EVs Are Now The Most Affordable Used Cars

In a stunning and ironic twist, the most affordable vehicle option for cash-strapped Americans right now, and possibly for the foreseeable future, is a used EV.  Oddly, we owe a big thanks to the Trump Administration for the valiant stupidity that got us here. Its effort to rip up clean energy incentives from the Biden era, plus the entanglement of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, have both worked the opposite way intended. The fine folks fighting so hard for coal and dinosaur fuels have somehow found themselves inadvertently forcing people towards the very thing they despised. 

You see, the average price of a new car today in the U.S. is $50,000. Runaway car prices, inflation and gas prices have pushed a lot more people into the used market. But when more people flood the used market, the demand outpaces supply, driving those prices up further. But ignorance of EVs and the public's unfounded distrust in used models (especially batteries) means used EV prices have consistently hovered on the low end of used car prices while offering buyers sometimes near luxury-level amenities for little money. EVs are also cheaper to service, more reliable as they use fewer moving parts, and don't cost an arm and a leg in fuel.

"In an expensive, affordability-constrained environment, used EVs represent the best value for consumers now," said Kevin Roberts, director of economic and market intelligence at CarGurus, told the Wall Street Journal.

What's helped used EV prices most has come down to supply and demand. In a market where uneducated buyers are wary of older EVs because of less exposure to how they work, etc., these electrified chariots are not flying off of lots. That's not including the 1.5 million used EVs Cox Automotive expects to be added to the market by the end of 2028. Automakers attempted to launch EVs with generous leasing bonuses to get off the ground, but they're now finding it difficult to make back that money on the used side, used EVs are so cheap. 

And quantity trickles down into the value side of it. As noted in a recent New York Times article, used vehicles are coming off their leases valued much lower than expected. A 2023 EV estimated to come off its three-year lease at 60 percent of its original value has come out in 2026 with a value closer to 45 percent or less. If a gas-powered vehicle presented that kind of value loss in three years, you wouldn't likely be as interested in owning it. But at least in the case of the EV, the abundance isn't a result of shoddy reliability.

The 180-degree pivot the market seems to be forced to make considering U.S. leaders were moving towards an inherently opposite future it almost laughable. Yet with such attractive, hard-to-turn-down pricing for EVs and ever-rising gas prices, the electrified future everyone seemingly gave up on (including automakers) when the incentives to build it went away could maybe come around on its own.