Liberal Forum

ROG62 » 27 Apr 2024, 11:08 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Apr 2024, 11:08 pm

Used electric vehicles are depreciating 10 times faster than their gas-powered counterparts, according to a new study from iSeeCars.com. The average price of a used electric vehicle plummeted 31.8% over the last 12 months, compared with a 3.6% decline overall...

https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/tr ... wered-cars

apparently there's bargains to be had....

Few surprises there - the value of second-hand EVs are lurching towards their innate value.. which is nothing.

At the point of second-hand resale, the first question out of the buyer's mouth will soon become, 'When was the battery replaced?' This will always be the first question because the cost of replacing the battery is as much as the EV is actually worth with a replacement battery. So without a recently replaced battery, the EV has no value - in a very real sense. The batteries have a very finite guaranteed life, which depreciates rapidly with fast-charging. Also, any accidents the EV might have been in, no matter how minor, could seriously erode the life-span. So, from the buyer's perspective, new batteries are a natural and reasonable demand

However, the answer to that question will always be, 'it hasn't been replaced'. This will always be the answer, as replacing the battery would strip the seller of the resale value he/she would otherwise get from selling the car, so they'd have been better off scrapping it than going through the hassle of replacing the battery. So from the seller's perspective, replacing the battery is a wholly unreasonable demand which can't possibly be met

So second-hand buyers can't afford EVs, as they can't afford a replacement battery on top of the cost of a second-hand vehicle. The first-hand buyers can't afford EVs either, as they can't afford to replace the battery before resale, as it leaves them with no financial return. Without that return on the resale, they haven't got the money to buy another new EV. They could only afford the one they've got by using the resale value of their ICE vehicles

The rationalisation of the dynamic, down to a zero-sum, takes time - but the outcome is close to inevitable; EVs are the vehicular equivalent of an iPhone but 100x more expensive. They're not a replacement for internal combustion vehicles as only the very wealthy can afford the costs of buying them new, and throwing them away a small number of years later. The second-hand market only still exists at this point, because this hasn't finished working itself through yet