EVs are depreciating faster than gas-powered cars

> EV are progressing fast so they lose value quick,

Are they really, though?

A 2021 Model 3, Mach-e, Polestar 2, Model Y, F-150 Lightning, e-Tron, or ID.4 (to name just a few) are not too different from the ones sold today. Aside from software updates and minor refinements (mostly DFM), I don't see much progress. That's not a problem, since they're all competent vehicles for single-car households.

Several 2025/26 models have even been de-contented compared to their 2021 selves.

Trying to steel-man your argument a little, the only models I can think of with significant progress are the bZ4X/Solterra (widely panned due to initially uncompetitive specs and pricing), Leaf (which has been getting small, incremental improvements for more than a decade) and the now-discontinued Bolt (which was the cheapest road-tripable EV).

I think you really have to be looking compliance cars that entered the market before the Model 3 and/or models that were acknowledged as uncompetitive when new to find significant/fast progress.

No, the real problem is that the true market-clearing price for most of these vehicles was $7500-$10000 less than MSRP (which was set knowing the regulatory environment), combined with the false calculation of depreciation based on MSRP instead of market price.

> in those times, your computer was worth next to nothing in less than a year.

> ICE are stagnant. They retain their value because they're not improving at all.

This doesn't make sense. As already pointed out, the reason computers lose value is because the same money can buy something that does the job better (faster, lighter, etc). ICE don't retain value because they're not improving; they retain value because they still do the same job X years later.

EVs, meanwhile, are losing value even though the same money as a used EV can't buy anything that actually does the job better, as pointed out earlier in the thread. So there must be something else in play (such as battery degradation lowering value of EVs quicker than engine wear & tear lowers value of ICEs).

At some stage, "improvements" become nothing more than marketing buzzwords.

I'd argue one reason ICE are "stagnant" are because they're "good enough" and any potential improvements required expensive R&D and manufacturing changes, for results that purchasers won't change their buying decision for. Maybe Toyata could make an ICE for the Camry that was 5% more efficient, but few people who were about to buy someone else's equivalent car will choose a Camry instead based on such a marginal improvement.

I think phones are a good current example of this. I have felt zero need to upgrade from my iPhone 13, because the "improvements" since it was new are of zero interest or value to me. I'm quite likely to do a battery replacement on this one instead of upgrading to a new iPhone any time soon. (And the only reason I bought the iPhone13 was to get the backside lidar, I was perfectly happy with the XR I used before that.)

Aside from battery longevity is there really anything better about a new model S compared to a 5 year old model?

Most people don’t want to lose tens of thousands of dollars in value to progress for progress sake… I just bought a car and went ICE in no small part to resale value.

How are EV's progressing fast?

> ICE are stagnant. They retain their value because they're not improving at all.

They aren't degrading either, though

Yeah, pretty much all of them have long battery warranties. Tesla for example garuntees >=70% capacity for 8 years or 100k miles.

That perception means you can get a good deal on a used EV.

Tesla has an 8 year battery and motor warranty.

> ... because the new product is that much better than the used product.

This starts reading like a hallucination after a while. How much in a Tesla had changed over past 5 years or so that makes 2020 model completely obsolete and unappealing relative to 2025 model?

The range hasn't doubled, internal volume hasn't, acceleration or braking hasn't. They may have changed implementations under the hood, but none has been clearly communicated to potential customers, so they might as well be the exact same car.

Meanwhile, 2020 Prius is that ugly one with quirky dashboard, and 2025 is that mustard yellow thing with the HUD-like dash.

So what in an EV is so "rapidly advancing technologically" so much that it perfectly rule out much more simpler explanation that people just aren't interested in EVs, in favor of more hand-wavy one that the newer EVs are just constantly enormously more appealing to the customers that older ones tend to lose the appeal faster?

> The last part of OP's statement is the key. In a field that's rapidly advancing technologically, used prices are depressed because the new product is that much better than the used product.

And 2 years old EV is not twice as bad as current one

> For example there's another post later in this thread that points out that the Nissan Leaf has been the same price forever - except the current-gen Leaf has literally double the range of the last one. Effects like this depress used prices.

