I truly believe that the most important hurdle for electric cars is not range anxiety or charging infrastructure. It’s price. The huge spike in EV car sales before the expiration of the tax credit is proof of this. The market still hasn’t produced enough cheap, good and new EVs in the United States, but the used car market is starting to drown in them. Now is the time to strike.
Yesterday’s Morning Dump exceeded 300 comments, which is a little above average, and I thank everyone for their thoughts. It seems like we were able to come to some consensus here, though you can’t make everyone happy (and most of those unhappy people were on BlueSky). Today’s TMD dovetails nicely as the used EV market further proves my point. Kia is also helping to show where demand is as the company is starting to produce hybrids at what was once the EV-only Metaplant, although that’s as much a tariff story as anything else.
While tariffs are encouraging hybrid production here in the US, in the EU they’re driving more electric car manufacturing. Those cars will be built by a Chinese manufacturer while existing under a typically British brand. Are brands important? Stellantis seems to think so, which is why it has 9,000 of them.
The Off-Lease Stampede Has Begun And It’s Good For Consumers
I wrote in January that I’d “Wait a little longer to buy a used EV.” If you’re in the market, I wouldn’t wait any longer. Here’s the logic behind this:
- We are at the beginning of the off-lease explosion.
- Gas prices will likely be elevated for a long time.
As I discussed in the last post on this topic, there was a quirk of the now-demolished Inflation Reduction Act that meant that most electric cars were actually leased. To get the tax credit on a sale a car needed to be built in the United States and contain batteries that weren’t primarily sourced from China…. unless they were leased. The reasoning behind this was that President Biden didn’t want to piss off his European and Asian allies–back when that was something the executive branch cared about–so he allowed a loophole for leased vehicles.
Here’s a chart from S&P Global:
All you need to know is that the orange cars are leased. This chart doesn’t include Tesla, but you get the idea. For about three years, a huge percentage of non-Tesla electric cars were leased and, even then, a lot of Teslas were leased as well. The funny thing about the period being three years is that’s also approximately how long most leases are. You can see where this is going, via Cox Automotive/Manheim:
This shows when leases are retiring and, in theory, those cars reenter the market as nice used cars. You can see that hybrid and ICE leases seem to follow a relatively predictable sway depending on larger market conditions. EV leases, though, rise dramatically and hang out there for a while.
As Bloomberg reports, this is currently leading to a rise in people buying EVs, timed well to the conflict in Iran:
Close to 40% of used battery-powered cars currently on dealer lots are priced below $25,000, according to researcher Cox Automotive, roughly half what the average new car sells for in the US.
[…]
The average list price of a used EV is around $35,000, only about $1,000 more than an equivalent pre-owned gas-fueled car, according to Cox. On a six-year loan, the $20 difference in monthly payments is negligible for many buyers. In the high-volume compact SUV segment, the price gap has nearly disappeared between battery-powered and gas models. The average price disparity is closer to $6,000 in the overall new-car market.
This is a fun way to do the math, which is that it’s about an extra $20 a month over a six-year term. I don’t normally look at the car market that way, so I definitely borrowed this concept from my pal Keith this morning. As Manheim pointed out, though, the higher gas prices are starting to move the market a bit:
Three-year-old EV prices have outpaced non-EVs for six weeks in a row and are 11% higher than where they started the year. The longer gas prices remain elevated, the more we expect consumers to turn to fuel efficient vehicles. As EV lease maturities continue to increase throughout the summer, it will be critical to follow EV price trends—especially if the Middle East conflict remains unresolved.”
If you’re not really looking to buy an electric car right now, I think the next big opportunity is early next year, before refunds roll out and after, maybe, gas prices have come back down to historical norms.
The Metaplant Is Now Making Kia Sportage Hybrids
The last time we spoke about the Metaplant in detail it was about the immigration raid that took place there, and a lot has changed since then. One of the biggest shifts is that the Metaplant, which was theoretically designed to make EVs, is now making Kia Sportage Hybrids. What gives?
“This is an exciting moment for all of us at HMGMA,” said Tony Heo, President and CEO of HMGMA. “Through the dedication of our Meta Pros and the strength of our flexible manufacturing system, we have successfully prepared to produce our first hybrid vehicle and our first Kia model. Today represents an important next step as we continue building the future of mobility through world-class manufacturing here in Georgia.”
If you think this is just about EV demand you’d be wrong. This is also a story of tariffs, as Automotive News points out:
With production of the hybrid version of Kia’s top-selling model, the Sportage crossover, shifting from South Korea to Georgia, Hyundai Motor Group expects to see its $5 billion tariff bill ease.
While there are a lot of costs associated with shifting production from South Korea, that 15% tariff adds up real fast.
