This is potentially good news, but only potentially, because it ignores the most important question: Are they cheaper because they've become less useful? Batteries degrade over time, so electric cars will lose range as they age. Of course ICE cars also degrade over time, but it seems likely that their loss of utility is slower than electric.
We have 3 EVs in our business, 2 of them bought 3 years old with 30-40k (2019 Leaf and 2020 Kia e-Niro), and a 2021 Peugeot E-Expert we bought new. The Peugeot has a small 120-130mi range, which we don't like, but stuck with the lease for another 2 years. The Leaf happened to be the worst version of all Leafs, it hardly does 100miles on a fully charged 40kWh battery. The Kia is just brilliant. 60k, 250mi range, all good.
The Kia had a call back when they replaced the reduction gear and motor (big things) under warranty, hat off to Kia. Apart from that we did not have to fix anything on the EVs for 2+ years, unlike the Addblue, turbo, clutch etc issues we had on the diesel vans.
So I would say that if you investigate the actual model you are about to buy and know what to look for, (model specs, year, expected range, typical faults etc, as with any car), then EVs are a safer bet than ICE vehicles. The recent conclusion is that the batteries outlast the cars, so I can only encourage everyone to go for an EV if they don't have to drive very far too often.
I've owned 3 Teslas over the years and tracked battery degradation. If you don't fully deplete or fully charge the battery (keeping it 80%-20% most of the time) range loss is only about 5-8% for 60,000-80,000 miles. Gas cars will lose similar efficiency and require much more maintenance.
It implies quite a big price drop for new EVs which is unfortunate for people buying those, but I don’t think this suggests there’s anything wrong with the vehicles. It’s more that a lot have happened with EVs and new ones are leagues better than older ones.
For instance when you look at the e-tron from the example, there’s two ranges offered and both got a big boost with the most recent facelift (so 320/420 km to 500/560 km or something like that). It’s obviously much harder now to sell the old 320-range model since people will probably want at least the 420 kilometers range.
This has happened across the board and especially Chinese vehicles and the Tesla price drops put pressure on the entire EV market. It’s what you would expect in a fast moving market and I’m sure we’ll start to see some maturing and less crazy depreciation as the market develops.
For now though it’s great to see the used market being so competitive (for car buyers) and that anyone looking to buy an electric vehicle also have a viable used market to consider.
The more evidence we get, the longer it seems the batteries will last. And this is a moving target, as new batteries get better, and the problem goes away.
Old, pre 2021 EVs, with short ranges, may not last longer than the car.
Most long and mid range EVs purchased from 2021 should have a battery good for 200,000 miles, which is longer than most petrol engines last. The standard 8 year warranty is rather longer than that on a petrol engine.
New EVs: the battery should outlast the chassis, and then be split up and sent to act as domestic batteries. I think CATL are soon guaranteeing some batteries from 1 million km or so.
This is potentially good news for buyer of second-hand vehicles, but not for buyers of new vechicles. I have heard several time people saying that the steeper decrease in the value of the electric car on the second-hand market was a barrier to purchasing an EV.
And the second-hand market need some new vehicle buyers.
As the owner of a secondhand EV, I think there are two additional reasons why the secondhand market for EVs is becoming more competitive. One is that newer models often have more range and kit, so even models from 2021 or 2022 are discounted. The other is a concern about what happens when the guarantee on the battery - typically up to 8 years - expires. I hope the latter concern disappears over time - my secondhand EV is a 2021 build and I've currently seen no change in battery life.
One thing that bugs me with every article comparing EVs with ICEs is the weight of the vehicle. I'm sick of hearing that EVs are so heavy we will have to replace every bridge and multi-floory car park, and the tyres somehow break up the road and of course emit carbon particles unlike ICE cars?
For reference, my Audi A6 is 200kg heavier than a Tesla model 3. And, yes, nice cars shame about the CEOs - VW group once again fined this time for greenwashing their recycling stats.
Great news! And as I'm seeing in the comments, there's concern that used EVs are worse. This recent study from Stanford should help, seeing EV batteries last 40% longer than expected
I've bought two used EVs from Carmax and it's been great so far. Plus, even as a second-hand buyer I'm still covered by the factory warranty on the battery for quite some time
Absolutely. £50K for a mini? Madness. Yes, the makers have R&D costs, and the Battery is expensive, but EVs are much simpler to build, and its only a car furgadsake-we've been doing this for a hundred years!
