Electric cars are crashing in value with some worth as little as a third of their original price after just 12 months. The Mail has the story.
EVs in general have suffered catastrophic depreciation since the end of 2022 when a cocktail of issues sent used prices into a downward spiral.
This perfect storm hit almost simultaneously, involving a cost-of-living crisis, rocketing energy prices, hard-hitting media coverage of EVs, an oversupply of vehicles entering the second-hand market, and Tesla slashing new model prices.
It quickly brewed into a destructive tornado for used electric car values.
Three years later, this punishing depreciation is still hitting EV values – and to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds for owners who bought them outright and leasing and financing companies burdened with undervalued vehicles, according to data shared with This is Money and MailOnline.
Cap hpi – experts in the field of vehicle pricing – provided us with market information showing troubling EV residual values compared to cars of other fuel types, while also revealing the models that haemorrhage the most money after only 12 months.
To understand what’s stalling a recovery for second-hand EV prices, we also spoke to industry insiders to get their perspective on the crippling impact for the motor sector.
Worth reading in full – the article includes a countdown of the 20 electric cars that lose the most value in the first year.
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Oh dear.
What a pity.
Never mind.
Long live diesel.
For smaller cars better petrol
And for shorter trips.
All of my friends who had diesels experienced problems after the lockdowns because they had only done short trips.
That will be the DPF. Both my Ford diesels do not have that and run fine.
My sister lives in Belgium and they’re starting to price the once popular private Diesels off the road. New Diesels have the horrendous Ad-blue for the latest Euro 6e iirc ?
In a couple of years time you will have to pay for disposal. How about that for a betrayal. This is a predatory world. If you let your guard down for a minute they will have you for breakfast. Of course they spent decades conditioning the guard out of you. You swallowed their poison for so long and now you are baffled and confused. Understand what it is to be eaten alive. The parasite doesn’t announce himself. You are so wrecked now that I do not know if it is in your constitution to fight back at all. What can the fly in the spider’s web do?
You have brought a darkness on yourself and your community that you have no understanding of at all yet. Never never never will you admit anything. We shall see.
To whom are you addressing this Jabby?
And if you buy a second hand one at a low price, you will still have to pay tax based on the original market value; no VED tax discount on offer for that.
Good riddance to Electric Vehicles! But even though this will cost investors like Elon Musk dearly, Jon Rappaport says he has already revealed his next huge project—(and it’s quite scary):
What Elon Musk is saying about AI robots; his robots
“From inc.com: “Elon Musk said Tesla will build at least 5,000 Optimus robots this year, and maybe as many as 10,000. The company will build another 50,000 Optimus robots in 2026, and will work its way up from there. It may eventually build 10 million robots a year or more, he added. And he believes there will be enough demand to sell every one of them.”
“Musk: “[Five thousand robots is] the size of a Roman legion, which is a little scary thought. Like, a whole legion of robots.”
“In a very short time, Optimus has gone from being an idea to the most sophisticated humanoid robot on earth. Tesla has some important ingredients that others don’t have, which is, our robot has a real brain. Tesla is the leader in real-world AI. What we learned in the car, we translate to the Optimus robot. And we also take our expertise in electric motors, batteries, power, electronics, structural design, and then another major thing is that we’re very good at manufacturing.”
“We have the only company with all the ingredients for making intelligent humanoid robots at scale.”
Tesla Optimus Robot Showcases Advanced Walking on Uneven Terrain
This robot is downright scary…
I don’t go near large animals or animals with sharp teeth or poisonous venom, because I cannot predict what they will do next. I feel the same about robots.
You are right about that. Factory workers have already been killed by robot machinery malfunctioning.
It seems to me that Elon Musk is talking about building a Robot Army, like in some dystopian Hollywood movie. Sinister.
Ocado had a problem I think
I take it that robots are net-zero???
Ha! Good point!
Heard about a £75k BMW SUV EV that came to a halt last winter in cold weather, so the owner went back for a trade in, 8000 miles on the clock. He was offered £37k by thew dealership.
The second hand market in cars is different from the new car market – less driven by subsidies, tax breaks, financing deals etc. Price and value for money are more important – it’s not that the cars are losing value, they were just hopelessly overpriced in the first place.
I notice the graphic includes the Nissan Leaf it at the dealership, Vauxhall Mocca up your finances and Vauxhall Corsa bad idea.