European Tariffs Have Driven MG To Build In Spain
The last time I was at a car event in the UK there was a big MG display and it was crowded with people. Did they care that MG is now owned by Chinese automaker SAIC? No one I talked to seemed bothered. Did they care that the cars were built in China? It didn’t seem like a huge deal to anyone.
That’s Britain ,and the EU has a different view, having passed on tariffs to stop the continent from being overrun with artificially cheap electric cars. This has resulted in production for electric vehicles from Chinese ventures in Poland, Hungary, and increasingly in Spain, which is where the new MG plant is going.
Establishing manufacturing in the EU would allow SAIC to reduce the impact of tariffs as Brussels intensifies scrutiny of Chinese electric-vehicle subsidies and competition in the market. For Chinese automakers, building locally is increasingly seen as essential to sustaining growth in Europe and reassuring governments that investment will bring jobs, suppliers and industrial capacity.
MG is already the best-selling Chinese brand in Europe, and this will likely help it expand.
Stellantis Really Doesn’t Want To Seem Like It’s Just Rebadging Cars
I don’t know if I trust Stellantis to make a t-shirt. I do think it’s possible for the automaker to differentiate its product, though, as a Jeep Renegade and a Fiat 500x (or even a Fiat Toro). The company finally explained how it’s going to break out its many, many brands by having core, regional, and specialty brands.
Now, in an interview with Autocar, European boss Emanuele Cappellano goes into some more detail:
“We really don’t want to be misunderstood when we talk about what is a global brand, what is a regional brand, which is a specialty brand,” said Cappellano. “We are not ranking the brands in terms of relevance. The point is how we can be smart in terms of capital allocation.
[…]
“In the meantime, we’re working on the following launches on the same platform, where most of the effort, in terms of capital expenditure, is on diversifying – really diversifying – the models and line-up and not just rebadging.
“So you will have the new Peugeot first and after that you’re have a new Vauxhall that is not a rebadged Peugeot, then an Alfa Romeo, a Jeep or whatever.”
I don’t know why, but a “a Jeep or whatever” is funny to me.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
This is the “Very Unofficial Scotland World Cup Song” by some guy named JJ Bull doing his best James Murphy impression. This song is meant to be humorous, though, as my friend Dan notes, “this joke song uh rips.”
The Big Question
What’s the best deal in used EVs right now?
Top graphic images: Ford; DepositPhotos.com
So here’s the thing. I went through this just last week.
We had a 2023 Grand Cherokee 4xe – WELL over its mileage, but I wasn’t concerned because my plan was to buy it at the end of the lease, anyway. Ally even threw a $5K reduction at the buyout cost. That should have been a sign.
You see, it didn’t work out. Because nobody would write a loan for me to purchase a 60K mi 4xe for $34K. And yet….
No problem financing a MORE expensive 23 Grand Cherokee with the Pentastar.
“The LTV is out of whack on that hybrid – it’s like 190%” was what we figured out.
That’s right. A car with a $63K sticker turns out to be worth about $17-$18K wholesale after just three years. Mileage overage aside, that’s a TON of negative equity. Where did it come from?
Some of it is due to the fact that it’s a Jeep. Stellantis has had never-ending problems with tis 4xe powertrain. And now it’s an orphan, since they killed it. The recalls, failures, buy-backs, and consumer complaints were loud and constant. Those are an electric cherry on top of the normal residual beating a Stellantis vehicle seems to take, though the Grand Cherokee has been a bit of a slow-depreciating champ for its entire existence. The WLs are probably less so.
Our experience with it, in terms of the nightmare reliability issues and failures other people have reported, was good. It did a few whacky things (shut itself completely off on the highway with my wife and her mom in it, for example), and a certain set of conditions would cause an electromagnetic field to escape the wire shielding during regen and trigger a “service hybrid system soon” warning (with charming wrench-that-looks-like-a-lobster-claw icon. Very New England). They told us not to charge it and make sure it wasn’t near combustible stuff for a few months while they worked through the 68C battery recall. One in a string of battery and charging system software recalls, updates, etc.
It was otherwise solid, in that sense. It was CLUMSY AS F*CK though. The handoff between gas engine (The GME is clattery trash, btw) and electric motor was VERY rough for the first couple weeks, and it never got slick like a Prius. It was nice to charge and get 30 miles on battery. It was quick and torquey (if also herky-jerky).
The brakes were super-weird. The pedal feel, digitally-generated as it was, was deceptive, and I would always be rolling way too fast with far too little space when approaching a line of traffic at a stoplight.
It was a good highway cruiser. It was VERY efficient for a Grand Cherokee – especially in-town.
Comfortable, nicely appointed. UConnect 5 is stupider than earlier versions – too much stuff in it, too many icons, too slow, weak processor, takes forever to wake up in the morning (like 3 miles into the drive and it’s still super laggy).