It is possible to rapid charge for half the trunk road price. I did it yesterday for 40p/kWh ----- on holiday in the Isle of Man. So 0.13% of the UK population is not being ripped off. I don't know if this is down to some scheme that the Tynwald has thought up or if it was a commercial decision by the supplier. I think there are 4 rapid chargers on the island, not a high ratio.
That's a solid point! It's wild how the second-hand EV market is shaping up. More peeps should definitely consider making the switch—savings and sustainability all in one!
I think that the low second-hand value of EVs (in the UK) is mainly down to charging. If you cannot park your car on your property then you have to rely on commercial charging. Rapid charging on trunk roads generally costs 85p per kWh, which is over 12 times the cost of off-peak home charging, three times the domestic retail price and about twice the cost of petrol. The distribution of charge points is also patchy. One notorious example is Leicester Forest East motorway services, which has no (functioning) charge points and is one of the busiest services in the country. This is all down to lack of government regulation, which has failed to control the installers of charge points, failed to get manufacturers to ensure compatibility of plugs, sockets and charging currents. There are networks of charging stations that have lower costs for fast charging (7.7 kW and three phase and 22 kW), but I get the impression that still not many EVs can use three phase. That seems to be the case with my recently purchased 2-year-old E208. So it's a bit of a minefield and most governments are not helping to get things running more smoothly.
I agree that this is a big issue. We have just traded up from a 2nd hand mark 1 Leaf we bought in 2018 to a 2nd hand Kia Soul 64kWh. We are a 2 car family and in the fortunate position of being able to have a home charger. In the 6 years of having the Leaf, we used it for all our local running around and almost exclusively charged it at home. It was fantastic and fully converted us to the convenience and economy of running an EV. With the new Soul, we now have the potential to do longer runs, recharging using the fast charge network and discovering the attendant economics. On pure fuel alone, it is indeed about 2x as expensive per mile to do a trip on fast charge electric versus fueling a reasonably efficient petrol or diesel alternative. When we came to selling our Leaf, it took a while to go and I thought it went for not much money. We live in a part of the country where ICE equivalents to the Leaf, at the bottom end of the market, are quite sought after. My thoughts were that this is down to barriers to entry related to charging, insurance and suitablility for new drivers/learners, and maybe some hesitancy/doubts around the utility and durability of battery power.
Despite this we still remain EV converts and are loving the Soul.
As someone who has recently been looking at buying a second-hand EV, I feel that this is actually a problem rather than a positive story. All car dealers you speak to advise against buying an EV outright (either new or secondhand) due to concerns about depreciation. ICE cars holding their value may make them more expensive to buy for similar mileage but makes them a safer financial decision in the long-term.
The advice from motor experts appears to be to only lease EVs at the moment, which raises questions for me about a) the environmental impact of all these new EVs being churned out and b) the financial impact for me personally, leasing a car and having nothing to show for it at the end of the lease.
In the end, we've decided not to buy an EV because of these concerns about depreciation but I would be very interested in others' perspectives on this!
EV engines (and "fuel" systems) are much more reliable than ICE cars. Our service interval is 24,000 miles. The anser to depreciation is to own the car for 12-15 years, as we did with our basically illegal Polo diesel (no thanks to to VW group). If you have battery issues outside the warranty period, it can be costly, but hopefully there will be more garages by then that can diagnose problems with individual modules and replace them. See YouTube for more info.
Your assertion that electric cars are cheaper to run depends on the price of power. In California it is no longer true, thanks to expensive renewables.
