Tesla used car prices keep plumetting, dips below average used car
electrek.co
electrek.co
Hank Green [1] is of the opinion that used EVs are underpriced at the moment, because of exaggerated fears concerning minor decreases in range, that don't matter enough in practice. I wonder if the stats presented are a manifestation of that, or a Tesla-specific backlash.
EV batteries have statistical historical data proving they easily last 10-15 years before falling to even 80% of maximum - and these are the 10-15 year old batteries, current ones are even better.
Anytime I see one with low miles and in good condition, it is approaching the price of a new one.
Tesla has supply chain issues. They have always had supply chain issues. Some people have to beg Musk on social media for attention to get their cars repaired after months and months of waiting.
No one wants to buy a used EV with existing or potential upcoming maintenance issues that may cause it to be unusable for a significant period of time.
Their graph shows a drop from $33k to $28k since August '24, or about 18%. Did they leave a factor of 4 behind somewhere?
It's amazing they have any resale value at all. A totalled Tesla should have a large negative value because of the hazardous waste aspect of the battery.[1]
Edit/Append: You would think that given the cost of the lithium other metals in a battery, 100% recycling would be an actuality, instead of just a marketing claim.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/3/24058476/tesla-hazardous-w...
EV used cars are basically dead batteries. It makes a lot of sense to see used EVs price plummet. The index being used to make this comparison doesn't seem to disclose the car category, so it's hard to draw any conclusions.
If tesla car specifically drops in value, compared to other electric car brands for similar vintage/model vehicles, then you can draw a conclusion. Otherwise, it'd be merely confirmation bias.
A lot of these used to be leased cars. Why would those batteries be dead?
And if they are under the 70% mark then Tesla warranty should cover that. See https://www.tesla.com/support/vehicle-warranty
I assumed you never opened the link you point to, as its literally in the first line very clearly "Your new Tesla" (as in, not a second hand vehicle). Ooooo, fun, look a bit lower in the actual model info. Your vehicle need to return to the first registered area to gain warranty for a resell. Here in Europe we see often cars being sold that come from Spain or other area's, in Germany. By that contract condition, it need to go back to Spain for a battery fix. lol
Tesla Vehicle warranty is at discretion of Tesla bla bla ... Battery max 8 years, or 240.000km, ... Lots of other exceptions to that warranty.
And if you can apply the warranty, your also not getting a new battery, but a refurb based upon the whole description.
Fyi: Lithium batteries drop in capacity faster and faster when they go past the 80% mark. But legally, Tesla can shove anything in there. A 100% battery, a 80% battery, ... you get the point.
With a ICE engine, even on rental cars, you tend to get the same millage out of them, as a new one. Most issues are often more on the clutch or turbo, both relative cheap repairs compared to a battery pack.
People have been warned years ago, that second hand market for EV cars is going to be a issue because of the battery. Now we are seeing the effect on the pricing.
Area there is Europe. Warranties on us cars do not apply in Europe.
Source: https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/...
Source please.
Perhaps if battery condition could be measured and reported on well, used EVs could be more appropriately valued.
While the cost of replacing a battery in an EV is high, it’s not very different than an engine and transmission.
I own a Toyota 4Runner which is known for holding its value long term and is super reliable… but I do have to change fluids regularly, for example. Engine oil, transfer case fluid, etc.
Regenerative braking is supposed to be nicer to the actual brakes, too, even though an EV with the same capacity is generally heavier.
The gas savings vs electricity consumed were huge, about $10k
Not in California.
Many people charge exclusively at superchargers and pay $42+ for 250 miles of range ($0.60+/kWh peak hours after work).
That’s 6-8 gallons in an ICE car. At $5/gallon this makes EV supercharging more expensive than gasoline.
Also, I've never seen 60 cents a kWh at a supercharger in California. 50 cents, plenty of times. But that's the most I've seen. Maybe that's some specific part of LA or something.
Yes, and this to me feels like one of the least understood things about EVs.
There's no engine, clutch, gearbox etc. No timing belt or spark plugs either. So yes, that saves a lot of maintenance.
And depending how you drive you might not use friction brakes at all either. Leaving maintenance to be a 12V battery and tires.
Based on driving an ev for 10 years (Nissan Leaf)
There is also suspension, a/c, wipers, and interior electronics.
The difference between ice and EV stops after the drivetrain and most ice drivetrains are rather reliable these days. My 10 year old ice sedan costs about 0.18/mi. I would be interested to know what a comparable EV would cost, considering half of my cost is basically gasoline
Update: it seems EVs cost under 0.10/mi with figures coming in between 0.03 and 0.08. This doesn’t explain if this is all costs (including things like washer fluid, regular maintenance etc) or estimated costs+charging. My costs were tracked over a 6 year span
If that's the life of your battery, you get it replaced under warranty. Since no supplier wants to have to replace the bulk of batteries under warranty that seems to just be false in Tesla's case at least.