Car review aside – the MAIN REASON it’s worth so little, is that it was a lease, and you’re damn right I took advantage of the IRA tax credit. Which means the dealer got $7500. And that means the car was instantly worth $7500 less.
This is the case with *EVERYTHING* coming off lease right now. They’re underwater in terms of LTV for a buyout. Dealers and finance companies will provide plenty of rebates to get you into a brand new 2026 model to keep the metal moving and the factories going. And with the economic situation right now, many buyers are monthly-payment shoppers. A lease on a new car will sit your monthly payment in the same place (or lower) than it had been from what I just saw out there.
In my case, I didn’t want to finance the negative equity for another few years, because that’s dumb. We used the miles, I’ll deal with that separately.
But I also didn’t want to lease again. So we bought used. And though we bought a gas car, we could have gotten a used 4xe for a VERY VERY good price. (Again, not the albatross to hang around your neck).
All this to explain a little bit: Used EVs and PHEVs are screaming deals right now. But that’s going to come to an abrupt end when the gas price skyrockets in July. So get it now, or you’re going to see even more price hikes as the market adjusts demand to meet the moment, and dealers are sitting on a LOT of inventory that’s suddenly worth more because of a fuel price crisis.
The best time to buy an off-lease EV or PHEV was February. If you missed out on President’s Day and Memorial Day, and you’re shopping, I don’t anticipate it getting any cheaper as we head toward the summer, because we’re in a special season of stupid right now.
The flip side, too, is that EV ownership is delightful. They drive fantastically well. Charging is not an issue, you just need to look out for where you can charge and keep your range in mind. Kinda the same as a gas car, but with a different set of infrastructure. They are legit cheaper to run. Even if you don’t have solar. They’re better for the air we breathe, even if you charge with coal-fired electricity. And they’re a great driving experience, usually. The 4xe was at its best in EV mode, for sure.
By “whacky”, do you mean “whack” as in “try to kill”? Because I’d put “shut[ting] itself completely off on the freeway” closer to “life-threatening safety issue” than “harmless quirk”
Yeah – it wasn’t just a quirk. And it felt potentially deadly. At the very least quite dangerous. Many documented cases. Only didnit twice. Two times too many.
That’s some residual value loss right there!
I was thinking the same. Even if it “only” happened once, well you can’t die twice so…
To be fair, a few weeks ago when my i3 was transferring over to the range extender on the highway, it limited itself to 35 mph few a few miles and I’m still driving it. I guess we all have a level of stockholm syndrome when it comes to our cars…
Yeah this. I’m confused about a couple of things from all this tale:
A. Why did Dan even want to keep a vehicle that tried to kill his loved ones?
B. Why did Dan want to buyout the lease on a vehicle with nothing but problems, depreciation like a rock falling off a cliff, and an orphan powertrain from a company like Jeep?
A: Overall, we liked the 4xe. It got its software updates and recalls and had been behaving itself for the last several months.
B: We knew it was going to depreciate kinda hard, but this was epic compared to expectations.
B2: It wasn’t an orphan when I hatched this plan in 2023. It was just recently they decided to pull the plug, as it were.
B3: Our ownership experience wasn’t full of wailing and gnashing of teeth. The car was good for us, other than its inherent flaws, like the under-developed powertrain. I joked that it drove like a prototype, but honestly, I was just telling the truth.
A lot of EV praise from you the last few days but then you buy a gas car? Why’s that?
I am an enigma wrapped in a puzzle.
Situationally dependent and brand preference. As I said, the 4xe is not the PHEV you want to own long-term. So if you want to stay Jeep, your choices are used w/Pentastar or new w/Hurricane.
I’m sure the Hurricane is a fine-driving engine. It’s got more peak torque and a much fatter torque curve thanks to that turbocharged bandwidth. However…I’m tired of owning turbocharged 4 cylinders, as someone who commits hard and keeps the vehicles for many years (I was intending to keep the leased 4xe, at first). I’ve never had a turbo fail – they’re reliable, but they do eventually leak; externally and into the intake tract. Underhood temps are brutal. And I know and like the Pentastar; its the PUG version of the 3.6 we have in our 2013 WK2.
Doesn’t mean I don’t want to go full EV at some point, right now, this was the right decision for this purchase.
I’ve been on a similar schtick lately. I keep eyeing electric and PHEV options at different prices but I’m picky about things that many folks around me may not care as much about.
(F-150 Lightning is too big, others have no spare, I would prefer some V2L options, cellular opt-out, I’d have to see if I can stand the Solterra/bZ’s (and similar) lack of glovebox, display position, etc.)
I like my 4Runner a lot and it’s almost certainly going to stick around as my daily but I can think of only one other person I know who I would recommend it to while there are definitely more than a few folks who would be well-served by something electrified.
