Featured Used EV prices

Used (and new) car prices have been so crazy since COVID started that I'm not sure what to think or believe right now. As a used car buyer Sorry that your cars are losing value. But personally, as a used car buyer, I'm happy to hear used car prices coming down, especially for EV's.

Years ago, when things were tough for me financially, I could go get a car for under $1,000 and fix it up for not that much more just to get around. But those years and deals seem to have become history.

Nowadays it seems hard to find anything worth driving under $5,000 because you can't work on new cars and they need entire transmissions, engines, HV batteries, etc, not just alternators, radiators, valve seals, maybe a milled head and such.

When you've known now of several used car buyers that got a used car with under 100,000 miles on it for not that much cheaper than MSRP prices only to need a $9,000 or $10,000 or $11,000 repair a few month later because cars nowadays are pieces of junk that don't last past 100,000 miles, thinking of what I might get after my current car bites the dust is daunting and discouraging. especially when they stay at these extremely high, near MSRP prices.

 

not a significant enough drop to make purchasing worthwhile. a new tesla with the current price drops is a much better deal:
under 36k in massachusetts after tax credits

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22k in masachusetts after tax credits (if it hasn't already sold as used and rec'd the credit)


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This is actually GREAT news.
A used BEV will ease the slope of the on-ramp for the 99 percenters out there who do not......um......'currently' drive BEVs.

 

That's subjective, but true to a degree. Used cars need to be really cheap to make sense. My goal is to get at least 200,000 out of a car. I don't think that is unreasonable. If someone buys a car with half that, 100,000 miles, and in a few short months costs him/her more than a brand new car of the same exact make/model/trim, then what on earth did that person just do?! I don't get how some people buy used cars that are such terrible deals, except that demand soared and new cars were in a shortage.

Not to mention that by buying a used car a person is also losing out on having a waranty while assuming a greater risk of having more repairs.

Last time I checked my Avalon was worth over $10,000 with 150,000 miles on it. At that rate it wouldn't make sense to buy another Avalon if I suddenly had to repalce this one. A brand new Crown is a bit $40,000, which is still close to $5,000 per year of driving (25,000 miles) if it lasts until 200,000 miles. But it comes with a warranty and gets better fuel mileage and also more of a lot of other stuff.

When the Avalon dies I want a certain amount of proof that an EV is going to last until 200,000 miles without a major repair. Depending on tire costs, insurance costs and how much is saved in electricity, a 50,000 mile $20,000 EV that's as big as the Avalon might work out. Otherwise it needs to be cheaper than that. I will not spend more than that and I don't want to spend $20,000 on a car that's going to cost me an arm and a leg to maintain and insure and/or fuel. If it's gas-only powered then it needs to be $15,000 or less.

 

definitely subjective, someone is buying these 'cheap' used ev's, but they were buying them when they were 'expensive' as well.

 

Nissan was guilty of exporting used Leafs with meh batteries to the north where they fetch more $$$

 

BEVs can be a truly prenominal deal used but you have to know what you're getting into.

Higher Insurance costs, slightly higher tire wear, and battery degradation are factors to consider but there are fewer transmission issues, oil consumption and emission problems.

Like Bob says, it's an IQ test.
In a normal distribution you're going to have BOTH smarter and dumber people.

Some people have no business trying to drive a BEV - ESPECIALLY a used one.
Others shouldn't be driving anything else.

 

I'd like to see more than one year of comparisons... maybe last year's numbers were high, and this is dropping back to normal?
It also would be interesting to see these numbers by depreciation, compared to original MSRP, but that might get complicated trying to track that.

I disagree that quality has gone down any. Cars are more complicated than ever, lots of things that can break, but cars still last well past 100K miles. 150K, 200K is often reached. Back when I was a kid, growing up in the snowbelt with lots of salt put on the roads, you couldn't get a car to last past 75K miles. The engine might be okay, but body panels would be falling apart, even the frame would start to disintegrate and become unsafe. It wasn't unusual for a college student to have a car where if you lifted the carpet you could see the pavement through the floor in the trunk and/or the cabin area.

 

The engines were pretty bad back 'in the good old days' too, and modern cars allow people with no real driving skills at ALL to go further and faster, for longer than ever.
Priuses are built with an design life cycle of about 10-15 years or roughly 225000 miles.
Anecdotal evidence in this forum suggests that even with neglect and abuse and significant design flaws these cars are just about dead-bang guaranteed to run for about 150,000 miles before the 'change owner' light illuminates.
My company bought dozens of G3's in 2010 for this area and I do not know of a single car that suffered a head gasket failure in the first 200,000 miles and my first company Prius (Goofy) is still on the road with well over 250k.
My company does NOT overspend for car maintenance (or anything ELSE!!!) but they do have a 5k maintenance periodicity - and this same maintenance philosophy keeps Prius Taxis on the road well past the "normal" head gasket failure point.
In the 1970's and into the 1980's this level of comfort, convenience, reliability, safety, and longevity would have been science fiction.
Even domestic brands, shackled as they are by a horribly corrupt and incestuous relationship with labor unions (My last 6 personal vehicles have all been GMCs) will generally run deep into six figures if properly maintained.

 

Ya, well, that observation doesn't help my friends who ended up in these kinds of situations, nor does it help me change my Prius from a driveway ornament to an actually running car.

At least I don't have any debt on my Prius. I could have it towed off to a junk yard / car recycle center and try to buy another car, but with current used car prices on economic cars still sky high it doesn´t help. The last time I checked Honda Fits, Toyota Yaris' and similar used econo cars they either are very close to having 200,000 miles or their prices are close to their original MSRP's.

At least my car insurance is cheaper owning two cars, even though one hasn't ever ran in the past 3 years.

 

i'm still looking for one of these so called cheap used ev's

 

$15,000 is what I paid for a full sized, nearly Luxury vehicle that was 5 years old and had 50k miles.

To me, a cheap car should be one for under $20,000 when new and at most half that 5 years later.

With the EV cost equasion involved, since I'd pay between 1/3 to 1/2 of what I pay in gasoline for electricity then I could see adding from $3,000 to $5,000 to the purchase price of the EV for it to be comparable.

While it costs $10,000 for a 5 year old Honda Fit or Nissan Versa with 50k miles, and that plus $5,000 is $15,000, a 2017 BMW i3 is older and probably has more miles than only 50k.

 

It is very close, if not on, my list of affordable EV's. I just need a reason to buy another car before getting into truely weighing what car I should buy.

 

I’m thinking pure ev, but to play along, it
depends on what the original buyer paid.
I paid $23,500. For our brand new bolt, so an 6 year old with 55k doesn’t sound fantastic

 

A Buick/GMC not too far from here has 164 new vehicles, with one being a Hummer. In used EVs, they have 80 mixed brands.

 

You mean until the battery dies?

As a comparison, your Model 3 with 80k miles is trading in for $14.6k vs. a 2019 Prius Prime Advanced with 80k miles is trading in for $21.4k in Southern California. Perhaps you should have kept your Prius Prime.

I would be more worried about my Tesla shares. It has been losing market share rapidly, and the competition are starting to make good or even better alternatives.