreds of millions and 10 years doing R&D when you can just hack in and steal it? It's the Chinese way.
Chinese hackers took trillions in intellectual property from about 30 multinational companies
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-hackers-took-trillions-...
The annual cost to the U.S. economy of counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets is between $225 billion and $600 billion.
China is the world’s principal infringer of intellectual property, and it uses its laws and regulations to put foreign companies at a disadvantage and its own companies at an advantage.
- https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/china-exec-summary-risk-...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_intellectual_pr...
Salt Typhoon is an advanced persistent threat actor believed to be operated by China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) which has conducted high-profile cyber espionage campaigns, particularly against the United States.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Typhoon
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora
Industrial espionage: How China sneaks out America's technology secrets
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64206950
etc etc etc
And the solution is to punish consumers and enrich GM's totally failed leadership and irrational shareholders by throttling competition chinese.
Here in europe cars have become so expensive compared to just 10y ago.
Some of it is because of stupid green policies, but most if because EU carmakers have been successful in reducing the competitive pressure from China by the use of tariffs on chinese firms.
Check the ownership of the different brands and you will discover from the dozens of brands in Europe, there are really only a few companies making cars. And the "mother company" then shares chassis between models, engines between models. So you can have a a Lada with a Renault engine, with a Dacia chassis. We see 3 brands, but in reality, its one brand.
* Groupe Renault's owned brands include Renault, Dacia, Alpine, and Lada.
But wait ...
* Stellantis was formed from the 2021 merger of two major auto groups: PSA Group (which included Citroën and Peugeot) and FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles). Therefore, the brands Stellantis owns are now a part of Citroën's parent company, which include brands like Peugeot, Fiat, Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge, and Opel.
You see the issue very fast. If you own many brands, do you compete against each other, or do you "stabilize prices for max profit". Same issue with other brands...
Its like in the US, where if you trace back the brands, like 3 or 4 companies, own like 90% of the known US food brands. And when you have only a few companies, gentlemen's agreements about not competition too much are a thing.
Hey, why are HDD not dropping in prices for the last 10+ years. Well, there are only 3 brands left (with two that are huge). Hey, why did SSD/NVME prices suddenly skyrocket. Well, only a few brands make the stuff, and when one decided to increase prices, all of a sudden the rest also followed. Strange is it not...
We are in the age of monopolies again, and that is linked to a lot of the price issues.
They also hired a ton of european designers for their house brands. They have no need to copy anything.
Yes, the west let this happen, and it’s too late to cry about it, action needs to start happening (and I don’t mean import barriers or a trade war) if we don’t want to be dependent.
Current rates are BYD (17%), Geely (18.8%), and SAIC (35.3%).
> And much like the US found out with rare earths:
Rare earths is not rare at all. China has a cornered the market on processing those minerals for cheap. The problem is that we in the West have no appetite to actually support companies to process those "rare" earths.
And the US is really the last country to even talk about batteries, when the arrested 300+ Koreans that worked to get a US battery plant going.
> They’re playing the long game and western nations seem unable or unwilling to do the same.
Its not just a government issue, its a companies issue. You think that car companies in Europe do not get subsidies? Have you ever looked at how much subsidies they get opening new plants or renovating plants?
Reality is that a lot of car companies enjoyed their little monopolie positions in Europe. Sure, we got a lot of brands, but in reality its a illusion of competition, as most brands are owned by a few big companies.
China had a different situation, where yes, there was subsidies from the government (and a lot of misuse of those subsidies), but you had 100's of car manufactures entering the markets. I mean, we talk about BYD often but BYD was not even a car manufacturer until 2005 ... The result is a strong competition between car makers, what resulted in a lot of technological development and a push to be better then the next guy(s). Constant copy and innovation work. Work to reduces prices to be able to compete better, as remember, their competitor also go those subsidies.
We have this issue with our car industry only to thank to our own car industry. Frankly, i am happy to see the Chinese enter the EU market, for the simply fact that it pushed the EU car makers to actually start innovating again and offering more to the clients.