Clarification: The *finance company* got the tax credit, not the dealership. So the IRA, with so many leases happening, was a pretty big gift of our tax dollars directly to automotive finance companies. You’re welcome, Ally.
Can’t say I’m too mad about it. I probably would be if I looked into the details more.
True but most of those finance companies passed the full $7500 credit to the customer. That is how we got crazy low monthly lease payments. That and artificially inflating the residual values.
The dealer that I bought my EV at had several off-lease Grand Cherokee 4xe models on their lot for staggeringly low prices. They had a 2023 Summit Reserve 4xe with 20,000 miles on it for $25k that briefly tempted me. The more I looked into the issues the more I talked myself out of it, especially since the GC really didn’t fit my long commute as well as a normal hybrid or EV would. I think I made the right call going BEV, especially since I still have my built TJ for doing Jeep things with.
That’s a lot of car for the money. 25K is spot on
God, I wish this were a “special season of stupid.” This is just another bad season of stupid compounded by whatever the stupid season equivalent is to global warming. Global dumening?
See, I left out the “b” because I’m so clever!
https://youtu.be/yBjtFyTvCHQ
We’re on the third sequel of the same shitty franchise. Ronnie was a better speaker, but it’s the same old nonsense.
He really did ruin everything.
I don’t think we’ve seen the bottom for used EV prices. A lot more of them are coming off-lease, with may of them from states with their own tax incentives that further reduced the initial price.
I’ll be returning my Ioniq5, and the lease buyout is still $30k. I would be surprised if the best comparable examples are selling for $20k by the time I turn this in next summer. I’ve already had trade-in letters from my dealership offering less than $15k as a trade.
Used EV prices have started to tick up, at least in some areas.
It’s going to depend on how hoghbgas proces go, and for how long.
I feel like we’re seeing the thin edge of the used EV wedge.
Price ticks at this stage are dealers trying to cash in on gas prices, not necessarily tied to actual used EV demand or supply.
Probably. Anything fast is a local action. On the other hand, there’s fewer used cars in total to go around. The delta isn’t small compared to historical inventory levels. Just in time for people to be pushed to used vs new for a whole bunch of reasons.
I purchased a Chevy bolt manufacturer buyback w 23k miles in 2023 for 7k after the 4k tax rebate. Immediately it threw the battery replacement code, and the dealer replaced it while paying for our rental and the GAS used in the rental! Paid cash for the car that is even still under warranty for another 5 years and hasn’t needed any maintenance. Even still on the OG tires at 45k miles now. Possibly the best car purchase I will ever make in my life. Hopefully my daughter can use it as her first car in 12 years.
We had 2 Bolts (a 23 EUV Premier and an 23 EV LT-1) – both outstanding for what they were. We purchased both new with the old tax credit.
Family needs changed over the past 2 years. We sold the EUV to Carvana after 2 years and for $26K for it (we originally paid $33K) – not bad for 2 years of driving and less depreciation than I expected.
We also sold off the EV to CarMazx for $16.4K (Paid 22K for it) – also less depreciation than I expected for 2 years.
Both cars were worthy, sounds like you got a great deal!
yeah its a great car! tempting to trade in with the KBB at around 13k at the moment but we might as well just keep it forever. The wife actually loves driving it and its perfect for her 45 mile commute.
Yes the bolts were a stupid good value with the tax credit, so much so that the depreciation was very little in comparison to most cars. I paid $20K for my 2023 new in Feb of ’23 and sold it for $19K in January 2025 with 20000 miles on it. That was only $1000 of depreciation on a brand new car after 2 years and that was after all the crazy covid price increases so not related at all to that.
The Bolt is fantastic, and I’ve heard several stories like this.
Nice work!
We got a 2022 EUV Premier Launch Edition last year for my son to drive. I specifically was punching VINs into the GM Recall website to see if batteries were replaced under warranty and what the new warranty was. It was a great way to get a couple extra years and about 30,000 mile of extra battery warranty. It was really a bargain compared to nearly everything else out there. It’s been trouble free so far and it’s roomy, very speedy and well equipped for a economy car/commuter car. Ours has heated seats in both rows, cooled seats in the front, supercruise, adaptive cruise, and a big sunroof. What else do you really need? Just don’t get it for long trips if you need DC Fast Charging, since it is super slow to charge or look at a new 2027 Bolt if you need faster charging, but you won’t get carplay and AA on the newer one. .
We got a 2018 2 years ago and it’s been a miracle. I want another.
Also worth noting:
Those lease-returned vehicles are going to probably all wind up in the wholesale market instead of being purchased by the original leaser (leasie?) . The only data point I have is my brother had leased a Kona EV for 2 years. At the time the lease was a no-brainer only $220 a month all-in for 24 months / 12K miles a year max. Worked out great for him.
