What are your experiences with used electric cars?
I am going to be in the market for a vehicle soon enough. My 2003 car is starting to show its age. Unfortunately my family still requires two cars often enough that I will need to find a replacement.
I have been bouncing the idea around in my head of getting an electric car.
As it stands, my 2003 has not gone over 50 miles in a single day more than a handful of times since we got a hybrid three years ago, and I don't see that changing soon. To me, this seems like an excellent opportunity to get a used electric vehicle that might not be getting the range that it once had. A vehicle that got 150 miles on a charge off the lot that now only gets 75 miles might be a problem for the original buyer but might not be for me.
My question to the users of Tildes - have you bought an "old" (I use this term very loosely) electric car for a similar use case? Are there problems with used electrics that don't have an ICE equivalent? Are you generally happy with the decision?
Used EVs are harder to buy than a use ICE car. Every EV has it's own issues that you have to watch out for because EV owners can sneak them by the sales people when they trade them in. Here are the most important things to look out for imo:
Make sure you are aware of what kind of fast charging connector the car uses. Some connection types are more plentiful than others depending on your area. I would 100% not recommend a car that uses CHAdeMO.
Also make sure you know what is the amount of power that car can receive. Some cars with a CCS connector can take 350kW max and others top out at 80kW. Another and even more important thing to look for is the charging curve of the car. A car that can charge at 200kW steadily between 20% and 70% will charge much faster than a car that hits 350kW peak between 20% and 30%, but drops to 125kW for the rest of the charging session.
Not all EV batteries are equal. Make sure you know how to access the charging history and battery pack condition with an OBDII scanner. A car that was fast charged 80% of the time will not be in the same condition as a car that was charged on an 11kW level 2 charger for 90% of charging sessions.
Likewise, some manufacturers manage battery temperature differently. The Leaf has a passively air cooled batter pack that overheats easily and throttles the already slow fast charging. The excessive heat buildup can also affect the range and longevity of your battery pack.
Battery packs also come in different voltages that can effect charging speed depending on what charger you use. An 800V battery pack that can charge at 350kW may be current limited to 437A. If you come to a charger that can provide 350kW, but only at 400V, the car will have it's charging speed limited by the max amperage the car can handle, or limited further by the current limit of an onboard DC to DC converter that bumps the voltage up to 800V.
The EPA or WLTP range means nothing to you. a 300 mile range does not mean you will go 300 miles. You need to find the miles/kWh metric, kWh/mile, or the metric equivalent for highway speeds and low speeds. My Nissan Leaf could get 3.9 miles/kWh at 65mpg, but dropped to 2.9-3 miles/kWh at 80mph. at 50mph 4.5 miles/kWh was achievable. with the ~37kWh useable capacity in the battery, that translated to 166 miles at 50mph, 144 miles at 65mph, and 107 miles at 80mph. And that's on flat ground. Go up a mountain and you can watch your battery percentage drop. Ideally use an app like a better route planner to take elevation change and speed into consideration when checking if an EV works for your trips.
Car sales people do not know any of these facts. Owners might, but may be trying to pawn off a less than ideal car on an unsuspecting buyer. You really have to visit the owners forums for whatever model you want to buy and find technical review sites to get this info. Car manufacturers hide these stats on their sites because it can confuse people, but EV shopping is actually very complex.
I kinda disagree on the EV's being harder to buy part.
When buying an ICE car you need to "just know" a lot of stuff. Timing belts and turbos and DPF systems, head gaskets etc. There's no reliable way of checking any of those without dismantling the car - sellers tend to frown on that.
Barring a full teardown, you just need to either be an engine whisperer or get a friend who is. Then you test drive and try to listen for The Sounds that tell you the dual-mass flywheel is on its way out or the EGR needs to be swapped.
For EVs you can get an off the shelf OBD2 reader and a free app on your smartphone. It'll let you check the battery capacity and state of health with zero knowledge of anything. If the numbers are green, it's OK.
The engine itself either works or doesn't, electric engines don't kinda work like ICEs. They usually break down really fast or they just work.
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As for the battery pack voltages etc, a normal user doesn't really need to care about that unless they do regular American Sized road trips. OG Leafs are crap, that info should be distributed further. But for everything else batteries have worked better than the manufacturers expected.
WLTP range is as descriptive as the manufacturer's claims of gas mileage. It's an artificial test that every car does and very rarely reflects real-world usage.