The issue with competition to dead was a issue in new upcoming industries, like solar. Because their both sides started with the same level vs +subsidies. The car industry is a totally different beast with deep pockets and manufacturing capabilities. So lets not act like "poor EU car makers".
This would be the killer for me. I have a private garage with plugs, and even at 120V, I can out-charge my typical driving needs. I work from home and only occasionally take trips beyond a few miles, with a few longer road trips a year.
My IONIQ 5 (USA) does 300 miles (480 km) on paper, but in practice, I've seen a fair bit less. That said, it does charge up 20->80% in under 20 minutes at a fast charger.
Was on a road trip last summer, around Norway, in VW id.Buzz. Charging time of 5min vs 20min doesn't matter. When you're on that long trip, you need time to eat, go to bathroom, walk a little so your legs/back doesn't hurt. In the whole trip there was maybe one forced trip to a shop, because we had time to burn (the only charger was too slow and needed a whole hour to charge).
OTOH have a friend with first gen Leaf and his max charging speed is pretty slow. He additionally can't charge at home and this makes the slow charging time a little off a nuisance.
However, where I live in Paris, there are three parking spots with chargers available around my apartment. Some apartment buildings have underground parking, for which I understand there's a push to set up charging infrastructure, but many buildings do not. Mine doesn't. If I had an EV I'd have to wait around for one of the three places to free up, wait for the battery to charge, then go move the car to a different spot.
Now, I don't particularly need a car, which is why I don't own one, but for my use case, an EV would be an all-around hassle to keep charged. I also mainly use vehicles to go on trips to remote places—I very rarely take highways. Hell, a few years ago I was in the mountains, and gas stations were so far apart that I was running on reserve when I got to one.
I'm not against EVs, and it's clear there are many situations where they're great. But I think we're still in a transition period with plenty of situations that aren't covered yet.
Very much a misconception; unlike in an ICE, you're not consuming energy idling in traffic, in fact your efficiency tends to go up with the lower speeds in traffic.
Also as far as Stop and go... its typically also lower speed; wind resistance is not linear based on speed, so 'crawling' is not that bad.
Im in the US and drive a hybrid rather than an EV, that said 'stop and go' is when I will often seem an MPG -increase-, so long as I gently accelerate (in severe stop and go, just letting my foot off brake and not touching gas).
That's also some of the justification for 'mild hybrids' that have an auto stop and maybe at best a 11kW/120Nm electric motor to kick things off. If you don't drive with a lead foot they can improve efficiency (but overcomplicate things compared to Toyota HSD)
I suppose main counter condition would be in low temperature conditions; AC is fairly efficient, Heating less so, and then in severe cases the batteries need to activate their own self heaters.
That is often the argument that i see but people forget a lot:
Fast charging if often 20 > 80% for 20min. If you want 80 to 100, its a lot less fast (think how your phone slows down).
While you can drive down to 5% of less, it can become a issue if you do not find a charger. When the summer vacation happened, a lot of north traffic goes south, over France ( and reverse).
What happened? People ended up waiting 15 a 25min at the chargers traffic jam in their cars. Then they charged up to 80% (because the stations had people to manage the flow), and needed to drive out (or pay more/fine).
This resulted that your range was already reduced by 20%. You ended up wasting 15 a 25 minutes stuck in your car. And with airco's on because its summer, so more battery drain. Aka, you did not really tank X km range, but X - waiting usage - 20% less limit.
Its always fun to compare a gasoline engine 5 min tank job, vs "not a issue, we need to stretch our legs", but when the reality of long trips that often coincide with vacation periodes... Yea, then the disadvantages of that statement come into play.
So the irony is that, a EV with a realistic 500km range, got hit with a 20% at chargers, then another hit from the waiting, o and you had no choice, it was fast charge or no charge.
I remember warning people to not see EVs based only on short trips or long "out of season" trips but also on those typical school vacation trips that many take. Ironic part, if you drove a hybrid, 5 min tank job for 100% fuel at the regular price.