Your cost per mile including gas really depends on where you live. Because gas prices vary wildly.
Most premium ice cars aren't cheap to maintain unless you're doing a lot yourself
My car is a premium (luxury) car
Tesla... On the S, X and cybertruck
https://www.tesla.com/support/vehicle-warranty
And 120k on the Y long range.
The industry average is drastically below that number..
Kia and Toyota? Ford and GM I could see
But also, this is part of how tesla is ahead still on other manufacturers. Knowing their product and being able to provide a better warranty speaks to their own confidence in it
Kia/Hyundai provides a 10 year/100k mileage warranty. Double that of Tesla. I wonder if Tesla knows their premium cars will fall apart long before their batteries do?
This was a great thought experiment though! Let’s do it again sometime?
A million mile Tundra with 117 dealership visits over 10 years:
In maintaining his truck to the extraordinary million-mile mark, Sheppard has logged 117 dealership service visits over nine years, ranging from timing belt replacements, oil changes, and the manufacturer’s regularly scheduled check-ups.
However, this Model S is currently on its fourth battery pack. Four batteries at 1.2 million miles mean that the average pack lasted some 300,000 and counting, which is actually a strong showing in our opinion.
https://pressroom.toyota.com/million-mile-tundra-2016/
https://insideevs.com/news/699413/highest-mileage-tesla-mode...
No consumer car should be built to achieve that. If they can, great, but you might be over engineering a lot to make that happen as a rule
Coincidentally, studies have shown that MPG on ICE engines can drop as much as 40% after 10 years.
You can also buy 3rd party battery warranties. As with any insurance product the price would be lower if everyone bought in. Would probably be a good subsidy for nations trying to encourage EV adoption.
> Yes, and this to me feels like one of the least understood things about EVs.
Well my anecdote is different. We're on our third EV over 11 years, so have a bit of experience.
Each one of those 3 EVs has spent at least 10x more days at the dealer than my 15 year old Mazda (ICE) minivan (which has spent exactly one afternoon at the dealer).
I’ve been told that should remember to use your friction brakes once in a while, to keep them in shape. Is this still true with cars that have effective engine brakes?
Use it or lose it kind of situation with brakes on EVs
Model 3/Y battery replacement is US$15,000 to US$20,000.
Wipes out all other EV maintenance cost advantages.
Tesla gives 8 years for battery warranty.
Interpret that as you may.
In reality, too early to tell. But probably not 20+ years like a Toyota/Honda engine or even a Mercedes/BMW/Porsche engine.
8 years is standard and implies a substantially longer expected lifetime of the vehicle on average.
For most other models one is indeed not so lucky =3
I have a model 3 with ~80K kilometers and the battery is as good as new. 2018 model. For someone that drives 10-15K km a year there's maybe 30 years more driving on this battery (400K km).
My previous ICE car had two head gasket replacements in the 10 years I owned it. I also had to replace the entire engine. Oil changes. Brake pads/discs, CV joints... So far the EV is way ahead and based on the current battery degradation should remain ahead.
For used cars, you don’t know what the previous owner did.
> For someone that drives 10-15K km a year there's maybe 30 years more driving on this battery (400K km).
EV battery life is more related to calendar age, rather than number of charge cycles and C charging rate.
That seems to be contrary to common belief. It's the cycles that deteriorate the cathode/anode.
I would like to read up on your source
Regenerative braking means people don't need brake maintenance as often, but also have to replace tires more frequently (especially lazy people that don't rotate the tires regularly.)
Personally, I wouldn't buy a North American ICE model from the past 17 years. Go to a site like Edmunds and sort by worst reviews first, and run if you see electrical or drivetrain complaints. You will have to go back decades to find a reasonable quality domestic ICE model. =3
That said most of the reliable models are passed over. People assume that a recent Chevy Malibu or Buick Regal is an unreliable car, but some of those sorts of cars can hit 200k with ease.
Indeed, and we purchased Honda and Toyota models for in town. I like the silly look of the Rivian, but wanted to hold off a year to see what others say about its mechanical equity.
Be honest, Ford and Dodge have been on a downward slope for decades. =3
Someone will have to pester a physicist at some point for a better answer.
Cheers =3
EVs just weigh more than the comparable cars, AND have that instance acceleration which REALLY is the biggest impact on longevity.
https://insideevs.com/news/731559/tesla-least-reliable-used-...
Lol, no, they’re not.
