How much is that used EV worth? Maybe less than you think

Residual values for electric vehicles are falling behind those of internal-combustion engine cars, experts say, a trend that could threaten faster EV adoption as well as automakers’ profit margins.

Purchase incentives for new electric cars, changing technology and the cost of batteries mean that EVs are less attractive on the used car market, experts say. 

"This is probably the single biggest economic effect that is going to hit the industry," said Fintan Knight, co-founder and CEO of Automotive Equity Management, a startup that benchmarks mobility assets and indexes.

Knight, a former Audi, Rolls-Royce and BMW executive, pointed to studies showing that residual values, expressed as depreciation, are more than 50 percent of the cost of mobility (with the rest being running costs, insurance and energy). 

"It’s central to the business model of mobility," he said.

Automakers can offer attractive lease terms if residual values are strong, an especially important point for EVs, which are more expensive to build and sell. Buyers who balk at high list prices -- and the fear of spending tens of thousands of euros to replace a battery -- can be persuaded to switch to EVs by low-cost monthly leases and low running costs, they say.

"The higher the residual value, the more attractive leasing rates can be offered, and the more vehicles can be sold," said Martin Weiss, the head of valuations at DAT, an automotive data provider based in Germany.

In an example of how strong residual values can make EVs more affordable, Peugeot is able to offer leases for its e-208 small hatchback starting at 130 euros a month in France (with incentives) because the brand’s resale value is high, CEO Linda Jackson said last month. 

"This positioning, which includes a high level of technology and brand value, gives us high residual values," she said at the launch of the e-3008 compact SUV, adding that Peugeot had worked for 10 years to price itself in the "upper mainstream" segment. 

It is critical that residual values accurately reflect the cost of depreciation during a lease, experts say. If the value of a 3-year-old EV is much lower than anticipated, automakers, lease companies and dealers will be facing a financial hit when they resell the car, as will owners who bought the car through traditional financing or an all-cash purchase.

"To sell the vehicle at this point, it needs to be discounted to match the current market level," Weiss said. "In addition to the holding costs, there are also costs associated with price reductions, leading to reduced profit margins."

Buyers will eventually notice lower prices for used cars, Weiss said, affecting projected residual values for new vehicles -- and eventually leading to higher leasing rates. 

Cost is a major hurdle for EV adoption. A 2022 survey by DAT found that 53 percent of potential EV owners cited "high initial purchase costs" as a reason they bought an internal combustion car instead, an equal number to those who pointed to range anxiety.

Automakers have been optimistic about the residual values of EVs, Knight said, but with supplies of both new and used cars increasing after pandemic- and semiconductor-related supply constraints eased, it is becoming apparent that used EVs have lower value relative to internal-combustion models.

Knight says the gap in residual values for EVs compared with equivalent internal-combustion models is about 10 to 12 percentage points. He said the Audi Q7 SUV, a combustion-engine model, will hold its value 11 percentage points better than a Q8 E-tron, the brand's similarly sized EV.

"The market for EVs is changing very quickly," Knight said. When EVs first reached the market in significant numbers around 2020, he said, supply was scarce, fuel costs were rising and there were abundant incentives for buyers. 

"Automakers were bullish on their expectations for [residual values]," he said. "That has faded completely now." According to figures from the U.S., he said, the average new car will depreciate about 28 percent in the first three years of ownership, but for EVs that figure rises to 41 percent.

This disparity in residual values "should have happened from Day 1, but the market has not been normal since 2020," said Emmanuel Labi, the president of Autobiz, a French company that provides trade-in and valuation services for automakers. "Every car has been able to sell in recent years. From the moment the market went back to normal, EVs were the first to depreciate."

Data providers use different metrics to compare residual values, but they all point to a clear trend, they say. Among their findings:

• Autobiz’s research found that the rate of depreciation for EVs is speeding up in Western Europe, especially in the U.K., where EVs two years old or newer are depreciating 1.9 times faster than other powertrains in 2023, compared with 0.7 times faster in 2022. 
• DAT found that residual values for three-year-old EVs began trailing those of gasoline cars in January 2021. As of July 2023, EVs held 60 percent of their value after three years, while for gasoline models that figure was nearly 70 percent, with diesel around 67 percent.
• A report in May by Glass’s, a unit of Autovista, found that residual values of EVs in the U.K. began falling in September 2022, while those of other fuel types, including plug-in hybrids, continued to rise. By May 2023, EV residual values were down 14 percent, as measured in the percentage of list price for 3-year-old cars. 
• Glass’s found that residual values of EVs, at just 47 percent of the list price, were 25 percentage points lower than the best-performing powertrain, full hybrids.
• It also takes dealers longer to sell used EVs -- an average of 53 days, according to Glass’s, compared with 36 days for gasoline models. "It’s easy to understand why dealers have become cautious" about stocking them, the report said.
• In Sweden, where EVs make up about 33 percent of new-car sales, the trend in residual values is similar: EVs have lost 10 percent of their value since February 2020, while all other fuel types have gained. Values of used gasoline cars are 23 percentage points higher than those of EVs, according to a different study by Autovista.