When it was time to return it, they really wanted to buy it, but the contract buy-out was $29,000! He asked and asked for a fair deal but NON-NEGITIABLE. Way, way over-priced for the current used market. He handed it back in (no hassle) and found a new Ioniq 5 for $33K at another dealer (see my other post). Nice step up from the Kona.
The dealer said the Kona was going to wholesale. They weren’t interested in putting it on their used lot.
Leases are owned by the finance company, so usually a dealer can’t really do anything about the residual price. If they don’t want to retail it for more than the residual, it’s going to wholesale. Same reason I’m not buying my Ioniq5 off lease. The residual is about $10k more than I’d reasonably pay for the thing.
The residual on my SEL is $30k. I have more than a year left and dealers are already asking less than that.
I may be willing to keep the vehicle if they’ll sell it at market price. Other than that I’ll just buy a comparable one at a 30%+ discount.
Yes, that’s called the Residual and was spelled out in his initial lease contract. Generally, the car has to be worth way, way, way less than this value for the leasing company to negotiate, and they would have already attached that as a note on the lease return. They have already priced in some delta between market value and Residual, sounds like your brother’s Kona wasn’t one of the ones that tanked far enough to trigger the exceptions.
The opposite case also happens, where certain cars (limited edition BMWs are my immediate memory) end up with market values way above their Residual, so the customer can just buy out at Residual (per the original lease contract) then turn around and sell it on to the dealer, pocketing a nice chunk of cash. Not a very common situation though.
Almost everyone whose lease ended at the height of the post Covid car shortage ended up buying at residual, many just kept the car but some probably did sell it back.
Ah, that is true. Such a whacky time for everything.
I recently purchased one of those off-lease EVs to replace my worn-out hybrid commuter. I was initially looking at buying another used hybrid, but took a glance at the EVs on the lot. In my case, I found I could get a 3-year old used EV with 12,000 miles for the price of a 3-year old hybrid with 60,000 miles. More profound was the hybrids in that range were lower trim levels, while the EV I picked up was the top trim. I luckily have a horribly inefficient beater Jeep to fall back on if I have issues with my EV, so the risk is relatively low for me to give one a shot, but the upside is pretty high on cost savings (my $10 per day of gas commute is now less than $2 of electricity).
The biggest issue for me with electric is their crippling depreciation. The cost per mile to operate is too high for me.
My wife is leasing an Equinox EV. Because she has a shitty commute and its cheap to charge. Anyway…. not sure we would buy it. But if they come back and practically give it to us for cheap? Maybe. Its $150 a month to charge at home. That compared to filling up the Subaru twice a week which by now would be probably $400 a month in gas
EVs have, IMO, an unfair negative perception b/c of the timing. Ppl believe they are unreliable, but what they don’t realize is all new cars are now reliant on hundreds of buggy chips running buggy software. So yes, EVs are unreliable, but only bc all new cars are less reliable than a decade ago.*
*Stelantis EVs are extra unreliable, but only b/c they are made by Stelantis.
Agreed all modern cars (2020+) are buggy.
My fix is driving a $3k car that’s old enough to vote, and also happens to have dirt cheap insurance rates. At 30mpg, $4.119/gal, and a 2800mi/mo commute, I’m paying a total of $480/mo including insurance and registration.
20 buck more a month would be a non issue based on gas savings for most.
I still don’t want an EV though.
We won’t see this play out for several years, but I’m wondering if the surge of depreciated EVs will ultimately lift new EV sales too. That lower purchase price is going to get a lot of people into EVs who may never have considered one before. I could see that leading to more people buying new EVs, but again, years down the line.
The classic drug dealer tactic, the first taste is free. Or heavily discounted, anyhow 🙂
They got me. I couldn’t say no to a 10k mile 2025 Equinox EV for less than $20k but now I’m hooked on EVs for my daily driver. It’s too nice and easy to just always wake up with a full (80%) battery and go anywhere
100% – once you’ve made the leap, it means you’ve figured out the infrastructure and charging needs. That’s the biggest hurdle.
Not to mention the driving experience is so incredibly superior for commodity cars. It might be a downgrade to replace an GT3 RS engine with an electric motor – but we’re talking turbo 4 cylinders mated to a CVT here.
The increase in refinement alone is well worth not going back.
But wouldn’t someone who got a used EV for cheap just want another used EV for cheap?
One thing that will be weird when EVs get very cheap is charging. A lot of shoppers in the shallow end of the used market do not have the ability to charge at home.
If that is enough to keep those buyers away, EVs may end up taking an even bigger price hit. People with home charging can probably get a new EV if they want it.
As with the last time we had surging fuel costs and a recession (I don’t think I’m stretching too far with that prediction), the people who struggle with the cost of fuel are also not in a position to sell their inefficient ICE vehicle for a used EV. Gas guzzler values will sink in the used market and many car loans will be underwater.