The average EV is likely in a better condition than the average ICE, due to the maintenance requirements on both
Virtually all of them have over half their original battery life. That’s low enough to be restrictive in a car, but far from dead.
And there are a couple places working on replacement battery packs.
They're great commuter cars though if the range is enough or you charge at work
Source, I have one :)
Lithium cells are happy when they are around 20-25 degrees Celsius (about 75F?) but they don’t enjoy when it’s hot or cold. Likewise, they don’t enjoy full charges and discharges which I’d guess more probable in a smaller range car.
All in all, the first gen Leaf might not be a good benchmark for a more modern EV. Many things should be better now.
ICE car dies after X miles are driven.
EV car dies after X years have elapsed, regardless of mileage.
True, a local club has an Electric 1913 Detroit that ran for 78 years on the same set of Edison cells. These cells were replaced due to leakage rather than capacity loss by the club re-builders a few decades back. Think about the total distance traveled compared to a modern EV. YMMV was never so true.
The battery is the car for most EV, and given most manufacturers adversarial relationship with external repair shops it is effectively e-waste in 8 to 14 years. =3
A quick googling shows some sources claiming EVs are in general designed with a planned service life or around 10 years.
That's basically the same planned service life for ICE cars, which some sources claim it tends to be 12 years or 200k miles.
One source suggests battery capacity in EVs drop less than 2% per year on average.
These numbers seem to contradict you, but you show your data so that we can look into it.
I've gone through quite a lot of cars, but only one of them because it was broken and not worth fixing. The others were due to circumstances changing, like moving country, or having a larger family.
That's not what service life means. It's a design requirement that is used to drive probabilistic models that determine longevity targets for individual components, and also reflects a manufacturer's commitment to support a specific model.
Yes, your car is expected to still run after 12 years. Some cars also run after doing 200k miles.
> It is crazy to me that people are getting rid of them after only 12 years.
Some people replace cars way earlier than that, either because maintenance becomes too expensive due to severe use (see Uber drivers) or because they simply feel like it. There's a reason where car leasing is a successful business.
I'm repeating verbatim claims from car forums made by people claiming to be automotive engineers who worked for major car manufacturers.
I am talking about claims like this:
> I spent 25 years as an engineer at Rover Group and now work for it's evolved equivalent. Overall, vehicles are designed for a lifetime of 12 years or 120,000 miles and engineering standards are intended to reflect this. this is pretty much standard across the industry.
Tell me how I am reading that wrong.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a60882953/average-age-us-c...
It's interesting that cars last pretty much exactly twice as long as the engineer claims they are designed to last.
The design goal is likely something like 95% of cars last 12 years, which means the 50% is much higher than 12.
You seem to be confused. I'm talking about planned service life, whereas you're talking about "misreading reports" that cite car age statistics. Please understand they are not the same thing.
What piddling nonsense.
Plenty of outrage in replies. Here's a recent article with some specific figures: After more than 250,000 miles, Ford Mustang Mach-E still has 92% battery life. https://electrek.co/2025/07/22/after-250000-miles-this-ford-...
Batteries are rarely dead, they just loose capacity. (And quite slowly at that!!) Resale goes down if you decide there's not enough capacity left and want to sell, but the car is still fine. Eventually, yes, someone might opt to battery swap: for a Tesla that's currently ~$10-20k depending. But in another 10 years? It's quite likely battery prices will have continued to decline, & costs will be less.
Flipping the bozo bit on this guy.
But I’d never buy a Tesla car. Because of Musk.
We don't need every car to be good at long road trips. Yes, some people will want to either replace the battery or get a newer car. But I think, right now, there's wayyy too much fear over battery longjevity, and that folks are way off base about how many miles a pack is good for.
And ideally, the expected battery life should be a competitive factor in car buying: Teslas seem to be down almost 2x as much after 250k miles (85% rather than 92%). Different batteries will have different battery lifecycles, and ideally, consumers can help nudge the car makers into caring more, but there needs to be information available for generate that demand-pressure. And also crucial: without battery lifecycle information, FUD is going to dissuade a lot of would-be buyers!
Yes! ICE cars have 10,000 moving parts, and also chambers for burning stuff, lots of oil and residual burnt stuff. ICE cars work exactly like the human body, exercise helps live longer. EV cars have nearly no moving parts, they get obese and die sooner.
No, they aren't. Here are stats for actual Tesla battery degradation: https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/study-real-life-tesla-battery-d...
So after 200,000 miles or 10 years, you're on average expecting 70% of the nominal battery capacity. My car is at 150k miles, 8 years, and 85% capacity. You can expect more than 300,000 miles on the odometer before the battery dips below 66%.
And mind you, even then the car can work just fine if you don't _need_ range.