Every EV route planner already assumes you'll only charge to 80% (and won't discharge below 10%), because that's the range where you can charge at high speeds. In practice, when compared to a combustion engine, a 2x 15m stop trip becomes a 3x 15m stop, or 2x 20m stop trip
It's not a big deal especially if your average stop is much longer than that. Or if you have a car with battery swapping, which only takes 3 minutes from 0% to 90%.
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
I think that’s only true if chargers are sitting idle. Otherwise you’re waiting longer in a queue before you can begin charging, and this delay compounds.
I'm honestly not that bothered by it. I'm very much a "type B" road tripper. I don't care if it takes me an extra hour or two to get there, as long as I'm having a good time. Heck, I might go down some random road named "Old Priest's Grade" and add an extra hour to the trip just because the descent has beautiful views.
Companies never buy used, so I think a lot of those sales are from buyers who wouldn't consider used. So those buyers are only now starting to create supply in the second hand market
The Highland revisions made the car much quieter, less rattly and boxy. The windows are two-ply for sound reduction. The suspension feels better and less rattly. The panels fit. Water doesn’t come up inside the doors now.
I don’t know if there’s any significant new EV tech in there, but they significantly upgraded the rider experience by improving their car-building.
Of course, VW, Audi, etc have been making doors that fit for a long time, so this could be a Tesla-specific thing.
Both versions are super fun to drive. Just whizzy and responsive. Fun. The new one also doesn’t suck on noisy highway cruising like the old one did.
This alone has a giant effect on the second-hand market (of Tesla, which again was the dominant brand years ago so it's also the dominant second-hand brand)
Yes, there are people traveling with Kona or Leaf but personally I would not do it.
For any given brand, the number of vehicles on the road isn't a function of the brand's popularity this quarter. Its the sum of popularities over the last decade or more. So, loss of reputation takes a long time to feed through. And people wanting to unload them won't make them less prevalent on second-hand markets, quite the opposite.
But also, the % of EVs that I see that are Teslas is slowly declining, as other brands proliferate and the EV market gets larger.
I discussed what I see, that's inherently local not global. There could be places where Tesla sales are slowing down, even if they're net growing globally.
Local is London, UK for me, btw.
I discussed Tesla's as a % of EVs total. A brand such as Tesla could still be e.g. growing sales at 5% per year, but if the EV market is growing at 10% per year, they're still becoming a smaller % of the total number of EVs on the road.
The more interesting trend to me is the proliferation of many different EV brands. Time was when Tesla was the only EV. Then there were a few challengers. Now it's all-in from traditional German brands such as BMW and VW, The Korean Hyundai-Kia group have a lot of new models, through to BYD and the other Chinese newcomers. Even Toyota and Skoda are there now.
I think that something like this Tesla "relative decline even as sales grow" is happening, and this is a natural consequence of the EV market diversifying and maturing. If you really want an EV it doesn't have to be either Tesla or Nissan Leaf any more. There are lots of options and ruling out one specific brand for whatever reason is not going to prevent that.
If you want records, I'll note that 1) The largest EV maker by worldwide volume is now BYD and 2) BYD is pushing hard into the UK market, and others. It's early days for them in the UK, more so for the other Chinese newcomers.
I'm sure you can understand local growth vs. global growth when you look at BYD: They are number 1 globally, but have negligible EV sales in the USA.
And BYD being number one globally underscores that, in a growing market, Tesla can have a record quarter and still be losing % share of the total market.
"Chinese EV giant BYD sees UK sales soar" : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3w5jl2jgqwo
I am fairly baffled when I come across positive vibes for modern cars. I'm not declaring those vibes wrong.
