Considering a used EV? Here are 3 things to know |
Considering a used EV? Here are 3 things to know
Used EVs are increasingly a bargain—and the data shows that you don’t need to worry about battery life.
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If you’re in the market for a car, you might be one of a growing number of people considering a used EV. In the past month alone, Cars.com says searches for used EVs jumped 25.5%, pointing to how quickly interest is shifting. Gas prices likely won’t drop much anytime soon, even if the Strait of Hormuz can stay open. And with hundreds of thousands of used EVs coming off lease this year, consumers have affordable options, even though the federal tax credit went away last year.
You get more for your money than with used gas cars: for the same price as a five-year-old Toyota Camry or RAV4, you can get a newer Tesla Model 3 or Volkswagen ID4 with tens of thousands of fewer miles, according to Recurrent, a company that tracks EV data.
Here’s what to know if you’re shopping for a used EV.
Battery life is better than you think
First, you don’t need to worry much about the battery. “EV batteries are lasting a lot longer than most people expected—even people that study electric car batteries every day,” says Andy Garberson, head of growth at research at Recurrent. The company tracks data from 30,000 EV owners across the U.S., and says that among cars that were made in 2022 or later, only 0.3% have needed battery replacements because of degradation or failure. If older EV with first-gen batteries are included, the number is still low, with 4% needing replacement.
Performance is surprisingly good over time. Take the example of a 2023 Nissan Ariya, an EV that Recurrent recommends. Three years after it came out, its average real-life range is 226 miles on a full battery charge, a stat that’s better than its official EPA range. In another three years, it’s likely to drop only slightly to 220 miles on a charge.
Range for any EV varies depending on conditions like cold weather (the Ariya performs well in the winter, too, keeping 83% of its range). You can access Recurrent’s data through dealerships or listings on Edmunds and Cars.com to see stats for any used model throughout the year in your own climate, along with estimates of how much you can save on fuel and maintenance.
EV batteries aren’t the battery in a phone, which can see steep degradation. In an EV, the data shows that there’s actually a little more degradation in the beginning, but it slows down. “We’ve all had that phone that a few years old and the pace of degradation actually accelerates with time, and that’s just not the case with EVs that have sophisticated battery management systems and liquid cooling and just a lot of tech that’s there to preserve it,” Garberson says.
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