Price of second hand Hybrid and electric cars

[Bonefish Blues]

Accessing that extra headroom would be a bad idea on some categories (chemistries) of battery which really do not like being filled to full capacity as it really makes the battery pixies very angry indeed and they sabotage the battery capacity (This may not be strictly technically correct terminology but the effect is a real one) Meanwhile us i3 and Model 3 std owners can just plug 'em in and fill 'em up

 

[icowden]

A friend of the family has just taken out a private lease on a new BYD seal hybrid, it's a monster of a thing .
I dread to think how much £ it is a month I didn't like to ask

Bottom spec new is £35k and top spec is £40k. Depending on mileage could be anything from £235 to £400 depending on whether it's pure lease, lease with deposit or PCP and depending on mileage. Seems a bit pointless though - there are far better pure EVs that cost less.

 

[mustang1]

At the price, I'd have an i3 all day long.

i3 is absolutely brilliant. BMW should have made direct replacement for it. Bit of a form ride though but I heard that can be fixed with after-market suspension.

 

[biggs682]

Bottom spec new is £35k and top spec is £40k. Depending on mileage could be anything from £235 to £400 depending on whether it's pure lease, lease with deposit or PCP and depending on mileage. Seems a bit pointless though - there are far better pure EVs that cost less.

I have no idea what they are paying a month for it but it scares me those kind of monthly repayments on top of a mortgage and other household bills

 

[ivegotabike]

i3 is absolutely brilliant. BMW should have made direct replacement for it. Bit of a form ride though but I heard that can be fixed with after-market suspension.

I had an i3 on lease for 3 years. It was a marvellous vehicle. The lease ended in 2023, after production had stopped, and I could not get another one. I asked, pleaded and almost begged the leasing company to extend the lease, but they were resolute that it had to go back.

 

[wafter]

Oh aye, but for the most part we're not seeing that yet on 12 year old Tesla's yet, so its some way off.

Unless something is actually wrong with the battery were still not at the stage where remaining capacity reducing beyond the ability of the headroom to disguise it is becoming remotely common.

Indeed, more than half of traction batteries are now LiFePo4. The advantages are many, but chief among them is that early indications seem to suggest theyre defying early predictions and barely degrading at all, and may be good for decades of service. The mooted 15-20 lifespan in typical use is looking as if it may be quite conservative.

It'll certainly be interesting to see how things pan out with batteries in newer vehicles since they seem to be problematic for the earlier generation of EVs.

Accessing that extra headroom would be a bad idea on some categories (chemistries) of battery which really do not like being filled to full capacity as it really makes the battery pixies very angry indeed and they sabotage the battery capacity (This may not be strictly technically correct terminology but the effect is a real one) Meanwhile us i3 and Model 3 std owners can just plug 'em in and fill 'em up

I think there's an important distinction to be made here however - many chemistries don't like charging to 100% capacity, but that's on a cellular level rather than total capacity.

It seems that you could have say 25% more actual capacity than published and only charge that whole array to 80% of each cell's max voltage to achieve the published energy storage value whilst reducing the stress upon / degradation of the cells. However, they will still degrade leaving the option of either continuing to charge to 80% of their (diminishing) capacity (resulting in a tangible loss of capacity) or charging the whole array to increasingly higher voltages to maintain its working capacity, at the cost of battery service life / longevity..

 

[Bonefish Blues]

I really don't know because I lack the technical knowledge to prove or disprove what you wrote.

I do know that EV batteries perform & last just fine nowadays (and always have done, with a very few notable and known exceptions, one of which @Drago mentioned), and are the last thing a buyer of a S/H EV needs to worry about.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Daughter & her chap recently bought this Audi, an 'e-tron S'
The depreciation seems quite phenomenal, looking on Auto-Trader
They haven't told me what they paid, but I read somewhere that they were £80,000+ when new?

 

[mrushton]

Yes they are reassuringly expensive if bought new. Vorschsprung Derch Teknik don't you know

 

[icowden]

I have no idea what they are paying a month for it but it scares me those kind of monthly repayments on top of a mortgage and other household bills

It all depends on your salary and what you want to spend. My limit is £400 a month on a car.

 

[Gunk]

The VW ID-7 estate is huge, probably as big/bigger than a Superb (my brother has one as his company lease and it's affectionately known as the Liner/supertanker) So not in the same size class as the others!

