Let us buy BYDs you fucking cowards!
50k! Holy fuck!
Just bought a '23 Audi e-tron with 12k miles. It was less then half it’s new sticker price. My neighbors are already asking to find out if they should take the plunge.
Nothing wrong with test drives. I tried and learned about EVs for at least a year before selecting one second hand.
If you consider depreciation and increasing gas prices, getting a 1 or 2 year old EV today is the best financial decision for those having that budget. It will also work for lesser budgets.
If you consider depreciation, that 1 or 2 year old EV today will take a much deeper plunge over the next 5 years than a 1 or 2 year old ICE vehicle, unless something changes rapidly or they change battery warranties to be 15 years or more.
You’ll need to show data for that. Depreciation is not linear. The first year is worst and then not so bad.
You can look up used car prices yourself. But sure.
That 5 year old one is starting to look like a pretty good bargain already. The 2 year old one not so much.
I can find you tons more pairs for EVs that have lost a ton of value going from 1-2 to 5-6 years old if you still don’t believe me, but we’ll have to discuss my hourly rate if I’m going to be working for you.
Logistic curves tell us there there soon will come a time when ICE vars are basically stranded “assets”. And I dare to say thst time is closer than most think.
That’s a good thing, is the point of this article and general wisdom. Cars last 10+ years so for the used market, the sooner the car depreciates the better. Unless you plan to sell your car, depreciation rarely matters right? You buy a car to run it into the ground, so the cheaper to start the better.
Yes, it’s a good thing for buying a very used car. You’d have to be a fucking idiot to buy one brand new and mildly stupid to buy a lightly used one.
It’s not a good thing if you want to buy an EV that’s still worth something with the intention of being able to sell it before it becomes a heavy heap of problems. Heavy depreciation is good when you’re buying 10+ years old, not when you’re buying 2-3 years old with warranty still intact. For that case you’d want moderate depreciation, where it’s already lost some price, but you know it’ll still be worth something in 5 years. Plus most people still need to get financing of some sort on a ~20-30k purchase. If it depreciates too quickly and something happens to your finances, you’ll be underwater on that loan or lease while trying to get rid of it.
Meaning any EV under 10-15 years old is currently a really bad deal financially, meaning an early Tesla Model S is basically the smartest EV purchase unfortunately.
That’s a ton of assumptions that I think do not hold any real water. The smartest car purchase for most urban or suburban commuters in the US (and likely most other car dependent countries) is a used EV. The best ones have heavily depreciated because of the top 10% churning their cars, they have 80-90% of their battery range (which most people don’t even need), and they cost almost nothing to own and operate.
I would argue no one should be buying a car with the intention of selling it later, because all cars depreciate terribly (COVID was a very unique circumstance).
The warranty does not care about the value of the car, it’s only for parts and repair so what you said doesn’t make any sense.
Your other point is if you buy a depreciating asset with a loan and then lose your income you’ll have a hard time paying off that loan. That’s literally true for everything in the world. No one should be buying a car they can’t afford, and definitely not with a loan they can’t safely afford. There’s always refinancing which would in your hypothetical would always be a better move as again the ongoing cost of an EV is something like 1/6th or 1/10th of a gas car.
I think you’re giving terrible advice and have been given very bad information.
If you consider depreciation
Maybe I’m weird, but I never consider depreciation. If the car is worth anything more than scrap value, it’s not yet time for a new car.
That’s what I do too. I just thought I’d pull out depreciation before a genius does.
Then assume straight line depreciation between the car brand new and the car when it is scrap. If a $60,000 car lasts 20 years and you own it the whole time, you can consider the depreciation to be $3000/year if you’d like.
Either way, at the end of the car’s useful life you need to be prepared to pony up more money to buy the next one.
I drove a 20+ year old car up until I had a kid, and suddenly I started to care about those safety features from the previous 20 years (like airbags and crumple zone improvements).
Unfortunately, you can’t ignore depreciation. It’s rarely possible to actually drive a car into the dirt, as they can last for hundreds of thousands of miles if properly maintained.
Even if you intend to drive the car into the ground, you usually can’t. Every time you get on the road it’s a roll of the dice. Over enough time, eventually you roll snake eyes. You can be the best driver in the world, you can’t beat physics. If someone pulls out of a parking lot right in front of you, you’re going to crash. You can’t skill your way out of minimum stopping distance.
And this happens, depreciation matters regardless of your choices. The insurance company is going to offer you a settlement based on the depreciated value of the vehicle. Sure, in theory you could say, “well, they gave me the value of a 10 year old car, so I’m just going to buy another copy of the same car I just totaled!” But that rarely works in practice. Once they get that old, you really have to worry if the old owner took care of it properly or not. Driving a car into the dirt works well when you can be the original owner and know that the maintenance has been kept up with.
