When the new plug-in sales share of the total market is only a pathetic 0.65%, this is hardly shocking:
Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf Prove Tough Resells – Used EV Market Less Than Booming
Fuel-frugality aside, it seems the 2013 Chevy Volt and 2012 Nissan Leaf are proving to be expensive long-term investments.
One of the main questions every new car buyer should always ask themselves is what is the depreciation of the vehicle and therefore its potential resale value? Recent reports have suggested that electric cars don’t hold their value quite as well as their regular counterparts.
Of course all new cars lose roughly 20% of their value the moment they roll off the lot. But there are a lot of used plug-in-specific problems.
You don’t get the $7,500 federal bribe on the used ones.
The very-much-higher up-front retail price is rarely if ever made up in fuel savings over the life of the vehicle.
Americans Won’t Pay $40,000 for a $17,000 Car
The $40,000 Volt is basically a $17,000 Cruze – with a 500 lb., 25-mile range, eight-hour-to-charge battery.
(T)he vaunted Volt batteries are then (in used cars) closer to extinction….And how much does it cost to replace a plug-in battery? General Motors (GM) their own selves say the Volt’s is in the $8,000-$9,500 range.
And in case they’re fibbing (as post-bailout GM is wont to do):
Ford CEO: Battery Is Third of Electric Car Cost
Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Alan Mulally indicated battery packs for the company’s Focus electric car costs between $12,000 and $15,000 apiece.
Plug-in cars are pathetic re-sells – because they are pathetic sells.
Good thing we’ve dumped more than $6.5 billion-in-government-subsidies-just-since-2008 into the plug-in car fantasy.
It’s working like a charm.
The turbocharged Ford Focus ST is $24,000.
The Ford Focus all-electric is $40,000.
That should tell ye all ye need to know.
Barack Hussein Obama never wanted Americans to enjoy prosperity.
Dumping our hard-earned tax dollars into overpriced cars that are useless to the average American is just one more example of that.
Uh, I don’t think those are our “hard earned tax dollars” – those are our too easily borrowed dollars to be repaid by our grandchildren’s hard earned tax dollars, or Chinese borrowed dollars that can’t be repaid – or maybe they’re just our Fed’s “Inflation to Come” dollars. It’s a bit hard to tell whose dollars they are or who will get stuck with the bill.
… and when the turbo goes belly-up (which they usually do in the low to mid 100k’s) it’s a jolly sight cheaper to replace than batteries.
Heh! You hit it right on the head, Chris Bolts Sr.
Until and if there is a HUGE breakthrough in battery tech, plug-ins are just plain dumb.
Good thing we’ve dumped more than $6.5 billion-in-government-subsidies-just-since-2008 into the plug-in car fantasy.
And yet the only place Congress can find to cut spending is Social Security, and Defense.
The stupidity in D.C. just boggles mind.
I tend to keep my vehicles for at least 10 years and 200,00 miles. I f resale is low for EVs, and therefore would probably result in jumking the thing at the end of its useful life (and after its $10,000 battery pack replacement), how much do you think I would have to pay for environmental costs to dispose of the car including that battery pack? Come on, guess how much a junkyard would charge to safely dispose of the environmental hazard. I mean, really, even breaking a new light bulb can cost $5,000 in hazmat cleanup costs.
Various car sites I frequent have estimated that you would have to own a plug-in electric car for 25 – 40 years, depending on your estimate for the price of gas over that time, in order to break even on the purchase of a plug-in versus a comparable gas only vehicle.
Really, how many of us are driving around in 1987 Chevy Impalas, or 1972 Chevy Novas, that we purchased new?
These are cars for enviro-poseurs.
I’d predict that in 2017, the car lot price of a 2012 Volt with 100K, and no battery replacement, would approximate zero.
Do the life cycle costs include projected increases in electric rates? If gas goes up, so will the fuel used to generate the electricity. Also, will wind turbines and solar cells last that long? Not to mention, would they ever produce enough power to run cars in the goal numbers?
Most of the discussion I can recall kept the electricity costs stagnant, and just allowed you to plug in variable gasoline costs. Pretty much this is all the information that newly designed Monroney stickers display.
Sure, you could put in some nonsense like gas at $10 per gallon, and get a payback in 5 – 7 years of average driving, but honestly, if gas was $10 per gallon, could anyone afford to drive?
As to electricity generation, unless you install your own personal windmill or solar panels, you would have to take power from the grid.
The overload of the grid from a million electric cars is a whole other discussion. And 1 million electric cars would be about 1% of the private US fleet.
EV’s will move in on the ICE vehicle market only as the Bic lighter stole the Zippo market; it must be lighter, cheaper and disposable. In other words, it must represent “Disruptive Technology”.
I just purchased a new fuel efficient car for $18,600. With the $14,100 I saved over the Volt (after the 7,500 subsidy), I’ll be at 109,000 miles when I have spent as much money as the volt owner has when he’s just pulling out of the dealer lot. That’s not even figuring in the increased sales tax on the more expensive volt.
The lease prices on new Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys are absurdly low because they have a very high resale value. For most buyers, it is a very attractive deal – I’ve been leasing for many years now. Only if you do very high mileage or very low mileage, does it pay to buy. Oh OK, there’s a small premium for driving a new car covered by warranty, maybe $50/month on these mass-market cars, but also a lot less worry.
This will not be true of the Volt or any battery electric because of the battery cost and lifetime issues. So on top of the (a) high price, (b) new car only incentives, you have (c) terrible capital depreciation due to battery cost. The overall economic cost is thus much higher than it appears – and is no better if you try to keep the car, then YOU have to eat the battery replacement cost, but I guess at least you got the incentive.
The whole idea of subsidizing an affluent person’s purchase of a high-priced car is infuriating. Since the $7500 is indeed a bribe (supposedly soon to go up to $10,000), then we — or the Chinese and the Fed — are subsidizing corruption.
As well as inefficiency, foolishness and vainglory.
More indication of the direction we’re moving “foe-ward” in: draconian regulations, kafkaesque subsidies and schemes (cash for clunkers), constant media drumbeat about the sustainabubblty of mass transit and how uncool, unhip and selfish it is to drive an effective, powerful-as-you-need (or want) vehicle.
All about getting rid of personal vehicles for all of us regular folk.
“Gotta move foe-ward… to a Kensyian nightmare of centralized command and control collectivism…”
I’d love to buy a two-year old electric off some hard-up eco-snob for a few thou… and put a generator in it.
Dark
That says it all! One of the biggest scams in history perpetrated against the American Public by our own Government! This baby belongs exclusively to the racketeering democrat party, and the few (very few) idiot Republicans who are not leaders, but scum!
It is stupid but you will never convince the “Lady parts” Obama morons.
He craps golden energy bolts which provides free government condoms and abortions so it should be good enough to power this piece of crap car.
Might also point out that if the potential buyer does not have the requisite outlets (assuming you can just plug it into that former light socket) or charging system in place it would then have to be installed almost certainly by a licensed electrician.
Presumably the various EVs use a common plug, standardized voltages and amperage? If not then the changes needed to modify the charging system would also have to be factored in, but I suppose I may be reaching at this point.
Anyway $40,000 for an EV is for early adopters who have sufficient carport or garage space and can afford the charging system. I don’t see why if one can only really have one vehicle why one would choose to get something that lacks the utility or option of going on a long drive.
The nearest charge outlet to my house is about 35 miles away.
The nearest gas station is about 1/2 a mile away.
More useless information in the 21st century.
It’s almost like the dems are saying to the reps. You got to waste hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars invading Iraq for no good reason, so now we’re going to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on something we want it to be wasted it on.