Which app works for a cheap generic OBDII BT reader?
2023 Bolt EUV is the vehicle in question.
I've used EVNotify: https://github.com/EVNotify/EVNotify
But the development seems to have slowed down somewhat and I'm not sure if the Bolt specifically is supported.
The connector is important, but I would disagree that it's important to get into the weeds on the peak current or charging curve and just pay attention to the charging speeds they advertise. Unfortunately they'll all use their own metric (though most frequently you'll get something like zero to eighty percent in n minutes), but it will be enough to get you a general idea of if it will work for you. Realistically if you're charging at home you probably won't need super-fast quick charges unless something happens that changes your routine pretty dramatically or you have an electrical problem. If you're planning on using the car for road trips the charging times are going to matter a whole lot more to you than peak wattage or charging curves.
While I don't have experience with used electric cars, I would suggest you take into account the weather where you live.
Cars that see colder temperatures half the year will benefit from having temperature regulating insulation. The colder it gets, the more important this is.
I live in a place that sees frost every winter, and even here there have been lots of cars sold without extra insulation. Dealerships have been made well aware of this since the beginning, but some would still try and sell an uninsulated car because of the lower price/easier sales potential.
I only know of this because I've been a mystery shopper evaluating car dealerships several times. You're given all relevant information ahead of time to be able to properly evaluate the sales pitches they give.
Not every dealership mentioned the importance of this insulation and the quite large effect it has on the battery, thus the car's reach.
This was across all brands in the area, they seem to cooperate for these evaluations.
Funnily enough, it was an older, quite jovial but old fashioned and sexist seller that was the best at explaining those things.
Unfortunately he also could not be persuaded to focus on technical stats. He extolled the virtues of the washability of leather seats, the amazing surround camera options upsell, and abundance of colour choices.
Such is life for a woman.
I even went way off script to practically force the topic! I am knowledgeable and wanted to know how much torque the car had, the specs for the tow hitch, and more.
A pretty car that is so easy to parallell park with a million cameras for the assumed parking challenged woman (I am not), and washable seats make no difference if you can't leave your steep driveway with the trailer you're often towing around! laughs
People who act like women are babies piss me off so much. Maybe women should start carrying around spray bottles so they can train these people the same way one would a cat. If they're not going to treat you like a person, they don't deserve to be treated like one either.
Before we got married, the mother of my kids had a sweet convertible Camero SS. Every time we went in to a place like AutoZone (at the time it was the only place within 20 miles of us) they'd default to me, usually repeatedly in the same conversation.
At first I'd politely tell them that it's not my car, it's her car and her money. The very next sentence or two they're ignoring her again and trying to talk directly to me. I'd blankly stare at them while pointing to her until they got the hint. If they didn't get the hint I'd just tell her "This jackass doesn't think you understand him or something. Do I need to translate dumbass to english for you or do you just want to leave?" Then I'd follow her lead and we'd do which she decided. We had to walk out of 3 car dealerships when she went to trade it in over them doing the same thing.
We have a vendor at work who does the same thing. He always walks over and talks to our COO (a man) instead of our Project Manager (a woman) even though it was the PM who solicited the vendor and is handling the service visit because she oversees that operating unit. The vendor sends the same guy every time for the service call, and he does this every time.
At this point, you should probably take the advice from @Akir and start using a spray bottle for training purposes.
Wait what? Cars are sold with "temperature regulating insulation"? Where?
I've never heard of this and I live in a country where we are below freezing most of the year.
For EV's the "insulation" is usually the fact that the battery weighs multiple hundreds of kilograms. It takes a LONG time for it to cool down. Some cars heat it by themselves by using the battery even when parked, most do it only while driving.
I only know what I was informed of at that point, and that was what I was told then.
I would hope that temperature regulating is either something every car has now, or that this is communicated better.
It's in every car, the early Leafs were an anomaly. Even the most hardcore EV people knew it was a shitty idea when it was released, but it was the cheapest EV, so...
The only thing missing from some (most?) EVs is smart preheating of the battery when navigating to a charge point. Mostly because it's only really needed in the Nordics and Canada, Central Europe and most of the US never gets cold enough for it to matter.
Bought a 2015 Fiat 500e in 2018, so three years old and actually the newest vehicle Ive ever owned. It only had about 25,000 miles on it at the time. Its been wonderfully problem free - Ive replaced the 12v battery ($81) and headlight bulbs because one burned out. Just last month I finally bought new tires. But for 5 years of ownership that's ridiculously little maintenance compared to my other ICE vehicles. And I store it for 3 months of the year in an unheated container (when it hits -30c here). Restarting it in spring is zero work - turn the key and go. Love this little grocery getter.