There are a number of reasons that EVs’ residual values are low, relative to internal combustion cars, experts say.

For one, government incentives for EVs both distort the original price and hurt the used EV market. Most incentives are aimed only at new cars, giving used-car buyers "little to no encouragement" to buy an EV, Christof Engelskirchen, chief economist at Autovista, wrote in a report in May.

Incentives and tax benefits can reduce high EV list prices, but in the used car market, "it's ultimately the buyer or the market that determines the actual value of a vehicle," Weiss of DAT said.

Another reason EVs suffer on the used-car market is that new models become obsolete much faster than other powertrains, experts say. 

Knight of Automotive Equity Management said that EVs don’t need to follow the traditional pattern of a mid-cycle face-lift. "It used to be a model would be updated every three years, but part of the advantage for new car consumers is that [EVs] are innovating faster -- and at the same time speeding up the obsolescence of the old cars," he said. 

Those upgrades can take the form of improved or larger batteries, more efficient electric motors or power electronics, or over-the-air software updates. They can increase range and lower charging times. 

EVs launched in 2020 had an average range of about 330 km; just two years later, that figure had jumped to 496 km, Autovista says.

Used EVs "are simply inferior in terms of daily suitability," Engelskirchen said.

The main unknown for used EVs is their battery health, Knight and others said, especially with batteries making up about 30 percent of the cost of an EV. Batteries may degrade a few percentage points each year, with 70 percent efficiency generally being the cutoff for factory warranties, but how they have been treated is equally if not more important. 

Too many fast-charging cycles to 100 percent, repeatedly letting the battery run down to zero or failing to preheat before charging can all shorten a battery’s life significantly, Knight said.

"If someone forgets to fill up a tank of gas, the consequences are zero," he said. "If you forget to charge an EV and you go away on holiday, it's likely that that battery condition is significantly different than others on the market." 

Used-EV buyers currently have no way of knowing this history, Knight said. 

Uncertainty in a market generally means lower prices, he said. "You have to look at all [used EVs] with a high degree of suspicion," he said. "Then, it’s about at what price do I take the risk of a bad battery. That’s how residual value falls."

As EVs move from expensive models bought by early adopters to more price-sensitive mainstream offerings, Autovista, Autobiz and other valuation services expect they will continue to lag other fuel types in residual values. 

"Consistently across Europe, BEVs will suffer more than ICE vehicles as price pressure increases in used-car markets," Engelskirchen of DAT said.

That is partly because the used-EV market is highly volatile, but also because the first wave of EVs sold in Europe were mostly premium models or cars needed for compliance that might not have been optimized for efficiency and cost.

"Automakers had no choice but to underprice [overestimate] residual values for electric vehicles," Labi said. "They had to sell cars" to meet the EU’s CO2 emissions requirements starting in 2020.

New models, especially from Chinese brands, will offer better technology at lower prices, depressing prices for both new and used EVs.

Huge price cuts from Tesla this year, in some cases more than 10,000 euros, have had a significant impact on new EV prices, with a knock-on effect for the used market. The extent of that depends on how automakers react, Engelskirchen of Autovista said.

A simple price cut will "wash through" quickly to the used-EV market, he said, while other strategies such as offering lower-priced but better equipped entry-level models or reducing leasing rates through captive banks will have less impact on residual values.

His advice to automakers that might want to match Tesla cut for cut? "Don’t do it."

Given the importance of EV residual values to automakers’ future financial health, what can be done to improve them? 

Experts say the market will naturally stabilize as EVs make up a greater percentage of the used-car market and the technology becomes the default. 

"Hyundai and Toyota had the same issue in their first years in Europe," Labi said. "The market didn't know how to value them. Once they proved themselves, used-car values went up."

Citroen is purposely simplifying the option sheet on the New e-C3, a sub-25,000 euro small hatchback, with the goal of making residual values more predictable. There are just two trim levels, You and Max, with only color and a few other choices within each.

“In the end, it gives a lot more transparency at the resale point,” said Federico Goyret, head of marketing and communications at Citroen. “When you have vehicles that were configured three years before, customers seeing them for the second time don’t know how much the options are worth.

“You don’t get the residual value of the options you choose,” he continued.

Altelium, a British engineering company, is launching a platform that it says will accurately evaluate the state of an EV battery. The idea is to offer extended warranties on used EVs.

“As the traditional sign of product confidence, extended warranties help drive sales and the absence of them for used BEVs has been a brake on the market,” Altelium said last week in a news release announcing the service.

To remove uncertainty and risk from the used-EV market, automakers can move to centralize the ownership model, starting with the direct-sales or “agency” model, Knight said.

When cars are returned after a lease, automakers are best placed to accurately evaluate the battery condition, refresh the vehicles in-house -- perhaps even with new batteries -- and then resell them, he said.

“If they can refurbish the cars precisely and they don’t have to worry about middlemen [taking] margins, then they can make the whole process more efficient,” he said.