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Used Electric Car Prices Start To Slowly Rise

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Larry Dixon of J.D. Power says price increases “quite extraordinary.”

For years, electric vehicles have had relatively low resale value for a variety of reasons. Used electric vehicles are typically priced with the $7500 federal tax credit baked in. The plug-in market is also rapidly improving. First gen electrics such as the Chevy Spark EV and 2015 Nissan LEAF simply cannot compare to the Chevy Bolt EV and the Gen 2 LEAF. Not to mention the sales success of the year: the Tesla Model 3.

But depreciation on these older models appears to be turning around. According to Black Book’s three-year retention gauge, the value of used EVs this year is about 38%. That is a large improvement from from only 21% one year ago.

J.D. Power and Associates has found that the 2015 Nissan Leaf is now retaining 30% of its original sticker price. That is up 23% from the fourth quarter last year. Wholesale prices of the 2015 LEAF are up about 1 percent from where they were last year.

“Now we have prices up for the first time ever.” Says Larry Dixon, senior director of valuation services at J.D. Power. “So from a consumer standpoint, that means they have an appreciating asset.”

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Other first gen electric vehicles are seeing similar results. The Fiat 500e is retaining 21%, up from 18% last year. The Chevy Spark EV is retaining 25% this quarter compared to 21% from last year. Spark EV wholesale value is up 10% year over year.

In the case of the Nissan LEAF, Dixon believes prices have reached rock bottom. The value of compact cars are similarly up this year. But he says automakers and some dealers are getting better at understanding the demand for these vehicles.

Due to increased production, it might seem reasonable to assume that used values would continue to drop. However, this is being offset by growing consumer awareness of electric vehicles.

As any EV advocate will tell you: ‘Butts In Seats’ is a key demand generator.

“Based on what we’ve seen this year and starting in the latter half of last year, there’s clearly some consumer demand.”

Source: Automotive News

This article originally appeared on Inside EVs.

 
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True. It’s good news. As a 2015 leaf owner I was charting prices carefully and noticed this also. There were times when Nissan was giving a 10k discount in addition to the 7.5k credit, so used prices were badly depressed. That’s when I bought. After that ran out then the used prices were rising. I did well on my trade in for a model 3.
 
True. It’s good news. As a 2015 leaf owner I was charting prices carefully and noticed this also. There were times when Nissan was giving a 10k discount in addition to the 7.5k credit, so used prices were badly depressed. That’s when I bought. After that ran out then the used prices were rising. I did well on my trade in for a model 3.

Exact same thing happened to me with my 2015 Leaf. Tesla made a surprising offer when I ordered my M3.
 
While I'm inclined to believe this, my eBay alerts for FIAT 500es seem to indicate they're still insanely cheap and a 20% increase on insanely cheap, is still insanely cheap.

I picked up my 2014 in 2018 for $8200 with 11,000 miles (which I humbly admit was a great deal...) But I really don't think most people can wrap their heads around "about 100 miles of range," even though for most people it's more than enough for a daily driver, and thus these prices for "around town" EVs are going to continue to be low, especially with new models on the horizon with better "replace my ICE" capability.
 
Or it could simply be inflation. The i7-6900K CPU I bought a in March 2017 for $949 is now $1,287 - same CPU, now almost 2 years older. The US economy has been going hot (except the correction at the end of the year) and the US government "printed" billions since 2008 which should have caused inflation but didn't, so it may be a delayed effect.
 
Thing is, quite a few of those HOV stickers expired yesterday. (Including the ones on our Volt. :( ) One would think there will be even more bargains soon - not rising prices.
I believe it'd mean that used EVs not registered in California will appreciate (as people import them from other states to get something still eligible for a sticker), whereas used EVs in California will depreciate (and be exported to other states that don't care).