That's the beauty of EVs. I've had diesels, gas cars and hybrids.
The two Priuses did OK, mostly started just with the push of a button. The diesels were a complete crapshoot whether they would start or not - and I had a block heater on it. Even when it started, the transmission was mushy for a good half hour because the oil viscosity went to shit because of the cold
The only one to Just Work after sitting a weekend at -30C is the EV. No preheating or anything, sit in the car, push a button. Hot air coming in after 5 minutes after 15 it's t-shirt weather inside.
I recently bought a 2020 huyndai kona cert. Pre-owned with about 20,000 miles on it. A couple of strange circumstances made it fantastic deal. First it had 2 previous owners. But the original owner only had it for a month back in March 2020. I figure they had bought it but when covid hit they sold it.
Second, this model had a high voltage battery recall. Some of them were catching on fire, it was a check and replace if needed type recall. This particular kona had its high voltage battery replaced at half its current miles.
These factors combined with the car being a little on the more worn side considering the cert pre-owned and that it had been sitting for a bit made for a steal.
With all that said, I have absolutely loved the car. I will be hard pressed to go back to an ICE.
I cannot really comment on an aged battery as mine isn't really all that old. I can say that even on a level 1 charger at home, my vechile charges about 50 miles over night. So if your intended daily usage is around there then you may not even need to install a dedicated level 2 charger.
I've bought two used electric cars so far. Both have been pretty great. Like @gowestyoungman said, they're a lot easier to deal with because they don't need as much maintenance. I've said this a lot of times before, but I'd never go back to an ICE car after experiencing how much better electric is.
The market for them is a bit crazy though; you can get a long range for not too much less than they originally sold for, or you can get a low-range one for beater car prices. And the market can be very different depending on where you live, too. You might want to investigate the mechanics shops around you to find one that does battery refurbishment, because you have the possibility of buying something like an early Leaf for $3~5K and then spending $10~15K to put in a battery that offers more capacity than the original. But as with everything, make sure you get the right car for your situation and habits.
Coworker of mine bought a used Nissan Leaf (1st Gen, 2013MY I think?) for around $7k recently and its been rather disappointing for him. Granted he is still on the original battery but the degradation on it has been so bad he only gets enough range to get to the office from his home (~30 miles). Luckily there are charging points at our office parking lot so he can charge while he works but the range is an issue if you’re going to be driving a lot.
However, I’ve heard great things about used Tesla vehicles. Prices are still a bit crazy but the battery degradation on their vehicles is nowhere near as bad as it is on the original Leafs. Saw an article a while ago (think it was in 2021/2022) about a 2012 Model S with over 100k miles on it still getting over 200 miles of range. To compare that to the Leaf, the Leaf would have to be getting like 60-70 miles of range. A few friends of some friends of mine have also gotten used Model 3s recently and I haven’t really heard any complaints from them. Biggest issue for them has been Tesla Service which I’ve heard can be hit or miss in general, not just for used vehicles. But driving wise and technology wise, things seem to just work.
The batteries on the first generation leaf seem to have been something of a lottery; you either got a great one or a terrible one.
If your coworker is is driving 30 miles every day, they're probably taking the highway, and EVs are (generally) not as efficient at highway speeds, especially if you're in an area where people drive at 70m/h or more. If the highways are going up hills it can be even worse. The range estimates the car reports are also drastically higher than you'll actually get if you aren't driving on flat city roads; on mine it could be approaching double when driving on hilly highways.
I had to hire a ride not too long ago when my car was in the shop and I was surprised that the car that picked me up was one of those early year Model S Teslas. I asked the driver how much capacity they still had on it and it was actually not too much better than my lottery-winning Leaf battery. But given the much higher range they offered, it wasn't nearly as big of a deal for him. It helped that the area he serviced has many fast charging stations he can charge at when needed.
$7K for a 2012 or any gen 1 Leaf is probably too much right now. I'm trying to sell my Leaf and I'm not getting anyone willing to pay $4K where I am. I paid $10K for it when the meter still showed full bars for the capacity. That being said, the market can be different depending on where you are.