The previous gen is 8 years old. It took 8 years to "double" the quality, not 2

What part of EVs is "rapidly advancing technologically"? The battery is the only thing that comes to mind and they should be replaceable if that was the bottleneck. Self-driving is also advancing, but that hasn't stabilized as a feature yet. EV motors have been around for a long time and the rest seems like general car stuff that would be common with ICEs.

Following that logic it seems to come down to old batteries which aren't as good both due to technological advances and battery aging. If so, why aren't used dealers just including a battery swap in the price?

The 50% off the lot was always exaggerated, but it is nearly not true now at all - used prices for all cars have skyrocketed such that buying used is not nearly the deal it used to be.

In fact, buying new is almost always the way to go now over lightly used (e.g., less than 5 or even 10 years old).

> There's a saying that a new car loses 50% when you leave the lot.

New cars in no way lose half of their value when you drive them off the lot. The saying is that a new car loses ~10% of it's value when you drive it off the lot [1].

[1] https://www.carfax.com/buying/car-depreciation

That saying has always been a huge exaggeration, though. The price of a barely-used car is usually single-digit percentage points lower than an actually new one.

Tesla's are also mostly made in China now.

The Chinese Tesla's are also dropping in price if you live in a country that hasn't got massive tariffs on Chinese made cars which is basically everywhere in the world except North America and Europe. Tesla literally won't sell you a Model S in Australia for example since it's made in the USA and there's no way they can sell it for a reasonable price.

It's a little damning for the US car market since Tesla's seen as a success of US manufacturing. Globally they are a Chinese made car.

> Teslas are usually bought by U.S. consumers

More than 62% of Teslas are sold outside of the US.

We've reach a point of price stabilization and longevity for smartphones now that didn't exist for the first 10 year ramp. When every new model added fundamental capability, you always want to upgrade, with the sweet spot often being every other year. But now, with better build quality, batteries, and stabilization of features people will keep their phones for much longer. Or buy "new" models that are of older versions since the price/features have been acceptable to run most of the apps they care about for years now. Plenty of people still want the top end for similar reasons to why people buy design clothing, but we've reached a feature plateau. We hopefully are getting close to that with EVs. Seems like around 300 mile range standard was the key thing. Though improved AI driving could change that again.

Could be part of it, but the US just doesn't have cheap cars anymore. The days of the Geo Metro and the Dodge Neon with a 5 speed and crank windows is over. Car companies have decided to relegate people (in the USA) with either low income, or who cant stomach the type of depreciation every car suffers from, to the used market.

This argument seems right to me. Old ICE cars are basically the same as new ones. EVs are getting better quickly, so fast depreciation makes sense.

I avoided a used Leaf for exactly the reason you cited...2.5 years ago, and have been very happy with a last-of-its-generation 2023 Chevy Bolt (~ $22K new after tax credit).

But if you don't care about new features, e.g., really fast charging, a used Bolt (55kW max) is a great option!

> That doesn’t really happen as dramatically with gasoline cars. The powertrain and driving experience of a 5 year old gas car isn’t noticeably different than a current one.

Depends. I recently went from a manual car to a mild hybrid with an eCVT. Feels pretty different to me.

This isn’t what’s happening though.

I see Tesla Highland models (<1 year old, current gen) selling at significantly larger depreciations than nearly new gas cars. This holds across other EV manufacturers.

Indeed, and didn't even mention ~30% inflation over the last five years.

Seriously. Most families outside the urban core have one car per adult, and a lot have one car per adult plus one for a teen. Often one of those cars gets driven 60-100 miles a day for commute purposes, which makes it an obvious one to make electric. Even if they're a family that's addicted to the infamous 1000-mile road trips where the EV charging infra matters, they can just take the other car for that trip.

Instead people just post long-winded rants about how the highway EV charging shitshow made it too hard to roadtrip in their EV, or make strawman arguments suggesting that EV promoters are trying to force them to have only EVs.

Well yes, it's a matter of perspective, and good used prices are better for society as a whole. You're welcome :). Someone who buys my Model 3 for 35 grand less than I paid for it a few years ago is getting a pretty good deal. But despite my wife wanting something in a different form factor, we're keeping the Model 3 a while longer because selling it would realize what is just a theoretical loss right now. It's just psychological, but it definitely influences our choices.