I would hazard a guess that a lot of people who buy new electric cars are well off, woke, left leaning types. Who often bestow a supercilious sneer on petrol/diesel drivers. So…….you know………cry me a river.
A lot of it is company cars, because of the 2% BiK.
From personal experience UK dealerships are pushing EVs quite hard to people who don’t know what to expect. You’re assuming buyers know a lot about cars, which they don’t. Many are totally clueless and rely on dealers.I
EV’s tend to feel premium by their nature. An automatic gearbox option on a German ICE vehicle will cost an extra 4 grand for example. EVs are automatic by default and very relaxing to be in. Something previously only found in flagship models of prestige brands.
So I’m sure EV owners do feel good about themselves, but not due to emissions.
Car snobbery is as old as the motor car itself. Manufactures of course take advantage with their styling updates almost like the clothes fashion industry. Many people care more about the badge on their car than the quality of the food they put in their bodies.
I think that this can be completely explained by the incentives. EVs are heavily subsidised by the government if purchased as company cars. In that case, your Benefit in Kind tax is only 2%. Given that you can put all car related expenses on the company including insurance, tyres, car washes, maintenance, well, your BiK is actually less than all of that in many cases. In any case, this provides a compelling case to buy an EV if you own your own business or if your company has a company car plan. Individual business owners will obviously buy one that’s a couple of years old and has, well, pre-depreciated.
But when I chat with my friends who work for large companies, they often have company car schemes and many of them are outsources or, at least, standardised for the whole company. And many of the people that I spoke with have told me that they were only allowed to purchase a new EV via the scheme. They’re also generally required to sign up for a lease with the provider of the scheme.
And hence, this is why you see the used values plummet: (1) EVs do not make commercial sense if you aren’t using them as a company car benefitting from the 2% BiK; (2) many company car schemes only allow new EVs; (3) they’re generally purchased via a lease-like plan (PCP or PCH); (4) they aren’t worth full price to regular consumers; and so (5) when the company car lease comes to an end the price is, well, different than that at which it started.
Also: surely the Motability scheme probably plays a role in this price difference as well? There you have an essentially cost insensitive consumer…
Noddy cars for people who have £tens of thousands which they’re quite happy (or gullible enough) to blow on virtue-signalling.
Surprise surprise
Those who manufacture EV’s insist “They are the future” (Elon Musk eg). But something is only the future if the people decide they want it. Green technologies are all forced onto people. No one forced people to give up their horse and buy a Model T.
No one had to – a model T was clearly a better proposition… unlike EV’s
EVs are the future. The mistake people are making is thinking 4 wheels are the be all and end all and the world centres around UK’s horrendous transport infrastructure.
A massive growth on mainland Europe is electric bikes.
If you can do all your travel on one or two wheels, then that’s great for you, but I don’t think the elderly parents would appreciate being transported about on the back!
And with our birth rates, the elderly will make up a growing percentage of society. It’s probably electric mobility scooters that will be the most common vehicle in the UK in the years to come.
Until they blow up and set fire to your garage or house.
A gigantic shipload of EV cars are still burning out on the sea.
Moderator here: If you are referring to the MV Morning Midas, it sank yesterday and is now 16000 feet below the Pacific. The crew couldn’t get near enough to the fire to confirm that it was started by an EV car, but they did confirm that the fire started on a deck where EV cars were parked
See my comment above as to how EVs are quite like horses really.
Brilliant news…yippee
Great article.
I don’t know about anyone else, but a lot of my purchasing decisions are driven by:
My purchasing decisions are not driven by:
Could this be reason why I’ve never wanted an EV?
What does an electric powertrain have to do with your criteria?
The neighbourhood effect and ego have always been top factors for any new car purchase. The UK is a particularly car badge snobby country in addition.
The most reliable vehicle, the most convenient and value for money would be an electric Vespa style scooter with a 7 year warranty. And you would never consider one, not because it’s an EV, because you’d readjust your criteria, like everyone does anyway.
Associating EVs with ‘tree huggers’ is 15 years out of date. One of the most popular and also notorious EVs with young lads is a Chinese trail bike that can be bought in road legal form and have it’s power doubled with a simple adjustment. It’s around £4500 and holds its value quite well. On mainland europe everyone and their grandparents are buying electric bicycles, which are now serious pieces of transport costing as much as a moped.
