When someone buys a new car, the value will naturally decrease over time given the wear and tear of the vehicle, as well as the mileage and age.
But for some electric car owners, they could be seeing the value of their car depreciate at twice the rate of petrol cars.
According to a new study, EVs on average will lose 51 percent of their purchase value from 2020 to 2023, compared to just 37 percent for petrol vehicles. [emphasis, links added]
This equates to a massive £15,220 [$18,786] loss for electric car owners, with petrol drivers seeing a decrease of £9,901 [$12,400].
The data, from ChooseMyCar.com, used a comparison of new car prices three years ago compared to their value now.
The higher the original purchase price of the car, the bigger the loss, with the Tesla Model S losing £25,000 [$31,310] in value in just three years – a 46 percent drop.
However, entry-level EVs like the Nissan Leaf are also losing a massive amount of value in such a short space of time.
The Leaf’s value dropped by £13,000 [$16,281] – or 58 percent – despite it being one of the most popular small EVs on the market.
Other popular cars like the Hyundai Ioniq and BMW i3 saw large depreciation rates as well with 67 percent and 64 percent respectively.
Nick Zapolski, founder of ChooseMyCar.com, said: “Our research shows yet another blow for EV owners, on top of many other issues that have come to light recently.
“Not only are the EVs themselves not holding value, the price of electricity itself has zoomed up, meaning running the cars is not as economical as it once was.”
The [UK] Government previously offered the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme, which enabled drivers to save money on the installation cost of a home EV charger.
It was discontinued over a year ago, with many calling on the Government to reintroduce the scheme to help motorists switch over to electric vehicles.
Mr. Zapolski said the hundreds of pounds saved on installing the home charger now look “insignificant’ compared to the thousands of pounds lost in value.
He added: “Home charge points are expensive to install (if you even had the necessary driveway to allow that) and there has been uproar about the availability and reliability of public charge points.
“On top of that, recent decisions made by the Government mean that some of the initial incentives to encourage EV ownership are being discontinued, such as lower tax and free entry into ULEZ zones.
“The Government really needs to take action if it wants to continue to push the idea of EVs onto the consumer, as currently, the cons of EV ownership threaten to outweigh the pros.”
Read more at Daily Express
I’m sure the points made in the article are valid, but it misses the major reason that an EV can not retain more of their value. The batteries wear out if replacements are available at all they are horrendously expensive to replace. With an internal combustion engine if it is running at all it still has the original range as when it was brand new. On their way to becoming useless EV batteries have a much shorter ranges. My daughter works with a teacher who has one with a range of 60 miles. A friend use to have one with a range of 90 miles on a full charge but it took many hours to get that full charge.
So true David Lewis! I would think that after, say, three years the original battery would not hold charged energy for very long at all, and who would want to buy that at any price?