I'm saying I don't understand the lack of angst and resentment for
what vehicle owners have lost (full ownership - what they've
bought can no longer be assumed to be theirs. features and
operations can be [and are!] stolen by manufacturers.
whole vehicles have been effectively stolen when
a manufacturer declares a vehicle is no longer operational
[because something something violation].
other things owners have lost: safe tactile controls,
non-extortionate repair costs - which insurance companies
will pass on to every policy holder they can)
how drivers are mistreated by manufacturers (relentless surveillance,
driving data collected to exploit owners and empower other entities
[ex:insurance] to financially or otherwise mistreat them
- inc deeply personal data like mental health and other
personal trips. nothing is off the table.)
how drivers are forced to mistreat everyone around them (continually
blinding drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians.
continually robbing other drivers of critical distance visibility.
leaving inches on both sides of their parked car for passengers in
adjacent cars to exit)
how they are forced to be less-safe drivers (forcing eyes away from the
road to make routine adjustments to climate, etc - adjustments that
for generations were trivially done by touch)
This must supersede any TPM/copyright restrictions or other encumbrances.
2021 Tesla is on the Intel processor, so the software runs laggy and is missing some updates.
It would likely have the heatpump which was introduced 2020 but some markets only got it 2021 if I remember correctly.
You are also missing on cooled seats, have worse noise isolation & worse dampers, no lfp Batterie, 130km less range and so on
If you look just at Teslas, they go further and charge faster on smaller batteries (higher energy densities). These batteries cost less and will last far longer. And Tesla uses an older battery tech than Chinese companies use so, in fact, batteries have improved far more. And with sodium ion, there is about to be a massive improvement over the next few years.
Yes, if you look beyond progress within a specific model line. For instance, there is a marked difference between the range and towing capacity of a 2023 Chevrolet Silverado EV and the Ford Lightning. The Kia EV9 offered a substantial price advantage over existing 3-row EVs when it was introduced in 2023. I think you're right that actual pricing vs MSRP is probably the biggest factor, but real and rapid improvement in the products also contributes. I know I've put off buying an EV van because I know that better options will be coming within the next 18 months.
FYI the Bolt is back, at least for a limited run. [1]
1: https://news.gm.com/home.detail.html/Pages/news/us/en/2025/o...
I went from a 2020 Model 3 to a 2025 and the self driving experience is dramatically better. I’m one of those “I will never use FSD” people and I honestly love driving…but it’s so good I find myself using it constantly and just being awestruck.
the teslas are newish, with new parts and better sound suppression. they also improve marginally in efficiency every year. so the 2023 will have slightly better mechanicals than the 2021 etc.
not too different ... they are very different. much improved. go read a review comparing them.
how much different is today's durango from last year's or here lemme remind you durango hasn't been updated in 15 (count them!) FIFTEEN years. other zombie gas models are out there too.
Also HW4 likely unlocks significant self-driving performance that the earlier hardware stack cannot accommodate, and will support features that are yet to be released for a longer period of time.
Which is all to say: looks to me that the progress is significant.
Assuming you care about self driving enough. That's a big premium to pay for that alone. Fine if that works for you but I can't imagine that being a reason for many.
Getting a new battery or newer design battery is probably much more of a driving factor
The new redesign coming out next year addresses this with a huge battery size increase.
Cars don’t need to be better, customers only need to think so.
Just look at the smartphone market.
You forgot, "and pollutes like crazy."
The environmental calculus of driving a new car, versus driving a 40 year old diesel engine is challenging, I admit. Moreso if you are distilling your own fuel. I would bet that a gross polluter (as California calls them) from 40 years ago are probably a net loss compared to a 20 year old ICE today.
My first thought for sure. Especially because vehicles are getting demonstrably larger and heavier again in the US.
Sure if you ignore all the safety improvements made to driving over the last 40 years...
vehicle safety improvements are one of the primary motivators (for me) to drive new cars. driving is dangerous and i want the best odds when the inevitable occurs
Kind of the worst of all worlds sort of technology
EROI for biodiesel is well above 1:1 from what I can tell. Please elaborate on your sources.
> ICE are stagnant. They retain their value because they're not improving at all.
This doesn't make sense. As already pointed out, the reason computers lose value is because the same money can buy something that does the job better (faster, lighter, etc). ICE don't retain value because they're not improving; they retain value because they still do the same job X years later.
