Wired Mag: EVs Are Losing Up to 50% of Their Value in One Year

Some electric car brands are hemorrhaging value, with the worst losing as much as $600 a day. In this investigation, WIRED outlines which models to watch, why this is happening, and how you can game the market to your advantage.

Electric vehicle depreciation is something of a hot topic right now, and for good reason. On one hand, there are some fantastic deals to be had on the secondhand market, but on the other of course, there’s the thorny issue of some EVs losing half of their value in a single year.

Cars losing you a chunk of cash the instant they’re driven off the dealer lot is nothing new, especially at the pricier end of the market. And if you intend to keep your shiny new EV for a long time, then its worth after just a year or two matters far less. But what if you’ve experimented with your first EV then decided its range or your local charging infrastructure isn’t up to scratch, and want to sell within the first year? If that’s you, you’d better be prepared for a significant loss.

In a bid not to tar all EVs with the same brush, we’ve aimed to be balanced in our approach to discovering trade-in valuations. There’s plenty of color to be reported here, too—like the US dealer who actively warned our reporter against selling him their EV, or the story of a Mercedes EQE that lost more than $600 each day—but for now let us deliver the cold, hard numbers.

We are using two tools for this research. The first is an online appraisal system by Edmunds, the US automotive industry resource, and the second is Cap HPI, a vehicle valuation service for the UK auto trade. Let’s start with the UK electric trade-in landscape, then compare it with the US’s.

Main Offenders

Our first discovery was that, in the UK, various new electric cars lose 50 percent of their value in the first 12 months. Yes, you read that right—some EVs depreciate by 50 percent in a single year.