In the UK the price of gas is currently around the equivalent of $7/gal at the cheapest due to how it’s taxed here and the absence of a subsidy.

Electricity is around 18c/kwh overnight.

I can’t understand how gas cars get sold here anymore at all.

You're right, I was off by a year. We have a 2023, but we bought it in December 2022. Not at the high point, exactly, but still before a big slash in prices, and before the credit. We mistakenly thought the credit wasn't going to happen.

If I sell the car anytime soon it will definitely be the most I've ever "lost" on a car purchase. Oh well.

I’ve read that same sentiment back in 2016. Only difference being that “meme stock” wasn’t a word back then.

I also love the excuse: “I’m right. I’m just not putting any money behind my conviction because the market might deviate from my truth.”

What is that “insight”, that “prediction” worth, if you can’t put money on it without going broke?

Yeah, that Tesla fares better than a Chinese brand we've never heard of doesn't mean much to me. Are there 5 year old ICE Omodas to compare their expected value loss? For Americans, I think it'd be interesting to put compare against several year old Rivians, Ford F-150 Lightnings, etc.

Yes, all the anti-Tesla people went to a meeting a decided that abusing cars was on the menu.

(hint: if even a small majority of them felt that way, there would have been many many orders of magnitude more incidents. more than any gap in reporting could cover. figure out where that narrative was born though.)

Maybe it had the "I bought this long after I knew Hitler was a fascist" bumper sticker?

The current leadership of VW presumably was not around for WW2. Unless you mean to say that they currently support fascism?

He did the Nazi salute twice on stage. He shared anti-semitic propaganda on X, unbanned known nazis, openly campaigned for AfD, a party that has actual Nazis in its ranks, renamed his AI chatbot Mecha Hitler. The list goes on.

He is very much a Nazi sympathizer just like Ford was.

Tesla will also be fine once Musk goes away. The problem right now isn't the actual car, its that you are handing money to a company that directly affects his wealth, even if you buy second hand.

You think this is clever but it's not, unless one of the executives was recently caught doing nazi salutes on a stage, and on camera, and I missed it.

I hate to break it to you, but electric cars probably have the exact same "passenger occupant detection sensor"

I'm outside the range. I have 170,000 miles

> The length of the warranty depends on whether you live in a CARB state.

Does it matter where you live, or where the vehicle was originally purchased/registered?

Newer battery technology is cheaper, but for a battery swap you'll probably need to buy the same battery tech you already have -- which is probably why a battery swap might not be cheap.

70% is when they do the swap, but also under 150,000 miles.

No dice for me, I'm at 170,000 miles.

> What I'm really nervous about is the infotainment system, eventually it is out of date but unless you are maybe driving a Tesla, only the original model will work in your car!

tbh, it's kind of baffling to me how it seems like nobody else is interested in offering software updates to infotainment without needing to take it to a dealer's service bay, if it's even offered at all.

When I bought my Tesla, at the time, "Streaming" (Which was silently powered by Slacker Radio) was the only music streaming integration, but Spotify was added shortly after my purchase. They've since added YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Tidal integrations.

Map data is fetched on the fly. No need to manually install updates. Hell, how many cars even make that an option? My in-laws have an old Prius (I think first gen, maybe second gen?) with built-in Nav, but has never received a map update. Their nav doesn't even know their home street exists.

It doesn't help that so many cars have lackluster infotainment systems. I had a Subaru BRZ in 2016 and was kinda stoked that I could play MP3s from a USB drive, since back then I actually somewhat maintained a collection. I figured I'd get a thumb drive with all my MP3s on it. But the interface completely flattened the directory structure and put them in alphabetical order. There'd be no way to play a single album in sequence if I had multiple albums by the same artist. My folder organization became worthless.

But I've digressed...yeah, more car manufacturers should offer software updates for their infotainment.

>the infotainment system

Though this is true of ICE vehicles as well although CarPlay has eliminated that to a significant degree.

Wiper blades, cabin air filter(s), 12V battery, refrigerant dryer, suspension. Arguably drive unit oil. Very good idea to lubricate moving parts, hinges, apply protection to weather stripping, exposed steel on underbody.