EVs, meanwhile, are losing value even though the same money as a used EV can't buy anything that actually does the job better, as pointed out earlier in the thread. So there must be something else in play (such as battery degradation lowering value of EVs quicker than engine wear & tear lowers value of ICEs).
So, while the batteries may last 800,000 km, people start to discount the replacement cost before they even hit 200,000 km.
Consumers do not have even experience yet to value used EVs properly. It is a great time to be a used EV buyer.
Likewise US and rest-of-world are different markets because of trade barriers.
Within the EV market segment, the resale value may be plummeting because new car prices are declining because of improved technology and higher volume. Someone who is replacing their EV or looking for a new one already has the required charging infrastructure, otherwise they wouldn't be looking. But this price drop affects only other EV buyers, because ICE buyers cannot take advantage of it.
This insulation lasts only as long as the price differential between them remains less than the capital costs of getting a L2 charger and associated electrical upgrades.
Why is charging at slow speed at home such an issue for you?
I'd argue one reason ICE are "stagnant" are because they're "good enough" and any potential improvements required expensive R&D and manufacturing changes, for results that purchasers won't change their buying decision for. Maybe Toyata could make an ICE for the Camry that was 5% more efficient, but few people who were about to buy someone else's equivalent car will choose a Camry instead based on such a marginal improvement.
I think phones are a good current example of this. I have felt zero need to upgrade from my iPhone 13, because the "improvements" since it was new are of zero interest or value to me. I'm quite likely to do a battery replacement on this one instead of upgrading to a new iPhone any time soon. (And the only reason I bought the iPhone13 was to get the backside lidar, I was perfectly happy with the XR I used before that.)
There's no denying that ICE Engines have been around for a long time, relative to EVs. A mature technology means that any low-hanging fruit for performance improvements was found a long time ago. Remaining gains require the expensive R&D for marginal improvements that you mention.
It's not that they're "good enough" - any consumer who can do the sums would prefer a 20% better price/performance, always. It's just that such improvements are not there to be had in ICE vehicles. There is no rush to improve them, as you said.
And therefor the performance of a new ICE vehicle, 5 year old vehicle or 10 year old vehicle is well-understood, predictable. Both in terms of what the tech was when it was built, and how it has aged. EVs are less so in both of these dimensions. e.g. I would have reasonable confidence in the durability of an EV battery for a 2025 model, but much less so for a 2015 model. They're just not the same.
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.
How many years/miles does the average new ice cost and how much does it cost to own/operate.
I tend to buy the bottom of the market. My last cost £1100 and has lasted 3 years/9k miles so far and seems reasonable.
I didn’t buy electric because they are far more expensive. That’s seems to be at odds with the claim they deprecate more.
There are 57 electric cars under 3k for sale and 30,000 petrol ones on auto trader.
At any price the ratio is about 10:1 rather than 600:1.
Second hand EVs are more expensive than second hand petrol cars.
More and more people buy things for the purpose of reselling them. Houses are now more investments than places to actually live in. Rubbing alcohol was bought up during Covid so people could resell. Cryptocurrency is bought with the goal of selling for double a few months later and nobody really believes in the "currency" aspect of it. Pokémon cards, originally made for kids and to play in a card game, are now all scooped up by cart load by adults so they can resell them on eBay, and those buyers hope to resell later. The 2020s has people trying to sell used cars for equal or more than their new value. Strange times.
Not wanting to eat 50% of a car’s value in depreciation in 2-3 years is a sane decision.
Expecting to sell a used car for a profit without a shortage of used cars is not sane.
I bought a Toyota RAV4 in 2021 and it’s depreciated about 20-25% in 4 years. I could’ve saved a couple thousand bucks and got a Nissan Rogue instead, but that model has depreciated about 50% by now, and I’d be worse off.
Just 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.
That's what I meant by stops working - stops working for you.
No longer operational meant broken and not worth repairing.
The problems with used cars are usually:
1. The previous owner abused the car
2. There is known damage which is being kept hidden from you
And, Tesla is an outlier here. Other EVs are progressing MUCH faster.