An EV is not value for money because of the depreciation cited in the article. When the battery fails (as all rechargeable batteries do), the cost of the replacement is a considerable proportion of the car’s residual value, so why would you buy one secondhand? I also wouldn’t want to spend that amount of money to travel around in a vehicle where I’m too scared to turn up the heat in winter or turn up the air con in summer, lest it reduce my range.
An EV is not convenient, for me at least, because I occasionally make long trips. I do not want to spend half an hour kicking around for an operational charging point to become available, and then sit around waiting for the battery to charge. (I would avoid rapid charging because of the negative effect on battery life – see above.) Compare that with a 10-minute stop at a conventional fuel pump, before or after a convenient comfort break.
Reliability is probably one criterion an EV would satisfy, unless it spontaneously burst into flames one day.
As for the neighbourhood effect, I’m clearly out of step with most of my fellow compatriots. I drive a 12-year old SEAT Leon, and I’m still as happy with it now as when it was new.
And, no, I wouldn’t consider an electric scooter or bicycle because… they aren’t cars. It would be like someone going out to buy a new kettle and coming home with a toaster because it’s less likely to get furred up!
2 wheel and 4 wheel EVs both use the same technology. Both are very efficient compared to ICE and both can take advantage of improved battery tech and improved power grids without modification.
The main difference, is bikes are not loaded with driver assists and comfort.
Both get you from A to B though.
Your Toaster/ Kettle analogy takes you out of this discussion.
BTW a 12 year old Volkswagen has much better residuals than a SEAT. (given the concern expressed for deprecation) Vehicle values are far more nuanced.
I have a petrol motorcycle, a diesel car, and an electric car. I use the cars more than my bike for quite a number of reasons.
Luxembourg has free public transport (most of it electric as well) more people seem to use the trams than cars.
Actually an EV is quite like a horse in that it needs to recharge overnight, goes less far in the cold and as it ages has less performance and finally you have to pay someone to put it down/take it away.
Might be that many people don’t consider an electric scooter for exactly the same reason that they do not have a petrol scooter, perhaps…
Many statements here think the world revolves around the UK though.
Plenty of scooters in the Benelux region, Italy, much of Asia.
I remember Belgium having the biggest take up of Broadband in the world per capita by 2003, with speeds always least 5 times faster than the UK at each phase with Fibre hitting way sooner as well.
So it doesn’t surprise me one bit the shoddy overpriced EV infrastructure, in the UK, with motoring in general becoming a grind, increasing car numbers, more congestion, worsening driving standards. More and more unroadworthy vehicles.
The depreciation above looks like extreme cases.
Why not keep a car for the length of its 7 year warranty and put plenty of miles on it ? Spread the cost of a nice new car(toy for many) over as many years as you can.
Many don’t because car purchases are often driven by desire, fashion, status. With manufacturers updating styles more often than ever. So you could apply the same depreciation to a designer leather jacket for example.
If you want to enjoy a new car for the short period this article depicts, then buy a Morgan or Ferrari, but the running costs are likely to be significantly higher. Extreme low depreciating cars are the impractical ones, so keep the old banger in addition.
Or just run an old car, invest the money then blow it on a luxury holiday before the government takes it. Hoping the holiday gave your more pleasure than the new car did.
Clearly, if you want to actually save money, you buy the car after it has already depreciated. But even in this case, the TCO for electric cars is likely higher than an equivalent petrol car with a similar spec and age.
The massive depreciation of the EVs is a function of two things: (1) the huge tax benefits of having an EV as a company car; and (2) cost insensitive purchases via the motability scheme where you get to frequently replace your car. Without those two schemes, there would be very few EV purchases as the TCO doesn’t add up because the batteries are just too expensive.
And, you have been talking about electric bicycles. Again, it’s way cheaper to buy an old petrol scooter, so why do people buy electric bicycles? Regulatory arbitrage, of course, because an electric bike is classified as a bicycle and not a motorcycle and hence: (1) doesn’t require a driver’s licence; (2) doesn’t have to be registered; (3) no annual MOT; (4) no legal requirement for insurance; (5) no VED; (6) doesn’t have to have a plate on the back; so (7) you don’t get tickets for speeding and red lights because the cameras don’t see your plate; and (8) you can ride on pedestrian walkways at motorcycle speeds endangering their lives with no fear of getting caught.