10 Tips To Find And Buy Used EVs

A few years ago, dealers couldn’t give them away. Now, used electric vehicles are in hot demand as soaring gas prices keep breaking new records. 

Unfortunately, EVs—new and used—are in scarce supply, a situation resulting from the huge increase in demand over the past year running up against EVs’ historically low market share. Global supply shortages that have decimated the new car supply and put tremendous upward pressure on all used car prices also haven’t helped. 

As a result, there aren’t many used EVs out there, and if one is available it likely costs a lot more than just a year or two ago.

Used Prices Are New Prices

In the not-so-long-ago past, the best advice for used car shoppers was to go where the markups weren’t.

Today, though, the best advice is to avoid the market entirely—unless you absolutely cannot. That’s perhaps even more true for the used EV market than for conventional internal combustion vehicles, which are in greater supply.

“There’s not a lot of availability, so prices for the used EVs that are there are going to be higher, just as with the new-car market,” said Sam Abuelsamid, an industry analyst and EV specialist with Guidehouse Insights and a Forbes Wheels contributor.

On average, used EV prices have climbed more than 25% in the past year, said Scott Case, CEO at Recurrent, a battery health provider that’s been tracking the used EV market since late 2020. Popular models, such as the four Tesla models—which account for more than 40% of new EV sales and have started to dominate used EV listings as well—have climbed even higher.

One major online seller, Carvana, had only a few thousand EVs on its national used vehicle listings in early June, and 90% of them were marked “purchase pending,” said Carvana spokesperson Veronica Cardenas. The site has over 32,000 car listings across all types.

Some advice can make shopping a bit easier for anyone heading into the used EV market, but it helps to understand how we got here.

Scant Supply

The first modern electric car—Nissan’s Leaf—launched 12 years ago.

For much of the following decade EVs were ignored by most automakers and car shoppers and relegated to the few states where regulators and consumers saw value—either environmentally or economically—in cars that didn’t gulp fossil fuels and emit toxic, climate-damaging gasses.

It’s hard to get an exact tally of used EVs on the market. The supply changes daily and listings by private sellers aren’t tracked. But Recurrent’s Case said the monthly average across the U.S. for the first half of 2022 ranged between 15,000 and 20,000 used EVs. That’s not much compared to the 2021 national average of 3.4 million used car sales a month.

Adding to the pain for those seeking a decent used EV, much of the supply is bunched up in the handful of states, such as California, Florida and New York, that have encouraged EV sales. 

Because of high gas prices and vehicle shortages, a lot of EV owners are hanging onto them instead of trading in and up, so the number of used EVs is only about a fourth of what it should be, Case told Forbes Wheels.

While there was only one all-electric car model in the U.S. in 2011, there were 24 models from 13 brands as 2022 began, and more than 100 models are expected by 2030. That kind of volume will help create a bigger stock of used models in the future.

Right now, though, there are about 290 million registered cars, trucks and SUVs in the U.S. and only 1.6 million fully electric vehicles have been sold since that first Leaf in late 2010. That’s a mere one-half of one percent of the total pool of registered vehicles. 

Inflation Hurts

Add soaring gasoline prices—and the expectation that they’ll continue to be at or near record highs for at least the rest of the year—and the upward pressure on used EVs is easy to understand.

Used EV prices have inflated at a rate three times higher than the overall inflation rate—which now stands at about 8.5%.

These are only snapshots, as availability and pricing change frequently, but illustrate what the market’s like out there:

• The asking price in Southern California for a 2018 Nissan Leaf SV with less than 30,000 miles on the odometer averaged about $20,000 at the end of 2019. Today, the average for the same make, model and mileage is about $25,000.

• Range-extended BMW i3s of the same vintage and mileage also were averaging about $20,000 at the end of 2019. The CarMax franchise in Irvine, California had almost a dozen in stock. In early June, CarMax listed just two discontinued i3s available nationally—and the asking price for the single available 2018 model, albeit with under 10,000 miles clocked, was $35,998. 

• Many used Teslas, especially the more moderately priced Model 3 that starts at $46,990 new, now cost as much as identically equipped new ones. That’s thanks to heavy demand that makes it hard to find new models in stock. It’s a three- to six-month wait, according to Tesla’s website. Tesla’s used car inventory in early June only had 66 used Model 3s. CarMax listed 160 used 3s, all priced similarly to a comparably equipped new Model 3.

Ease Shopping Pain

If waiting until things calm down isn’t an option and budget is a concern, there’s not much the average consumer can do to avoid the high prices of today’s used EVs, cautioned Mark Holthoff, senior editor for Carvana’s research channel and founder of the used car site Klipnik.com. 

But there are 10 things you can do to keep from paying too much or buying a lemon:

1. Look for models that have been available for more than two years and sold fairly well when new—EVs such as the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt EV and discontinued Kia Soul EV and Volkswagen e-Golf. Availability on the used market may be relatively high, and their prices lower than some of the newer EVs—many of which were introduced as luxury or near-luxury models and carry their higher pricing into the used market.

2. Realistically assess your daily driving needs and shop for older models that didn’t have a lot of range to begin with but can make fine vehicles for short daily commutes, shopping errands and running the kids back and forth from school and their various local activities. With electricity running less than 25% of the cost of gasoline on a miles-per-gallon-equivalent basis, every mile driven electrically represents a significant savings over driving in an internal combustion car. 

3. Check online pricing guidelines, such as KBB.com, to get an idea of what a good average price should be for the make and model you’re interested in—and don’t go too much above that. 

4. If shopping with a private seller, ask how often the car was charged to 100%. Frequent charging to full capacity can hasten battery degradation, especially for older models, such as the Leaf, that don’t use battery pack cooling systems.

5. Try to avoid vehicles that were operated mostly in places with very hot temperatures—it’s another drain on battery life.

6. If financing, consider certified pre-owned models from franchised dealerships. Those often have much lower interest rates than non-certified used models.

7. Try to get a battery health report—private sellers might let you take the car to a mechanic or dealership that performs such tests and used car dealerships can run battery checks on used EVs they sell. Most EVs also have a dashboard readout that shows battery capacity. Recurrent offers battery health comparisons online.

8. Shop at dealerships or online sites that offer warranties on used vehicles. Some also perform free battery checks.

9. Ask dealerships if their used EVs are from auction houses and whether the battery health was checked. Auto auction group Manheim performs battery checks and scores EVs, so dealers know what they are bidding on. 

10. Don’t be afraid to look out of state. California, for instance, accounts for more than 40% of all EVs, so it has the largest used EV supply, which could mean lower prices and more choice. Even if asking prices are the same, the real cost of buying a used EV can vary from state to state because of sales and motor vehicle taxes.