We are going to see a lot of three row SUVs suffering suspicious thefts where the thieves abandon them in water.
Even at price parity, I personally am not really interested in an EV.
Unless its a Slate pickup or something like that. But then again, I already OWN my vehicles, so why get rid of something with no car payment just so you can save a couple of bucks on gas.
The math ain’t mathing.
There are reasons to drive them other than just gas savings. Now that they’re basically price competitive with ICE vehicles, you can buy one based on other attributes without cost being a major a concern. Although I have to say that knowing the cost of my solar array isn’t changing as gas prices spike is a good feeling.
But if you’re not interested in an EV, the good news is that there are a LOT of ICE vehicles out there to choose from and they’re about the same price as an EV.
If you already own your current vehicles and they’re in a good state of repair, there’s zero reason to buy something newer right now. The Slate may be an exception. I’ve even been looking at one as a local runabout if the math can math, and I have near zero interest in an EV.
For reference I’m an outlier where my commute distance is higher than most people’s weekly milage.
We are in a time of $1000+ car payments and 84 month loans.
Holding the clear title to your own vehicle is rare.
We also are in a time when minimum wage baristas think they are entitled to brand new $50k Audi crossovers.
I’m all out of fucks for people who willingly put themselves in these terrible financial situations.
A lot of those long loans are going towards Nissan Altimas.
I can’t roll my eyes harder or they’ll fall out of my head
Well don’t do that because lord knows your insurance won’t cover it!
The used EV market has shifted upward and isn’t the raging deals it used to be 6 months ago.
The big thing I’m seeing is that hybrid values are not getting a boost from the crap going on in the Middle East. I can get a 1 year old Prius with 7k miles and a CPO for less than a 2 year old Mach-E with 20k miles and no CPO.
I buy cars for the long haul. That Prius is not going to have problems for a long, long time and it isn’t going to use a lot of gas for all that time as well. The Mach-E might be a bit cooler to drive and roomier (which I don’t actually need), but I’d rather put money into a Toyota Prius than any Ford product if I want to keep something forever.
Oh, and if it ends up that the Prius doesn’t drive as nice as it looks. There are plenty of Camry hybrids with similar deals.
So Trump went out of his way to kill EVs and push oil consumption up, then started a war pushing gas prices up and EV demand soaring. Satisfying to see Karma slap dipshits this way.
The only problem is that the Turd’s dumb ass war is costing us all, in many ways besides gas cost.
Such a total and complete ass hole….YMMV
It still blows my mind that ppl make long term buying decisions based on the crisis of the month. This war (or whatever we’re calling it) is dumb and I want ppl to buy EVs, but no one has any clue what gas prices will be in 6 months, let alone 6 years.
Long-term though, it’s a fairly safe bet that gas prices will rise more than electrical prices. Aside from renewable and battery prices continuing to drop, it’s way easier to to turn gas into electricity than vice-versa.
Does that chart mean that noone is buying a Vinfast and they are all leases?
Makes sense though. This dealer is doing 39 month leases on a VF8 for $249 a month with nothing down. It’s only 7500 miles a year, but still, why would you buy. Note that their entire stock is 2025 models
https://www.vinfastlisle.com/
From what I’ve read of their reliability, I wouldn’t take one if you paid me $249 a month.
Again we need a economics expert to really state common sense. EVs started at sales priced supported by tax payers. And from there it is a graph point going from sales price to nothing. With ICE cars you start at new price and you decline but you don’t go straight down to worthless you get parts value, used car market value, trade in value. The EV loses the taxpayers spiff as soon as it’s sold on the 2nd owner it is the closest it is ever going to get to the value of the ICE version and after that it won’t be worth shit.
unless you have a rebate for 2nd owner EVs! And then if that starts to cause problems, have another rebate for 3rd owners. What could go wrong?
This is how we get Cash for Clunkers 2: EV Boondoggle.
There was a used EV tax credit before the current admin. Almost bought a used Bolt, but the dealer low balled me on the trade and I ran out of time to find another after I walked.
Yup. I used it too. I don’t remember—was it only for the second owner or for any buyer?
I think it was for anyone IF the used credit hadn’t been used on that particular vehicle, but it’s been a minute.
That sounds right. So simple fix: bring it back but let it be used twice on a vehicle. And if that has unintended consequences, just add another credit and so on.
Talking in monthly payments? Did I accidentally walk into a shady car dealer’s office or something? $20/month over 72 months is $1440 (which I guess technically rounds to the $1000 mentioned later, but that feels like a “lies, damn lies, and statistics” number). Just say that and stop perpetuating the foolish fixation on monthly payments.
Also this:
Pretty disingenuous to compare used and new prices this way. They should be comparing what a used EV costs versus a used ICE. This is not helping with the shady car salesman vibe.
