Comment by cmiles8
3 hours ago
Because driving includes a lot more costs than just fuel. And as others are calling out, nobody wants a used EV so deprecation is a real cost to every day regardless of if the car is driven or not.
3 hours ago
Because driving includes a lot more costs than just fuel. And as others are calling out, nobody wants a used EV so deprecation is a real cost to every day regardless of if the car is driven or not.
> driving includes a lot more costs than just fuel
Oil changes, break pads, oil filters, spark plugs, …
For whatever reason, my wife’s car needs yearly scheduled dealership visits that always cost a few hundred. Meanwhile, my 5 year old EV has had none of that, other than one of those recalls that required a technician to park 15 minutes on our driveway to tighten some bolt (which my wife’s car also had, but it took another visit to the dealership.)
The depreciation thing is true, but I drive my cars into the ground anyway, so it’s not a factor for me.
I think "nobody wants a used EV" will change, there is already a growing amount of evidence that battery deterioration is nowhere near as bad as feared on average. ICE vehicles also tend to get less efficient over time as well due to wear and tear, build-up, degrading sensors etc, it's just that nobody talks about that.
It will really depends on charging infrastructure as well.
There is a large intersection of people who only buy second hand cars and who have to park them in the streets or in shared parkings. If you can't charge at home, owning an EV is much more a hassle, especially if there are very few chargers around (which is the case in my area) and charging at dedicated third party charging station in much less interesting from a financial point of view.
Right now I would hesitate to buy a used car with 5 years and a 100% of 300 km range but down to 250 km due to battery wear, when I could buy a new car with 500 km range. Owners of first Leafs got hit by already low initial ranges (~120km), so even a 20-30% battery wear have huge impact or car usability. That would change when ranges stops growing (about 700 km, maybe, the same as ICEs?), and used cars have the same range than buying new. 600 km instead of 700 km? Good enough.