Electric cars depreciate faster because at about 7 years when the battery dies the new battery would cost more than the car is worth. Resale value = $0
It is generally kess costly to generate renewable electricity. There are no fuel costs, so most of the revenue can go into covering the capital costs of new plant. The problem is the pricing policy that governments and regulators impose. In the UK, the unit price to wholesalers is determined by the most expensive source on any particular day, which is always gas. So the generators make sure gas is used every day, even if renewables and base load (nuclear) would be sufficient. Hannah Ritchie, in a oist on Feb 11th this year, showed that there is no clear correlation between consumer prices and amount of RE electricity in different US states. California's problem must be down to the pricing policy used in the state. The complexity of the situation is discussed in the following link: https://www.nrdc.org/bio/mohit-chhabra/feasting-glut-putting-renewable-curtailment-context
Wind and solar are cheap when they are working….30% of the time. The other 70% gets very expensive. To run a 100 MW data center on solar and batteries would require 8 sq. Miles and cost $2b. The UK is too far north and too cloudy for solar. Expect capacity factor in the low teens. California is planning to spend yet another $60 to $100 billion in unnecessary grid upgrades to get close to 50% renewables. California is now paying other states to take excess solar. I expect using gas is the alternative to blackouts, and with the market design, that sets the price for everyone else. The clear culprit in California’s sixty cent kWh is the pursuit of renewables. Hanna is flat wrong about no correlation.
The average domestic electricity rate is currently 25.6c oer kWh, nowhere near 60c. There are problems with renewables, yes. The answer is to use energy as frugally as possible, not to rely on fossil fuels, which cause climate change - an existential threat to humanity. Grid problems in CA are mostly caused by old infrastructure and wild fire and wind damage, themselves exacerbated by climate change.
You have drunk to cool aid. Check San Diego’s on peak residential rate. Average rate means nothing. Climate change is a hoax and more people realize that every day. I’m very familiar with the California grid. I have been working on it for 40 years. I know where the money gets spent. You know articles by someone who wouldn’t know a substation circuit breaker if it fell on their house. This isn’t academia, as Michael Mann has proven, it is real live engineering problems that neither he or Jacobsen can understand. You believe your experts and averages, but here’s the truth Net 0 or anything close can’t happen And won’t happen
I suspected you were coming from a position of climate change denial. You cherry pick information to suit your prejudices. Neither of the links I posted were to academic articles. Neither of them mention a 60c per unit for "California electricity". Yes, there is a range, but the second one shows that there are a couple of companies charging less than the average and I see no harm in quoting the mean, as several organisations concerned with energy issues do. As to carbon dioxide emissions, I don't know what grounds you have for rejecting the established physics behind the warming effects of CO2, shown in 1858 by Eunice Foote and more quantitatively by John Tyndall in 1859. You are rejecting the work and near unanimous views of tens if thousands of scientists. It is therefore incumbent on you to explain how carbon dioxide doesn't warm the planet and how too much doesn't warm it so much that human life could be in jeopardy. If you can't prove that scientifically, then everyone is fully justified in refusing to take any notice of your views on this matter.
So true! I live in the US and last year we purchased our second used PHEV car. We bought it for our teenage niece and our daughter. The short range is an asset in this situation and the cost for fueling are minimal. The only downside is that they are getting use to not having to go to the gas station. As EVs get plentiful, used ones will be a great alternative.
I think the issue is that new EVs have been over priced, but the used market is more efficient and doesn't over price.
As of 2025, the manufacturers have tougher emissions targets to achieve, so expect new prices to fall.
A note on the comparisons: The Tesla M3 is a great car, and I was planning to buy one around now, before Musk changed my mind. However, I would not compare it to a BMW. It is more VW or Volvo in terms of build quality and refinement, though more sporty.
It is difficult in the UK, but perhaps we should address the reasons why?
In most of the world, when you buy a car, you expected to have a space to park it. And if you have a space to park it, you can install a charger.
The UK is rather exceptional that people buy cars with no place to park it, just relying on the Government to give them a street space within a few hundred metres from where they live.
This is potentially good news, but only potentially, because it ignores the most important question: Are they cheaper because they've become less useful? Batteries degrade over time, so electric cars will lose range as they age. Of course ICE cars also degrade over time, but it seems likely that their loss of utility is slower than electric.
We have 3 EVs in our business, 2 of them bought 3 years old with 30-40k (2019 Leaf and 2020 Kia e-Niro), and a 2021 Peugeot E-Expert we bought new. The Peugeot has a small 120-130mi range, which we don't like, but stuck with the lease for another 2 years. The Leaf happened to be the worst version of all Leafs, it hardly does 100miles on a fully charged 40kWh battery. The Kia is just brilliant. 60k, 250mi range, all good.
