One Thing Silently Hurting EV Sales
April 28, 202630 minutes
Zachary Shahan
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I’ve talked with a lot of people this past week at our Electric Home Show, and one thing stood out to me at the end of it all when it comes to shopping for electric vehicles. It’s not a new thing — in fact, it’s something we’ve written about a lot — but it’s something that really rose above the surface.
The used electric vehicle market is much bigger and much better than it was even a few years ago, let alone several years ago when we bought our 2019 Tesla Model 3 new. There are so many used EVs now for sales, all types of models and prices, and that could be seriously hurting new EV sales growth.
The used car market accounts for most vehicle sales in the US (and I assume almost all markets), but there wasn’t much of a market until relatively recently. So, the EV market (brand new cars) grew strongly based on the fact that if you wanted an EV, you probably ended up buying a new one. Many of us who never bought new cars before bought new EVs (mostly Teslas). Now, though, if we’re on the market for another car, the used EV market is very enticing.
And it’s not even just the current used EV market. It’s also about EVs fairly new to the market that should be available at good deals on the used EV market in the next year or two. The Kia EV9 is just about 2½ years old on the US market, the Honda Prologue is just about two years old, a few Cadillac EVs are just about a year old, the Volkswagen ID. Buzz is just about one and a half years old, the Tesla Cybertruck is about two years old, the Hyundai IONIQ 9 is about a year old, etc., and so on.
I imagine a similar thing is happening on other places — Europe, China, etc. However, due to how far behind the US is in terms of model availability and EV adoption rates, I think this is hitting the US market extra hard right now in terms of limiting the growth of the new EV market. So many people who bought or would have bought new EVs 3+ years ago are now buying or looking to buy used EVs.
Is this a bad thing? Well, I wouldn’t say that. It’s just a thing. It’s a natural result of a maturing market. It’s not like a transition to EVs would lead to the new vehicle market being much bigger than the used vehicle market, or bigger at all. And we certainly enjoy examining and highlighting the great used EV options people can find now. Also, as you probably know, our next vehicle is likely to be a used Kia EV6.
Any more thoughts on this topic? Anything I’m missing?
I highlighted some models just one to three years old above, but almost every EV on the US market is no more than five years old — it’s basically just Tesla’s four main models, the Nissan LEAF, the Chevy Bolt, the Porsche Taycan, and a couple of Audi EVs that are more than five years old. Many models are three to four years old.
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