One day, the technology for electric cars may advance to the point where they’ll be a better deal than gasoline-powered vehicles. However, that day is not today. Today, electric cars are underpowered, overpriced golf carts with limited range and expensive replacement parts. In essence, they’re cars for the short sighted and those rich enough to buy a car just to make a statement.
That much, most people already knew.
But there’s yet another downside to electric cars that in hindsight, should have been easy to see, but in practice is just becoming widely known:: They’re very difficult to resell.
When the new plug-in sales share of the total market is only a: pathetic 0.65%, this is hardly shocking:
Fuel-frugality aside, it seems the 2013 Chevy Volt and 2012 Nissan Leaf are proving to be expensive long-term investments.
One of the main questions every new car buyer should always ask themselves is what is the depreciation of the vehicle and therefore its potential resale value? Recent reports have suggested that electric cars don’t hold their value quite as well as their regular counterparts.
Of course all new cars: lose roughly 20% of their value: the moment they roll off the lot. But there are a lot of used plug-in-specific problems.
The $40,000 Volt is basically a: $17,000 Cruze: — with a 500 lb.,: 25-mile range, eight-hour-to-charge battery.
The Chevy Volt is a particularly bad deal. It’s not so much an effort to create a vehicle that will sell as it is an effort to create a vehicle that will draw subsidies from the federal government. Well, one day the technology will be there….maybe. In the interim, the makers of these electric cars should send out “Thanks, sucker!” cards to all the people who’re taking these lemons off their hands.