The Kia had a call back when they replaced the reduction gear and motor (big things) under warranty, hat off to Kia. Apart from that we did not have to fix anything on the EVs for 2+ years, unlike the Addblue, turbo, clutch etc issues we had on the diesel vans.
So I would say that if you investigate the actual model you are about to buy and know what to look for, (model specs, year, expected range, typical faults etc, as with any car), then EVs are a safer bet than ICE vehicles. The recent conclusion is that the batteries outlast the cars, so I can only encourage everyone to go for an EV if they don't have to drive very far too often.
I've owned 3 Teslas over the years and tracked battery degradation. If you don't fully deplete or fully charge the battery (keeping it 80%-20% most of the time) range loss is only about 5-8% for 60,000-80,000 miles. Gas cars will lose similar efficiency and require much more maintenance.
It implies quite a big price drop for new EVs which is unfortunate for people buying those, but I don’t think this suggests there’s anything wrong with the vehicles. It’s more that a lot have happened with EVs and new ones are leagues better than older ones.
For instance when you look at the e-tron from the example, there’s two ranges offered and both got a big boost with the most recent facelift (so 320/420 km to 500/560 km or something like that). It’s obviously much harder now to sell the old 320-range model since people will probably want at least the 420 kilometers range.
This has happened across the board and especially Chinese vehicles and the Tesla price drops put pressure on the entire EV market. It’s what you would expect in a fast moving market and I’m sure we’ll start to see some maturing and less crazy depreciation as the market develops.
For now though it’s great to see the used market being so competitive (for car buyers) and that anyone looking to buy an electric vehicle also have a viable used market to consider.
Yep, my electro sceptic relations would say “this is because people have woken up to them not being as good”. Any evidence to rebuke them?
A recent study suggested 9 out of 10 EV drivers wouldn't go back to an ICE vehicle which suggests a pretty decent level of satisfaction.
The more evidence we get, the longer it seems the batteries will last. And this is a moving target, as new batteries get better, and the problem goes away.
Old, pre 2021 EVs, with short ranges, may not last longer than the car.
Most long and mid range EVs purchased from 2021 should have a battery good for 200,000 miles, which is longer than most petrol engines last. The standard 8 year warranty is rather longer than that on a petrol engine.
New EVs: the battery should outlast the chassis, and then be split up and sent to act as domestic batteries. I think CATL are soon guaranteeing some batteries from 1 million km or so.
> New EVs: the battery should outlast the chassis
Fine; manufacturers should be happy to offer a lifetime no-charge replacement warranty on the battery, then.
The risk of incurring a huge non-insurable expense (or not insurable for reasonable money, anyway) is a large part of why EVs depreciate so fast.
This is potentially good news for buyer of second-hand vehicles, but not for buyers of new vechicles. I have heard several time people saying that the steeper decrease in the value of the electric car on the second-hand market was a barrier to purchasing an EV.
And the second-hand market need some new vehicle buyers.
As the owner of a secondhand EV, I think there are two additional reasons why the secondhand market for EVs is becoming more competitive. One is that newer models often have more range and kit, so even models from 2021 or 2022 are discounted. The other is a concern about what happens when the guarantee on the battery - typically up to 8 years - expires. I hope the latter concern disappears over time - my secondhand EV is a 2021 build and I've currently seen no change in battery life.
Some interesting notes.
One thing that bugs me with every article comparing EVs with ICEs is the weight of the vehicle. I'm sick of hearing that EVs are so heavy we will have to replace every bridge and multi-floory car park, and the tyres somehow break up the road and of course emit carbon particles unlike ICE cars?
For reference, my Audi A6 is 200kg heavier than a Tesla model 3. And, yes, nice cars shame about the CEOs - VW group once again fined this time for greenwashing their recycling stats.
Great news! And as I'm seeing in the comments, there's concern that used EVs are worse. This recent study from Stanford should help, seeing EV batteries last 40% longer than expected
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/12/existing-ev-batteries-may-last-up-to-40-longer-than-expected
I've bought two used EVs from Carmax and it's been great so far. Plus, even as a second-hand buyer I'm still covered by the factory warranty on the battery for quite some time
What this shows is that new EVs are overpriced.