Yes, my ICE required those things, but not including tires, those other things were only like 1/3 of the total maintenance costs. The ICE components ran under 5 cents per km and the non-ICE components ran over 9 cents per km.

I don't see that I was especially lucky with the ICE components, I did all the scheduled maintenance plus some other misc things (water pump x2, bad transmission bushing, etc.) (Oil and filters just don't add up to all that much - I followed the maintenance schedule using high mileage synthetic and high-mileage filters and the total cost was under $100/year at a dealership.)

I also don't see that I was especially unlucky with the non-ICE components, I've got a 13-year sample size of steady, unremarkable maintenance to tires, paint, brakes (these always corroded from salt before they wore down, so no real EV savings to be had on brakes), misc trim pieces, etc. Looking at my Excel sheet of maintenance, I'd expect these costs to be higher on nearly any EV, just because the ICE was a cheap econobox with cheap parts (e.g. tires were small, TPMS sensors were cheap, only 4 lug nuts, etc.), and any newer vehicle is going to have more parts that need replacement/repair, and those parts are going to be more expensive.

Brakes are almost never used on most EVs, you're likely not going to need a single replacement before the battery dies. I've only ever change tires and cabin filters.

Some EVs do have maintenance items beyond tires/brakes/washer fluid. The maintenance schedule for my Lightning, for example, has the first real maintenance at 125K -- for flushing the battery coolant. Fortunately it's the same standard coolant they use for all their cars, and trivial to flush.

Yes, I'm aware of that, and I'm saying those things only added up to 1/3 of the maintenance costs for my ICE. I responded to a sibling comment to yours with some additional details.

Man when you list all of that, plus constant stink and poison from tailpipe, horrible performance, time wasted in gas stations. Why anyone puts up with this? It’s insanity.

Isn't one "recharge cycle" a full discharge / recharge? So charging from 68% to 75% at work would just be 7% of a cycle, and about the same amount of wear as if you'd skipped that top up and just fully charged at home.

> People charge at work from 68% to 75% because is convenient.

Isn't that almost the best possible way to charge a Li-Ion battery?

The Ford Ranger is still (or once again?) sold in the US.

Maverick is styled like a truck, but unibody design is more like a ute. Same way the Subaru Outback is not a truck

I'm a little surprised it isn't a regular cab with the 2.7L V6 that gets the highest payload. But they manipulate the suspension components a fair bit between different models so it's not just going to come down to the weight of the engine. The Lightning weighs as much as a gasser F250 but still has a payload in the 1650 pound range; my guess (without doing any research to prove it, mind you) is that the Lightning has the highest GVWR of any F150. I think even the HDPP only gets an ICE F150 up to 7850 GVWR.

On a related note, we have some real candidates on the Lightning forums for being the modern "Danger Ranger" trucks -- turns out you can load a Lightning with well north of 2000 pounds and it still isn't squatting anywhere near the bump stops. Stiff suspension.

Nah, for me it's about utility. Big trucks are tools, and they spend much more of their lifetime putting that engine to use where nothing else will do.

The shocking thing about light trucks with fuel economy in the teens is that most of the time they never haul anything. They're driven to the grocery store and to soccer practice where they have little value.

Teslas supercharger network is so good that even if I had a non-tesla EV I'd want to be charging only at superchargers.

I'm not going to say they're ubiquitous in the automotive world (assuming non-belt-driven like you mention below), but they're hardly brand new. The battery-electric buses in my city have heat pumps, and (IIRC) other cities opted for air conditioning in their trolley-bus fleet over a decade ago. Built to automotive standards is hardly uncharted waters.

Though perhaps I'm simply blown away living in a colder climate. Resistive heating if it's only to defog windows in the morning, or similarly rarely used, is reasonable. Resistive when getting started (one major hurdle, ICE -> EV, resistive -> heat pump, at a time) is reasonable. I just thought the automotive world had moved forward more rapidly than it had.

heat pumps are not magical technology. Pretty much every car sold in the West in the last three decades has one. There is only one reversing valve worth of difference between a standard auto AC and a heat pump.

I will say, when you get far enough to worry about only having 1200-1500 cycles, you have extracted a lot of life from the car. It's a good problem to have.