From what I’m hearing that’s probably optimistic. A lot of oil infrastructure in the Middle East is seriously damaged, and even if the war stopped today that stuff isn’t being rebuilt overnight. And eventually we’re not going to be able to keep drawing down our strategic oil reserves to artificially depress the price, especially since those reserves were already lower than they should have been from Biden drawing on them when Putin invaded Ukraine. That’s the sort of thing a smart person would have considered before pissing off one of the major players in the Middle East, but here we are.
TLDR: It’s a shitshow and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
A DeLorean with a flux capacitor so you can travel back in time two months and buy before everything jumped 20%.
Amen brother the current gas prices which in.my area are coming down but no matter what EV prices are just going to go down until no trade in value. No EV is going to be a collector car because around 10 years everything needs replaced and once you do that it is a used car that costs more than a new car that is the same make and model
There isn’t that big a complexity gap between ICEs and EVs.
Almost everything that needs replacing on an EV in 10 years will also need replacing on an ICE.
What do you mean “everything needs to be replaced?”
Electric motors are super-reliable for decades, most of the time. Batteries might need some service here and there, but they’re largely reliable and don’t merit any fretting for, again, decades.
The stuff that wears out on every car also wears out on EVs. So the several thousand dollar bill to bring any 10 year old car back to “0 mile” condition will be pretty much the same EV vs. gas. The nice thing is you won’t have a bunch of heat cycling petro burning stuff to also be wearing out inside an engine or transmission.
They’re simpler and overall more reliable. And the horror stories and specious numbers about massive hidden costs waiting to blow up are FUD.
People collect ICE cars taht aren’t worth shit, too. 2nd and 3rd gen F-Bodies have been loose-tolerance garbage since 1990, for example.
The real crime here was not filling the reserve early in the pandemic when inland crude prices went negative – but at that point in time the regulations did not allow this type of purchase. We should really change the way the reserve is run and start buying when the price dips below $60, and ramp up as prices go down further.
How about before selling any oil overseas and banking those profits the U.S. based oil companies fill the national reserve to capacity at whatever they are claiming their adjusted cost basis is when filing corporate taxes. In the name of “National Security” and “Patriotism” of course and with no losses.
The problem is we don’t actually consume much of the oil we produce because our refineries aren’t set up for it. There are different types of oil that vary based on where you get it, and we, in our infinite wisdom, built refineries for the cheap Middle East oil and have always sold all the expensive North American stuff to other people.
Yes, I’m aware of that, but with all this blather about national security this and national security that all the time and needing to “onshore” everything, why is it not a thing that we have to be able to refine all of the type of oil that we actually produce here? If everyone else decides to cut us off for whatever reason, then what? Seems quite shortsighted but far from surprising…
It’s a good way to highlight the potential for total cost of ownership savings. Is your fuel bill more than $20 higher than your electricity bill would be for the same month? In that case, the BEV is saving you money every month. Throw in some interest if you want, but most people are capable of looking at that and saying “that won’t even get me half a tank…”.
I did that math after buying my EV in 2019 – it replaced an 18 mpg Grand Cherokee. We didn’t buy it specifically for cost savings, but realizing that we were saving $112/month on fuel alone (in 2019 dollars and gas prices) was a nice perk. That money was freed up to do something else.
Unless the Cherokee was already paid for then you need to consider the car payment and charger or charging costs vs gas cost alone.
The GC had been paid off for years – it was 19 years old at the time. We didn’t buy the EV because it was the cheapest possible way to move around town. Sometimes you just want something a bit nicer, safer and newer. Would you like your effective car payment to be decreased by $112/mo? Anybody would!
This is simply an actual example of how operating costs should be taken into account on a vehicle. If the Jeep and the EV had been the same cost to buy (which was the thrust of the article), then that fuel cost would become a significant differentiator.
Back to my specific example: that savings is taking charging costs into account. The charger came with the car (cost: $0) and I installed it myself (cost: about $20). Charging is about 4c per mile if purchased from our utility, or $0.72 for the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline for the Jeep. Obviously the total monthly cost was higher than it was driving a two decade old Jeep, but not as much higher as you’d think because of the “hidden” savings of fuel costs.
We’ve paid off the EV (ahead of time, because guess what you can do with an extra Benjamin every month?), so now our biggest cost to drive is registration and insurance. Meanwhile the Jeep would still be requiring a gallon of increasingly expensive gasoline every 18 miles. And that’s before you take into account the solar panels on the roof of the shop…
That’s true. It’s just the whole way the numbers were presented in that section was using every shady car dealer trick in the book.
I’ll stick w/ plutonium for my imaginary Delorean! The flux capacitor is working great though…be right back: I’ll go back and buy cheap gas for all Autopians!
“Plutonium? Are you telling me this sucker is nuclear?”