All cars get driven to the ground. You save money by being the only owner, and not changing car every 3 years. In that case, depreciation is irrelevant. Your insurance case is far from being average.
I said I’d drive my first car until the wheels fell off.
Well, one day it actually did, coming around a bend on a highway. Fortunately there weren’t many other people driving out at the time. I ended up flipping it over on the embankment, single-car collision.
I stayed true to my word. Never fucking said it about another car since.
Tell that to my 40 year old daily driver. Just fix your stuff…
Again. you can only do so much, especially if we’re talking about buying a new vehicle today and driving that into the ground. Sure, you can keep things maintained. But even if you’re the world’s most skilled driver, you can’t control other people.
Just this last year we lost a 15 year old Corolla. We had been planning to drive it into the dirt. Driving down a side street, maybe 30 mph. Some person doesn’t look both ways properly and pulls out right in front of us from a parking lot. No time to stop. Insurance declared it a total loss. Not worth fixing. Would cost more to repair than the thing is worth.
It matters if you are in a collision for the payout.
What a weird and useless metric to think of when buying a new car. They will pay you just less then the cost of a replacement, so why does buying a car with a higher book value mean anything? Like are you just picturing yourself in an crash when looking at cars?
Can cost you more to maintain it though.
EV cost more to maintain then gas?
I mean not replacing a 20 year old car can cost you more than a monthly payment of a newer car. My ev has been going strong.
True that. Just got hit with a 2k maintenance bill for my 20 yo vehicle and looking to pivot to an EV. It helps that I don’t drive much and work from home but I’m certain that my wife would prefer to drive the EV to and from work rather than her hybrid.
Yeah, my friends are complaining about $50 a week for gas and I’m around $40 a month for electricity.
Here, it’s like 200€ to 30€ a month if you can charge home. That buys a lot of depreciation.
In the context of OP, depreciation means that a “$50K when new” car may only be worth ~$35K if you choose to buy it 1-2 years later.
So it’s not so much about it’s residual value at any point in time, but rather how EVs tend to have a steeper depreciation curve at the beginning - making lightly used models a more attractive bargain.
I got a new 2025 ID. BUZZ for 63k a few weeks back. Any EV with that many seats is expensive and hard to find on our used market here. I think that was a decent price considering initially it retailed around 90K
Hello fellow Buzz owner. I also bought a 2025 buzz new a couple of weeks ago. So far love having the EV kid hauler
Exactly 🤣. Make sure you get your electrify promo if you’re in Canada. Something like 1400 or 1600 kWh free charing over a few years.
I don’t have a stage 2 charger yet…
“1400 or 1600 kWh free charging” - that’s about $150.
Not quite.
If you math that, it’s actually $882
You didn’t even do any math.
1500 kWh x $0.20/kWh = $300
1500 kWh x $0.15/kWh = $225
1500 kWh x $0.10/kWh = $150
Signed up for that. We also had to get a lvl2 installed right away, the kids school is just too far away for daily lvl1. 14-50 outlet + whole home surge protector $1200 installed
Ordered a LWB earlier in the year, still waiting on delivery - currently due mid-Nov., but with the Suez Canal looking to be off-limits due to the conflict in Yemen - not sure if/when it’ll land here in Australia. 😭
How’re you finding it, in these first few weeks? Any quirks/niggles you weren’t expecting, or adjustments you’ve needed to make?
Yeah some.
Personally I hate that it (and this is probably a fact for ALL new vehicles) is the level of tracking and data collection. Hard braking? Hard acceleration? A collision? Don’t worry, insurance knows. VW collects this and much more info and shares it with third parties 🙃. Just read the app ToS.
Level 1 charging is working okay, needing to too up at a paid charger once in a while but it’s still night and day cheaper than gas or diesel.
It’s super comfy and roomy. Overall I’m quite happy with it.
The charging connectors an unexpected quirk though. Once it’s charging you can’t release it. You need to either use the app, turn on the ignition and dig through the touch screen settings, or click your fob unlock button.
But this is my first ev and first vehicle I’ve ever owned that’s newer than 2010 so… Ya lol
Not a fan of all of that tracking, but as I’m doing a novated lease through work (so it comes out of my pre-taxed income) - I’m not sure I’ll have much leeway to figure out how to disable that.
We’re starting off with a level 1 charger, but as we’re in a 230V nation - we’re hoping that 12am - 6am charging (when our rates are ~8c/kWh) will suffice.
Good to know about the charging cable lock, and that does make sense - prevents jokers from randomly unplugging cars from chargers out in public. Can imagine having to explain that one to the missus a couple of times before it clicks though. 😅
It’ll be replacing our ‘16 Honda CR-V; we’re all pretty low-key excited - especially our 3yo.