Kia and BYD are two prominent examples. They're outputting huge batteries and absolutely bonkers charging times.
But even US manufacturers have surpassed Tesla. What GM is doing is more impressive.
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.
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.
I also bought it for the safety. Even the FSD I consider a substantial safety feature. I don’t take naps in the back seat when it’s ok - I pay attention. The joint probability of it or me noticing a drifting car or whatever is considerably better than me alone.
They aren't degrading either, though
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.
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.
This seems to happen far too often. I've come to the conclusion that salespeople pretend this is the case on purpose, since it benefits them for you to believe that you're the exception.
If it can happen to a $1500 phone or a $5k computer, I'm sure it will happen to a $20k car eventually.
Apparently a bunch of jeeps got bricked by a pop software update.
Somebody could claim driver aids and infotainment EVs are "degrading" in EVs in the exact same way - in fact they're even more integrated in EVs.
And although EVs don't have the same transmissions and exhaust gas systems, they have their own unique complexities and points of failure, like batteries and regenerative braking systems.
ICE cars are practically falling apart between service windows when compared to EV.
There's no way I'm buying an EV. I can't charge it where I live, it won't easily refuel where I'm going, and I hate infotainment centers over knobs and buttons.
If I do buy a new car - and I really don't have to - it'll be an ICE without an annoying screen in the middle console.
https://roadwarriornews.com/autoenshittification-allows-car-...
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.)
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.
The issue is that all those Kias got stolen and trashed by Kia Boys. :(
I had a 2011 Kia Soul that I was going to drive until it died. Someone else did the dying part for me.
not the 1.6L GDI one
The absurd warranty Kia used to have encouraged them to put out good products. I had incorrect oil put in my Soul (at an oil change place!) and Kia warranty replaced the entire engine.
Maybe, but an oil change & minor service for my Mom's off-warranty Mercedes is clsoe to $1000. You seem to be fighting yourself if you're after a long-term reliable driver and go Euro luxury.
That's a fair amount of misinformation in your post.
1) Any reliable ICE brand goes well above 200k miles with basic maintenance. There's a long history here of reliability and why so many drivers choose boring yer reliable brands like Toyota, Honda, Mazda, etc. If you choose brands that do not prioritize reliability then that's on you. (i.e. Mercedes drivers switching into Tesla)
2) Mileage (distance) is not actually the determining factor here in longevity, car age is. Average age of ICE cars is around 12 years in the USA. That's average, which means there are many cars that are much much older than that. Battery cars will be lucky if they average out 8 years as a fleet. Probability is 75%+ you're looking at a battery replacement at the 12 year mark if not sooner. Vast majority of drivers will not replace said battery making the car a throw away due to cost (no one financially competent spends $10k-$20k on a battery for a car worth less than $10k). This will absolutely drive fleet age down, resulting in a younger fleet and more disposable cars. Replacement batteries are not plentiful or cheap and there's no reason for that to change due to the industry strategy.
"Tesla still averages being able to hold 90% of original charge"
3) Lucky you. It's well known in the community first year degradation is typically 5%-10% and there after 1-2% per year till a major failure. Do you know how to measure your original charge? Have you driven the car from 100% to 0% to verify total battery capacity or you just going of the BMS hoping it knows the true capacity. BMS is regularly off by 5%+ so for all you know your true capacity is already nearing 80%. If you know Lithium battery science then you know after 80% the capacity hits a cliff rate of degradation accelerates. Few people drive their cars below 10% battery so they don't really know.
Also, the link you shared is just a collection of anecdotes. It doesn't provide evidence of a trend.
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.
By this logic, I get a new car every time I fill up my tank.
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)
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).
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.
Now, how many charges does a car battery do, and how frequently it tends to need one? The same calculation from phones can indeed be translated to cars, the only mistake is translating the end results of the calculation. Maybe that helps with your father?
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.
