The Expert Podcast

Electric vehicles are not for everybody. Not everybody wants an EV. Some people just want their good old gas car or a hybrid, and I get it. There are a lot of disadvantages to an electric vehicle—you have your charging, your range, your batteries, all that stuff. But maybe, as a second car, it's worth looking at.

There are two very interesting deals happening this month that we're going to take a look at. One is on Tesla—Hertz, the auto rental company, is blowing out used Tesla vehicles. These are vehicles that originally sold for $40,000, $50,000, or even $60,000. Some of them are now being offered by Hertz for $14,000 to $15,000.

We're getting reports of people who have rented a Tesla from Hertz, and when they go to return it, they're being asked if they want to buy it cheap—$14,000 or $15,000. In this day and age, where are you going to find a $14,000 car that's halfway decent? A used car. It may not be your primary vehicle—if you take a lot of long trips or need a lot of cargo space, this may not work for you. But if you need a second car for commuting around town, or maybe for a high school kid, this may not be the worst thing in the world. These are tremendous vehicles.

What about this other deal? A brand-new Volkswagen ID.4 electric vehicle for a $149-a-month lease with 0% APR. Where else can you lease or buy a car with a $149 payment? Plus, again, if it's a commuter car, you don't have to put any gas in it. If you have a garage where you can charge it, every morning you get in, and it's charged up. No stopping at gas stations, no paying for gas. Your electric bill might go up a little, but nowhere near how much you’d spend on fuel.

Now, you're also not concerned with depreciation. Even with that Hertz Tesla deal—think about it. If you buy that car for $14,000 and drive it for three years, maybe it's worth $8,000. You lost $7,000. But with this lease, if you pay $149 a month for three years, at the end of the lease, you drop off the keys and walk away. No depreciation loss—the company takes the hit.

Look, we're not saying EVs are definitely the way to go. But as a second or third vehicle, for running around town or for a kid in college, this may be something worth considering. Electric vehicles still have a long way to go before they become fully mainstream, but for a part of your family’s automotive fleet, these two deals are worth looking at.

Even if you're a hater on EVs, even if you're totally against them, the financial side of it somehow makes sense. If you were looking to buy a Toyota Corolla or a Honda Civic, that’s a $25,000 to $30,000 car. A regular car loan on that would be about $500 a month, plus gas. No need to worry about charging, sure, but it's still $350 to $400 more per month than leasing that ID.4.

If you were looking to buy a used car, most decent ones cost $20,000 to $30,000. That’s still $20,000 to $30,000 more than buying this used Tesla for $14,000. It’s just something worth looking at. I wouldn’t have one as a primary vehicle, but as a second or third car, it might be worth having. If you're just running errands and don’t want to put extra miles on your main car, an EV could make sense.

Every mile you put on your primary car decreases its resale value. But if you use one of these EVs for errands and short trips, you save your main car from losing value and avoid fuel costs.

Let us know in the comments—do you think it’s a waste of time looking at EVs, or is it something worth considering?

Thank you for watching another episode of Actual Human Advisory on Describe TV. Remember, we have live one-on-one consultation appointments available at ActualHuman.com, where you can book a session with a licensed investigator, insurance broker, mortgage broker, or real estate broker. I’m also a certified real estate title examiner, a certified civil court mediator, and have developed and sold multiple businesses for millions of dollars.

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