How do you find the acceleration - any issues getting up to speed from 0 on freeway on-ramps?
We have the AWD version:
RWD: 282 hp, 413 lb-ft torque
4MOTION AWD: 335 hp, 413 lb-ft torque
AWD adds a front motor with 99 lb-ft of torque; the rear motor still produces 413 lb-ft.
0–100 km/h: about 6.4 sec for the AWD version.
So… Ya it’s pretty quick. No issues with the power st all.
Depending on how much you drive that window may be too small. You’ll get like 1.4kWh of battery recovered per hour, which is roughly 5-8Km of range.
these prices are crazy
my honda 2008 109 hp lawn mower will be hauling my ass for the forceable future
EV prices falling to 50K 🫠 I’ll keep my shitty diesel for now, I’m afraid.
Right, because second-hand EVs have yet to be invented.
Decent EV 3 years old 15 to 20k mileage with warranty run between 15 to 30k. Almost no maintenance and depending on the vehicle half to a tenth the price of gas. You can easily save 5k a year on maintenance and gas. Plus you aren’t killing people with air pollution.
Wait, easily save 5k/year? For how much annual mileage? I know for me with 11k miles annually, including service, the total annual cost is about €2k.
Gotta increase both the mileage and the price numbers to get something in the same class but as an EV. 36k EUR gets me in a 2023 EQE with 157k km. A6 and E-class are the same class of car (direct competitors) and EQE is supposed to be the electric E-Class. Using this one for the comparison because it’s highly unpopular so about 20k cheaper than a similarly aged BMW i5 and Audi A6 E-tron hasn’t been out long enough to get a 3 year old one anyway.
Now compare it to my 1800€ diesel A6 Allroad from 2007 with I don’t care how many kilometers because the warranty is over anyway. How many years for that price difference to pay off? Maintenance and diesel have been about 3-4k a year for me, charging would be ~800 a year if I only ever charge at home and never on a public charger and get the official consumption figures. Puts me at roughly 2-3k saved per year on a 30k price difference, in a car that will depreciate more than 2-3k a year for the next 4-5 years. And I know that if you get sudden battery failure, Mercedes will tell you the battery warranty only covers “up to the value of the car”, which is less than the battery costs at this point, so you have to put 10-20k up yourself. Suspect other manufacturers are going to claim similar bullshit.
And if you’re going to ask why I’m only comparing to the same class: even significantly newer cars from cheaper manufacturers don’t compare. Only recently tested a Volvo XC60, suspension was shit. A few years ago tested Hyundai Ioniq 5, suspension was utter shit. Rather be driving a 25 year old S-Class or A8 than a brand new Hyundai or Kia.
EVs will start making financial sense for us folks who know how to use a wrench when you can a used luxury one for 5k and know you can get a known good replacement battery for <2k and motor for ~500 AND can replace them at home.
I don’t use it that much to save those 5k.
2 year old Polestar is $25k.
I cannot afford it.
Yeah, its more ICE shitboxes for all I am afraid. Average car budget I know of around here is $5,000 to $10,000 CAD, no EVs in that range.
That’s not what it says
Average EV price is closer to $55KSame, gotta keep my paid off 2011 Silverado for now. At least I can use E85 in it 🤷
what country is this? EV prices are lower
This is the US average transaction price. So someone who buys a new $150,000 car will get averaged in, same as someone who buys a new $30,000 car. The weighted average shows what people are actually buying but doesn’t say much about what is available. Most new car buyers are less price sensitive (if they were looking to save money, they’d be buying used), and the richest people are overrepresented because they buy new cars more frequently. Someone who buys a new car once every two years will have 5 transactions counted into this metric for every 1 transaction by someone who buys once every ten years.
Well that depends on if they’re using mean or median. Both are types of “averages,” but a quick skim of the original article doesn’t seem to indicate which they’re using.
USA is. Bought an EV last year for 19k, today I could buy the newer version used for probably 18k and my vehicle has a trade in value of 16.5k. last year maintenance was the cost of wiper fluid. This year I don’t see any maintenance costs. The car is new enough it still has a warranty.
The best part is I charge it at home @8 to 12 cent per KWH. Meaning I pay an average 6 cents per mile, depending on charge time and driving. Plus the electric company is 100 percent solar.Only under 25 k€ brand new electric in Finland now seems to be a JAC (never heard) E30X and BYD Dolphin Surf.
Mentions to Citroën e-C3 and Hyundai Inster for being non Chinese at 25ish.
Cheapest new ICE is about 19k, so almost no difference, but still some. Those will be much more ratty models, though.