I want an electric vehicle, but I'm not willing to pay the insanely high prices they go for. I typically don't want to spend more than $10k on a vehicle and I only have once (and that one got totalled in an accident literally a month or two after I finished paying off its loan). The times I've found a used EV in that price range, it's old enough that it will need a new battery soon, instantly ~doubling the price of the vehicle for me.
I 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.
So a Toyota :)
One is 8 years old. That's old right? The other is 18 years old.
Neither have had major issues.
The few oil changes on my recently out of warranty 2021 Toyota have already cost more than the entire maintenance spend on my 2017 Bolt.
I don't spend many thousands on maintaining an ICE to begin with.
I've kept track of all car expenses since 2008 for 3 different cars. My average per year is $445. This is repairs and maintenance.
I'm not a gearhead. I know little about cars. I do whatever repairs my mechanic suggests. Things just don't break down much with reliable ICE cars.
TCO calculators are, in my experience, off by an order of magnitude. Ignore them.
> The few oil changes on my recently out of warranty 2021 Toyota
Are you doing them at the dealer? You're likely paying too much. And are you doing them on the manufacturer schedule or have you fallen prey to the "Every 3 months or 3000 miles" propaganda?
Most cars need it every 6 months. And unless your car needs some high quality oil, it's typically about $40 to get a regular mechanic to change it. So $80-100/year.
Having a car payment would automatically be more expensive than my current vehicle. More taxes, more money each month, and so on. For electric cars, I won't get the incentives here in Norway for much longer, as they are being (mostly) phased out in the next few years.
To be fair, though: I walk a lot. I have a 5-10 minute walk to work (depending on snow). Driving takes longer. The car is used a few times a month. Realistically, my car is a luxury item and I'm lucky to live in a place that makes it so.
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2013_Honda_CR-V.shtm...
I get combined mileage of 26 mpg. That's a short daily commute and a couple trips a month to a town ~70 miles away.
I haven't taken particularly stellar care of it.
Absolutely not.
This completely ignores the relatively high initial range of ICE (especially hybrid), and the poor real world state of the EV charging infrastructure, compared to petrol.
A 30% drop in range would be an extra 5 minutes at the nearest gas station, almost guaranteed to be within a couple miles.
And, that 30% is usually cheap to get back, usually just by some combination of changing the spark plugs, running a bottle of carbon removal/fuel system cleaner through, or changing the fuel injectors.
I have an electric, but I also understand why people are avoiding electric, and why 96% of people with EV also have an ICE car [1] (including me, with my newest being ICE)!
[1] https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2023/11/10/the-stat-that-say...
Source? Both of my first 2 cars got a good 38 mpg on the highway (no AC) after their 10 year mark. 38 mpg is the same as brand new.
Complete nonsense. Every 15+ year old ICE car I've known or owned was within 5% to 10% of original fuel economy, the reliable brands actually maintained their original fuel economy or surpassed it as fuel economy improves as engine wear in completes at the 20k-40k mile mark.
If your ICE car dropped by 30% then share the brand and your maintenance history.
That 8 year old Toyota you bought came with a 6 year/60k mile warranty. If you are comfortable driving that to 2.5x the initial warranty then a used Tesla should be good to 250k and 20 years.
The 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Fortunately, there's a ton of data out there. Some manufacturers/models are known to be reliable. Just hone in and buy those.
I've had to do repairs, but never that expensive. Never had transmission issues (keep in mind my cars are often over 10 years old - one over 20). For engine stuff, it's just a part replacement once in a while.
I posted elsewhere, but since 2008, my average car expense is about $450/year - that's repairs + oil changes.
> How much will replacing it cost?
Individual parts? Usually, not much. The whole engine? Dump the car. You got a lemon. Did you get it checked out by a trusted mechanic before buying?
> At least with a battery you can get some pretty detailed state of health readouts, BMS technology can tell you a good bit more about battery health than what your ICE will tell you about transmission and engine wear without tearing it down.
Fair point.
Ok, so ICE cars are incredibly reliable, assuming you write off a ton of them as "you bought a lemon". I might as well say "the whole battery? You bought a lemon, dump the car."