Absolutely. £50K for a mini? Madness. Yes, the makers have R&D costs, and the Battery is expensive, but EVs are much simpler to build, and its only a car furgadsake-we've been doing this for a hundred years!
If one in five cars bought is new, is that car then sold four more times before it becomes scrap?
Yes.
It is possible to rapid charge for half the trunk road price. I did it yesterday for 40p/kWh ----- on holiday in the Isle of Man. So 0.13% of the UK population is not being ripped off. I don't know if this is down to some scheme that the Tynwald has thought up or if it was a commercial decision by the supplier. I think there are 4 rapid chargers on the island, not a high ratio.
That's a solid point! It's wild how the second-hand EV market is shaping up. More peeps should definitely consider making the switch—savings and sustainability all in one!
I think that the low second-hand value of EVs (in the UK) is mainly down to charging. If you cannot park your car on your property then you have to rely on commercial charging. Rapid charging on trunk roads generally costs 85p per kWh, which is over 12 times the cost of off-peak home charging, three times the domestic retail price and about twice the cost of petrol. The distribution of charge points is also patchy. One notorious example is Leicester Forest East motorway services, which has no (functioning) charge points and is one of the busiest services in the country. This is all down to lack of government regulation, which has failed to control the installers of charge points, failed to get manufacturers to ensure compatibility of plugs, sockets and charging currents. There are networks of charging stations that have lower costs for fast charging (7.7 kW and three phase and 22 kW), but I get the impression that still not many EVs can use three phase. That seems to be the case with my recently purchased 2-year-old E208. So it's a bit of a minefield and most governments are not helping to get things running more smoothly.
I agree that this is a big issue. We have just traded up from a 2nd hand mark 1 Leaf we bought in 2018 to a 2nd hand Kia Soul 64kWh. We are a 2 car family and in the fortunate position of being able to have a home charger. In the 6 years of having the Leaf, we used it for all our local running around and almost exclusively charged it at home. It was fantastic and fully converted us to the convenience and economy of running an EV. With the new Soul, we now have the potential to do longer runs, recharging using the fast charge network and discovering the attendant economics. On pure fuel alone, it is indeed about 2x as expensive per mile to do a trip on fast charge electric versus fueling a reasonably efficient petrol or diesel alternative. When we came to selling our Leaf, it took a while to go and I thought it went for not much money. We live in a part of the country where ICE equivalents to the Leaf, at the bottom end of the market, are quite sought after. My thoughts were that this is down to barriers to entry related to charging, insurance and suitablility for new drivers/learners, and maybe some hesitancy/doubts around the utility and durability of battery power.
Despite this we still remain EV converts and are loving the Soul.
As someone who has recently been looking at buying a second-hand EV, I feel that this is actually a problem rather than a positive story. All car dealers you speak to advise against buying an EV outright (either new or secondhand) due to concerns about depreciation. ICE cars holding their value may make them more expensive to buy for similar mileage but makes them a safer financial decision in the long-term.
The advice from motor experts appears to be to only lease EVs at the moment, which raises questions for me about a) the environmental impact of all these new EVs being churned out and b) the financial impact for me personally, leasing a car and having nothing to show for it at the end of the lease.
In the end, we've decided not to buy an EV because of these concerns about depreciation but I would be very interested in others' perspectives on this!
EV engines (and "fuel" systems) are much more reliable than ICE cars. Our service interval is 24,000 miles. The anser to depreciation is to own the car for 12-15 years, as we did with our basically illegal Polo diesel (no thanks to to VW group). If you have battery issues outside the warranty period, it can be costly, but hopefully there will be more garages by then that can diagnose problems with individual modules and replace them. See YouTube for more info.
Your assertion that electric cars are cheaper to run depends on the price of power. In California it is no longer true, thanks to expensive renewables.
