The Expert Podcast

Most of the news coverage in the electric vehicle industry has focused on new electric vehicles Things like Tesla. Tesla having new models, maybe recent developments in the subsidies and the rebates. There's been very little coverage of the used electric vehicle market or used EVs.. And within that market, it's first important to figure out how big is the market How many people are buying used electric vehicles. Well there's a.

Article from auto remarketing which is an excellent industry trade publication. If you go down into the buried data in this article, you'll find out exactly why you may. not see as much high profile. data about used electric vehicles. What it says is…in the pre-owned market.

there was a survey done by Experian They're the company who does it's one of the major credit bureaus. Right So if you run a credit bureau on yourself you have Experian. Equifax TransUnion. And they're the largest of the three. And they did some studies about used electric vehicle financing Now.

Their numbers are about used electric vehicles that were financed not all used electric vehicle purchases but when you think about it, most EVs are going to have financing because they're relatively.

More expensive Certainly some people paid cash. but at least give a trend. So what they found is. In 2021 there were 60,000 pre-owned electric vehicles financed. That's not a lot.

That's you know roughly a thousand per state. In 2021. a thousand vehicles in a state. That's not a whole lot of used vehicles purchased. So what happened after that Well this study, in 2022 it didn't have the full numbers.

But as of early summer they were tracking 42,000 for this year to date. Meaning that let's say early. Spring early summer, let's call it What may June. they had 42,000 on the books that's tracking maybe 70,000. For the year.

Maybe 80,000 for the year. It's more than 60,000, but you're not talking hundreds of thousands of vehicles or millions of vehicles that are purchased. This tells you what's going on with the used E V market. There's not a lot of transactions happening now. Why is that are there not a lot of vehicles available?

Do people not want to buy them Are the prices too high while in reality part of it has to do with the history. Electric vehicles really didn't start to be produced in large volumes until. The late. 2000 2009 2010 Certainly you had Prius and some Teslas, but until you got to 2000 14, 15, 16, there weren't a whole lot being produced That means there's not a lot of used ones out in the marketplace. And many of the ones that were out there people kept them for a long time People didn't I…

didn't rotate these vehicles. Why is that? Well for most buyers of electric vehicles, it was not their primary vehicle It was the secondary vehicle. Most people. We'll swap out or trade in or…replace their primary vehicle about every three years three to four years depending.

the demographic. But your second vehicle that you have or sometimes third vehicle, your EV, you may not swap that out for six or seven years So think about it. If the electric vehicle. New car production really didn't start hitting stride until 2015 or 16. We're now just getting to that six or seven year, time period.

That could be why electric vehicles in the used car market are not very high volume. Now in the next few years that's really going to be the determining factor. Are people buying used EVs are people trying to trade out the one they have to get a new one. Put your thoughts in the comments would you consider purchasing a use E V? Is it something where if you're gonna buy one you want to get a new one and make sure the battery's good to make sure that the.

the model is more current or is it a good way to save some money by purchasing one That's used. One thing about electric vehicles is that the mileage isn't as important…to these vehicles as it is on a gasoline vehicle. If you have a gas vehicle with 200,000 miles, a lot of it's. usage in lifespan has been used up. We're on a Navy, as long as the battery was maintained properly And that's the key.

There may be plenty more life left than that vehicle because the electric motors which drive the vehicles those will last a long time We're on a gasoline vehicle internal combustion engine. That engine wears out quicker. The middle word of that engine is the key internal combustion. This is burning and exploding inside the engine It wears out the engine faster than. an electric motor which has spins with magnets.

So used EVs are starting to come into the market. It'll be interesting to see in the next couple of years how it affects the volume and what. increase in the sales rate happens in 24 or 25.