Like, yeah, don't get me wrong, I bought a 2000 V6 Accord with ~80,000mi on it from a friend who I know babied it. I sold it later still in good condition to a family member. It's now nearly 200,000mi and largely just fine, although every now and then the transmission behaves strangely. I'm tempted to buy it back when they're done with it, I loved that car! But it ignores the massive flood of these that ended up with bad transmissions (seemed like a roll of the dice on this generation) and cars that weren't well taken care of. Even if you were to think Accords are generally reliable, the next generation wasn't anywhere near as reliable as that one in the end.
And it ignores all the millions of cars that were scrapped in that same time period.
If your standard of reliability is "hunt for a unicorn", well, that'll happen with EVa as well. It's still a curve of failures, some will be worse and faster than others. Some might make it several hundred miles before significant failures. Some may barely break 100,000. At least I can see the current battery health on the OBD-II port, I can't tell if they actually did fluid changes properly on an ICE.
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.
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...
What was the remaining range for those replacements?
> Granted, perhaps batteries were just crappier back then,
Tesla makes its own batteries right? When did that start?
> but 17% is a scary high number for me.
Is that high? I have no idea. How many ICE powertrains got replaced at the same time and what did it cost?
Who cares? Spending $15K on battery on a used car is a hard "No!", unless the car is under $10K.
I'm thinking of buying another car next year. $15K is my budget for an ICE car - and only if it has all the bells and whistles. Otherwise it's $12K. Spending another $15K on top of that is ridiculous.
> Is that high? I have no idea. How many ICE powertrains got replaced at the same time and what did it cost?
I'd love to know. All I have are anecdotes.
Well I do because I only need to drive at most 75 miles a day and even a car with 30 miles of range would satisfy my commute requirements.
> Spending $15K on battery on a used car is a hard "No!", unless the car is under $10K.
Can you get a better car for $25,000.00? Would you spend $15,000.00 on a $1000.00 car?
I average a little under 7000 miles a year of driving.
Based on charge/discharge cycles my EV battery should be good for roughly 20 years.
> Will the savings on gas more than compensate?
At $26k for a top of the line trim, my Bolt EUV cost me less than a comparable ICE car. I'll never save any money on gas, but I don't need to.
Not having any maintenance needs is nice though. Just an air filter.
For Tesla, the fastest capacity drop off is actually in the first couple of years. After that it plateaus quickly.
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!
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.
These cars are not worth a lot after the warranty ends because the battery replacement cost exceeds the value of the car.
My 2009 Prius is still running at 231k, for reference.
Original Leafs were sold with a 24kWh capacity. Current ones have 48kWh for the same price, and 64kWh replacement batteries are available. So you can go from half of the crappiest range to 3× more range than when the car was brand new.
Old batteries with reduced capacity don't even have to be thrown out. There are projects that reuse old Leaf batteries for grid energy storage (any capacity is useful when they're sitting on the ground).
I'm betting that the current-gen mainstream cars will benefit similarly, especially that production volume is orders of magnitude higher now (lots of brands share the same platform and battery modules).
I 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
There is a big difference between domestic subsidies and export subsidies.
One is a policy to promote adoption the other is akin to economic warfare.
Nice goalpost shifting.
That isnt the government subsidizing an EV for export.
https://www.electrive.com/2025/08/22/china-discloses-subsidi...
Your Hyundai charges at 500 kW?
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.
I wonder why the Tesla is not able to maintain the high charging rate? Both peak at about the same kW.
I mean it's pretty obviously this. You don't become the worlds largest EV seller if nobody is buying.
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.
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
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!
And many comments disagree with this statement. There are few perceived advancements. Used EVs are not trusted, particularly because the used battery fear.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
Come on, we all know the big Christmas toys would always use those fat C batteries that we never had enough of.
Ideally, these battery modules would be standardised and used across a wide range of vehicles.
There's a saying that a new car loses 50% when you leave the lot. It's presumably still true for EVs.
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).
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.
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.
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].