While various issues can arise in a used Camry, none of these individually can match the cost of battery replacement. While I can manage a few thousand-dollar service bills, I certainly cannot afford a twenty thousand-dollar bill for a used car.
I can't imagine people not buying used car because the owner of the company said something. Especially if the car is top high innovation in EV
All EVs depreciate quickly, Tesla isn’t unique in this regard.
The reason is simply that the market is currently higher income earning early adopters. That customer base is willing to pay the premium for the newest model, and upgrades quickly when newer models come out.
This results in a large of supply of 3 year old vehicles, but not much demand.
In time we’ll see used EVs depreciate at rates more similar to ICE vehicles, as mainstream buyers, who view EVs as a car rather than a tech product, enter the market.
Maybe your take is true if you are non-EU, but it definitely isn’t true in the slightest in Europe and is pure copium.
Maybe you missed it, but there was a whole period in the Spring when people were in the real world protesting in front of actual Tesla dealerships. These were people like my parents, who don't even have social media, yet they were dragging themselves and their protest signs to the local Tesla dealerships every weekend. People got so mad they were setting Teslas on fire! When people are so pissed they're firebombing dealerships, you can't pretend it's just online murmurings.
I'm not sure this has a basis in reality. There is no supporting evidence for it.
On the contrary, there is evidence that both Musk's favorability rating[1] and Tesla's brand reputation[2][3] have nosedived over the last few years and especially after Jan 2025.
If you want to claim an income-value-market cause, you'll have to provide more compelling evidence.
1. https://www.natesilver.net/p/elon-musk-polls-popularity-nate...
2. https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-favorabilty-america-us...
3. https://www.axios.com/2025/05/21/tesla-s-tumbling-brand-repu...
Tesla, well reputation is trash. Company success is questionable.
I’d rather by an EV from anyone right now than Tesla.
I really have trouble cancelling something just because some guy is doing some things. There were gazillion of people working on it and I have feeling that I would cancel them too, but they are innocent really
Tesla according to them is a great used car to buy. Not all models however.
> Based on our experience and that of our colleagues’ labs at 15-20 different locations worldwide, we have concluded that the battery is the last concern on the list during the first 10 years of an EV’s life, with some vehicles covering a large number of miles with the original battery system. The most common failures within 10 years of using an EV are: 1. Electric motors, 2. OBC chargers, 3. DCDC/inverters, and only in fourth place, batteries.
That's a nice way of trivialising what Musk has been doing. It's not just what he says, but his Nazi salutes (also his destruction of the U.S. government) and his general racism and politics.
Do you remember the Ratner's Jewellery collapse? That was people completely boycotting Ratner's due to the owner/CEO, Gerald Ratner comparing his company's products to the quality of a prawn sandwich.
That’s just not true anymore
Tesla recalls millions of vehichles plastered on every major news site. When it is just an over the air software update.
Or Tesla the most unreliable car in the world, according to the most respected german organisation, yeah they counted those OTA updates.
If Tesla doesn’t like it, maybe they should fire him instead of paying him $30B.
For me, the most significant addition within 8 years of owning a Model 3 was the addition of waypoints in the trip planner. That's it.
Other car makers simply provide Android Auto/CarPlay and let users pick what they want to run.
Most of the other car makers weren't promising FSD next year for decades, or have their CEO giving the Roman Salute at MAGA rallies, or regularly having ketamine-fueled affluenza breakdowns on Twitter. Also, their ticker is a truly bizarre memestock.
There's easy targets, and there's painting one on your own back.
I for one can’t think of A SINGLE reason why anyone or any news outlet could criticize a nicer, more normal, grounded, unproblematic, controversial, or completely good and undeserving company than Tesla. /s There’s so much to like about EVs, and there’s no denying Tesla’s outsized role in bringing practical EVs to market, and kickstarting competition, which is mostly good, despite the tactics and controversy.
Trying to leave politics out of it, it’s also undeniable that Elon, in and out of his CEO role at Tesla, has done some really harmful, shitty, trust-destroying things. I think everyone can agree that reality cannot have possibly matched the hyperbole and marketing claims. The overpromising, and therefore untruths, good faith or no, alone are enough for me.
The dude’s fingerprints, and everything good and bad (mostly bad for some time now IMO) that come along with it, are all over Tesla.
No rattles, panel fit is better, and the general feeling of the interior was nicer.
Their long-term reliability is not yet known, though.
A quick search on mobile.de shows that a standard range Tesla Model 3 that is about 3 years old and has a mileage of ~100k km costs ~25k euros. A similar Tesla Model Y costs ~30k euros. Those are final prices for end customer with VAT.
If you are okay with older 2019 Tesla Model 3, there are plenty of offerings for that price. And even cheaper.