My SV-1 time machine runs on uranium which is a lot more economical than that higher atomic number stuff. Lol
Awesome!
It would be nice for an auto website to answer this question.
I need an EV that will last me 20 years (from when I buy it), less than $25K, less than 25K miles.
I might have to go someplace where there is lower demand and higher supply of EVs, and make my inaugural trip a guest article. All this and pass the wife test, as she will be driving it daily.
Probably want a Bolt as long as you don’t need to road trip.
Thank you for the advice!
We’d take the other car for longer trips. Up to wine country, which is a frequent day trip? That might be a stretch in an EV. It’s 111 miles to our nearest wine club vineyard. Next-nearest is 143 miles (usually an overnighter.)
And Vegas would be a fun trip, requiring a long stop in Bakin’-in-the-Sun (207 miles). Can get to Vegas and back to Baker on that battery-tank.
A Bolt from 2022 would get us 259 miles from full.
One within 100 miles with 22K miles for $17K. Hmmm…
Our Ioniq 6 is our road tripper now, but the Bolt is dead simple, so I think it has less that can go wrong for long term ownership. You can check VIN on the GM recall website to see when they replaced the original battery and what the new battery warranty is.
The Chevy Bolt after the warranty recall, it has been a great deal. It has been the most trouble free car we have ever owned, just wipers and tires so far. Its much better (BEV2) than the Ultium platform (BEV3) GM released after. Yes, DC charging could be painful slow but this is the perfect commuter car. You can have a hybrid or regular gas for long trips if thats a thing for people.
Thinking about getting a Bolt to replace my ICE since our Ioniq is the road trip car now.
This is $1000 and about 200 miles from me and therefore tempting:
https://portland.craigslist.org/yam/cto/d/dundee-1981-ford-escort-electrica/7933458215.html
Do it. Join me and a few other fools in the club of Jet Electrica ownership.
I have dabbled in EVs in the form of one that turned out to be too broken for reasonable repair even by my own quixotic standards (my former 2007 Zap Xebra), one that is no longer street-legal under current state law (my 1977 Lyman Electric Quad), and one that’s both too broken and not street-legal (my other 1977 Lyman Electric Quad) so it might be nice to have another go at it.
Oh wow, Xebra owners do exist!
Well, I was a Xebra owner. This is when I hauled it home:
https://live.staticflickr.com/815/41442798171_50d5d2c1ac_c.jpg
and this is how I eventually dealt with its various issues:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52472757796_099584eeb2_c.jpg
I still have both Lymans, though. Here’s the nicer of the two when it was on display as part of an EV exhibit at the California Auto Museum:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52359711242_e4c486cd76_c.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52360973749_deb360c3e1_c.jpg
Yikes! Glad I was too poor to get one back in the day.
Does your state not do LSVs or have really strict e-bike rules for the Lymans?
The Lymans don’t meet the local (Seattle) standards for LSV/NEV status and the fourth wheel means they can’t legally be e-bikes. State law used to include an “other” category for nonconventional mopeds but that’s been rescinded.
Huh, weird they don’t allow 4 wheel bikes. A lot of accessible cycles are 4 wheeled, so that seems kinda dickish to people in wheelchairs who ride, although the really fast ones are trikes, I think. I only know a tiny bit if that side of cycling.
Four wheels with pedals is fine here. The presence of a motor, however, makes it problematic.
Strange. There are some really nice assisted quads/off-road wheelchairs that I guess wouldn’t be allowed up there then. The law always has issues with edge cases, huh?
I am part of the off-lease stampede as my 23 Niro EV is up in July. My head is swimming with car market info. I’ve test driven 4 new and 6 used cars. EVs and older enthusiast cars. TBH its stressing me out, but also fun. I have no idea what I will do.
I will humbly point out that as noted in the article, used electric car prices are up 11% since January….when the recommendation to not buy was made.
Whether now or some future date is the best time is largely dependent on various energy prices. If you are confident about your knowledge of the future on those, you can monetize it much more efficiently than timing a car purchase.????
TBF Matt is a sane, rational actor. If he were President of the United States, he would’ve understood that bombing Iran with the stated goal of regime change was as close as there is to a “Raise Gas Prices” button, and not pulled anything like such a bonehead move.
Then again, despite having lived in the NYC area in the 2010s, Matt isn’t in the Epstein Files either.
Energy price volatility long predates the trumpster and will continue long after he is gone.
You can take any recommendation with however much salt you want. The underlying logic is sound but it can and will change as reasoning changes.
That said, monetizing what we all can see is difficult as divorced from reality the market itself is. Something about solvency and irrationality.
true, but it’s usually not caused by such a massive and predictable self-own. I remember learning in a poli-sci class 20+ yrs ago that Iran’s trump card (sorry) has always been closing the Straight.
This outcome was so stupidly obvious.