A mate of mine has one and he finds it too long, parking it in public car parks can be tricky

 

[wafter]

I really don't know because I lack the technical knowledge to prove or disprove what you wrote.

I do know that EV batteries perform & last just fine nowadays (and always have done, with a very few notable and known exceptions, one of which @Drago mentioned), and are the last thing a buyer of a S/H EV needs to worry about.

This site appears quite informative regarding battery degradation. Short of it is they reckon on average from their sample (the contents of which apparently aren't disclosed) all vehicles averaged 2.3% capacity loss per year resulting in a bit over 80% remaining capacity after 8yrs.

They suggest a battery life of "13yrs or more", although I'm not sure what capacity they're using as the benchmark and what happens if you exceed this (does range just continue to drop or do the batteries start to flat out fail / malfunction / is the car bricked by the software below a certain threshold?

Arguably the numbers aren't terrible, however it does beg the question of the viability of such cars for those of us who run their vehicles on a tight budget if these cars are going to end up beyond economic repair after 10-15yrs..

 

[Bonefish Blues]

This site appears quite informative regarding battery degradation. Short of it is they reckon on average from their sample (the contents of which apparently aren't disclosed) all vehicles averaged 2.3% capacity loss per year resulting in a bit over 80% remaining capacity after 8yrs.

They suggest a battery life of "13yrs or more", although I'm not sure what capacity they're using as the benchmark and what happens if you exceed this (does range just continue to drop or do the batteries start to flat out fail / malfunction / is the car bricked by the software below a certain threshold?

Arguably the numbers aren't terrible, however it does beg the question of the viability of such cars for those of us who run their vehicles on a tight budget if these cars are going to end up beyond economic repair after 10-15yrs..

You'll have to wait and see. There's loads of Gen 1 Leafs of that age still on the road with heavily degraded batteries and commensurately lower ranges - and prices to match. Given the average car travels roughly 20 miles a day, then even these high degradation outliers still have a useful role for many.

My i3 was assessed at 100% battery capacity in May when 7 years old with 80000 miles so is doing rather better than that rule of thumb, and mine is typical, talking to other owners.

 

[icowden]

This site appears quite informative regarding battery degradation. Short of it is they reckon on average from their sample (the contents of which apparently aren't disclosed) all vehicles averaged 2.3% capacity loss per year resulting in a bit over 80% remaining capacity after 8yrs.

It's skewed though. People with fleet cars or using them as minicabs are likely to be fast charging all the time, thus have much higher deg than those being used for private use where 95% or more of the charging is done overnight.

Otherwise after 4 years of driving my ID4 I'd have lost 10% of overall battery capacity. I've lost next to nothing.

Arguably the numbers aren't terrible, however it does beg the question of the viability of such cars for those of us who run their vehicles on a tight budget if these cars are going to end up beyond economic repair after 10-15yrs..

Because ICE vehicles that are 10 to 15 years old have no problems at all...?

They aren't going to end up beyond economic repair after 10-15 years. I refer you to Wizzy. Wizzy was Nissan Leaf purchase by a taxi fleet in 2013. In 2015, at 100,000 miles and over 1700 rapid charges it had near full battery health and was still on its first set of brake pads.

In 2017, Wizzy had done 170,034 miles and been rapid charged 3786 times. It was still going strong. I believe Wizzy has now retired.

Now bear in mind that Wizzy was a 2013 Nissan Leaf and it is now 2026. Battery tech has improved massively in the last 13 years.

As a contrast, I offer you my Renault Grand Scenic. Purchased in 2012 and given the heave ho in 2022 after 10 years and 100,000 miles. At the point it was sold, the upholstery was collapsing on the driver seat, the 12v battery was on its last legs, the accelerator kept sticking and it needed a ton of work doing. It had already had replacement shocks on the rear, oil changes. Oh - the heating kept giving up. A radiator leak had to be fixed. It was worth £2500 to we buy any car.

On Autotrader, there are 12 cars which are 2016 reg and 100,000+ miles. All of them are worth more than my old Scenic. Ten of them are Tesla Model S at between £46k and £21k. The other two are a zoe and a leaf. If I remove the year criteria and just leave the mileage, there are 218 vehicles. Tesla, Hyundai, MG, Kia, Jaguar, Polestar etc etc. Clearly they aren't all at the end of their lives.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

I just think the debate's moved on. Range anxiety? Batteries that will render EVs worthless? Extraordinary depreciation? They were hotly discussed & debated, but not so much now.