Electric cars depreciate faster because at about 7 years when the battery dies the new battery would cost more than the car is worth. Resale value = $0
It is generally kess costly to generate renewable electricity. There are no fuel costs, so most of the revenue can go into covering the capital costs of new plant. The problem is the pricing policy that governments and regulators impose. In the UK, the unit price to wholesalers is determined by the most expensive source on any particular day, which is always gas. So the generators make sure gas is used every day, even if renewables and base load (nuclear) would be sufficient. Hannah Ritchie, in a oist on Feb 11th this year, showed that there is no clear correlation between consumer prices and amount of RE electricity in different US states. California's problem must be down to the pricing policy used in the state. The complexity of the situation is discussed in the following link: https://www.nrdc.org/bio/mohit-chhabra/feasting-glut-putting-renewable-curtailment-context
Wind and solar are cheap when they are working….30% of the time. The other 70% gets very expensive. To run a 100 MW data center on solar and batteries would require 8 sq. Miles and cost $2b. The UK is too far north and too cloudy for solar. Expect capacity factor in the low teens. California is planning to spend yet another $60 to $100 billion in unnecessary grid upgrades to get close to 50% renewables. California is now paying other states to take excess solar. I expect using gas is the alternative to blackouts, and with the market design, that sets the price for everyone else. The clear culprit in California’s sixty cent kWh is the pursuit of renewables. Hanna is flat wrong about no correlation.
The average domestic electricity rate is currently 25.6c oer kWh, nowhere near 60c. There are problems with renewables, yes. The answer is to use energy as frugally as possible, not to rely on fossil fuels, which cause climate change - an existential threat to humanity. Grid problems in CA are mostly caused by old infrastructure and wild fire and wind damage, themselves exacerbated by climate change.
https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/average-electric-bill-in-california#:~:text=In%202024%2C%20the%20average%20electricity,Public%20Utilities%20Commission%20(CPUC).
You have drunk to cool aid. Check San Diego’s on peak residential rate. Average rate means nothing. Climate change is a hoax and more people realize that every day. I’m very familiar with the California grid. I have been working on it for 40 years. I know where the money gets spent. You know articles by someone who wouldn’t know a substation circuit breaker if it fell on their house. This isn’t academia, as Michael Mann has proven, it is real live engineering problems that neither he or Jacobsen can understand. You believe your experts and averages, but here’s the truth Net 0 or anything close can’t happen And won’t happen
I suspected you were coming from a position of climate change denial. You cherry pick information to suit your prejudices. Neither of the links I posted were to academic articles. Neither of them mention a 60c per unit for "California electricity". Yes, there is a range, but the second one shows that there are a couple of companies charging less than the average and I see no harm in quoting the mean, as several organisations concerned with energy issues do. As to carbon dioxide emissions, I don't know what grounds you have for rejecting the established physics behind the warming effects of CO2, shown in 1858 by Eunice Foote and more quantitatively by John Tyndall in 1859. You are rejecting the work and near unanimous views of tens if thousands of scientists. It is therefore incumbent on you to explain how carbon dioxide doesn't warm the planet and how too much doesn't warm it so much that human life could be in jeopardy. If you can't prove that scientifically, then everyone is fully justified in refusing to take any notice of your views on this matter.
So true! I live in the US and last year we purchased our second used PHEV car. We bought it for our teenage niece and our daughter. The short range is an asset in this situation and the cost for fueling are minimal. The only downside is that they are getting use to not having to go to the gas station. As EVs get plentiful, used ones will be a great alternative.
Very insightful.
I think the issue is that new EVs have been over priced, but the used market is more efficient and doesn't over price.
As of 2025, the manufacturers have tougher emissions targets to achieve, so expect new prices to fall.
A note on the comparisons: The Tesla M3 is a great car, and I was planning to buy one around now, before Musk changed my mind. However, I would not compare it to a BMW. It is more VW or Volvo in terms of build quality and refinement, though more sporty.
Sorry to be pedantic in the first sentence Hannah, but three times less is nonsense. Do you really mean a third?
I think "X times less" is a well-accepted way to say "1/X times the quantity". There's no other way people use the phrase, so there's no ambiguity.
Why not say ⅓ instead of wasting space. Some interpret 3 times less than 10 as -20.
All fine and dandy but what about the cost of charging if you cannot do so at home, or if on a long journey?
It is difficult in the UK, but perhaps we should address the reasons why?
In most of the world, when you buy a car, you expected to have a space to park it. And if you have a space to park it, you can install a charger.
The UK is rather exceptional that people buy cars with no place to park it, just relying on the Government to give them a street space within a few hundred metres from where they live.
Then they should buy a hybrid I guess.
No. Commercial charging costs should be regulated.