Interesting, didn’t know that the batteries were such a lottery. An old friend from high school has a Leaf in his family and even they get only around 50 miles of range in town so I assumed that all gen 1 Leafs had pretty bad battery degradation.
$7k sounded super high to me too and my coworker said as much when we were talking. That being said, the car was pretty well looked after and is in pretty good shape both inside and out so I assume most of the price was for how clean it was. And yeah he mainly just commutes on the highway in the super congested southern Bay Area so that definitely doesn’t help things.
Just to be clear, I don't know how much of the lottery effect is based off of where people were driving them or just improvements they developed later on. It's just from what I have heard from other Leaf owners, my sample of verifiable accounts is one - my own car. I have a light suspicion that a lot of those people who lost the battery lottery were just in very hot or cold climates. My leaf is still at around 3/4 - 4/5th capacity after 135K miles driving in a moderate-warm climate and charging to 100% every day.
Ah ok. That’s pretty interesting to me. Both examples I mentioned were in the Bay Area where it isn’t super hot nor super cold. I also have no idea about the mileage and charging stats of either of the cars I mentioned so maybe these people were just abusing the battery and draining it to 0 before charging it back up to 100%. Having the majority of your range even after 135k miles and charging it fully every day is pretty impressive though. Hope your car lasts a long time!
Old school Leafs had exactly zero temperature management for the battery, they're pretty legendary for how shit they are. No heating, no cooling. It just sits there.
Depending on how it was driven, stored and maintained the battery might be OK or it might be completely shit.
My advice would be to avoid unless you know a guy who can re-do the battery or you check the SoH on it before buying.
I would caution against the older Model S vehicles. They seem to have frequent drive unit failures and Tesla was still figuring a lot of stuff out then. There is a high chance they'll be money pits and are all out of warranty at this point. A used Model 3 should be around the same price point and a much more reliable vehicle.
I've had a Tesla Model 3 since 2019 and I love it. I would highly consider looking in the used market for one, just be mindful that new standard range Model 3s are around $33k after the tax credit right now, so don't overpay for a used one.
That was my experience when I looked at used EVs a while back. All of the affordable ones I could find had severely worn batteries that would only yield a few dozen kilometres of range, and buying a new battery was cost prohibitive.
Hopefully things will improve as better used EVs come down in price.
Questions to ask yourself:
I've owned a Bolt for about 5 years, and so far it's been great. The only major hiccups are the big recalls (which I suppose are expected with new tech) and changing the 12V battery (not the big battery--the one that's equivalent to the battery in a regular car), which you cannot find in any auto-part store. It had to be special ordered and the failure of it stranded me for a week.
To answer both questions - yes. That is actually the reason that I am strongly considering this route. I know that the biggest downsides are related to inconvenient charging and having a conventional vehicle for long no-fuss trips.
I own a house with a garage and we have a hybrid for the longer trips. The hybrid has been nothing but fantastic but it seems potentially a waste of an opportunity to default to another hybrid rather than try something new.
Sounds like you have an ideal use-case for an EV then. If you can find a used Chevy Bolt that has already had the battery recall done then you'll also have an almost brand new battery with its full life span ahead of it. That might be overkill for your situation, though, with 200+ miles of range. The Bolt is also one of the slowest-charging cars when it comes to DC fast charging, limited to something like 50 kW, but it sounds like you won't need to be doing any fast charging so that should be a non-issue. It isn't any slower than anything else when charging on 120v or 240v AC at home.
If you're planning on keeping the car for a long time I would still try to get as much battery as you can, that way you have more usable range for longer as it degrades over time.
Like others have said, I would be hesitant to buy a Nissan Leaf, both due to the complete lack of battery conditioning and the fact that they use Chademo plugs.
Another thing to keep in mind is if you live somewhere with severe winters (like I do), that effects the battery efficiency massively. I get like 30% less range in the winter.
It's been over a year since I've bought my chevy bolt, and I love this car. But, instead of giving you suggestions here's some information around evs and some clarifications around some bad myths.
Charging: evs can charge on normal house outlets (level 1), most allow for a lower amp charging if you live in a old home with bad wiring (the bolt defaults to 8A) but most cap out at 12A this is the max you can draw from a normal outlet legally. At 12A and 120V your car will charge about 1.2Kw/hr or in other words get around 6/4 miles charge per hour. If you plug in at night you're looking at upwards of 60mi. This level of charging is recommended due to lower wear on the battery pack.
Level 2 charging uses a 240V circuit, similar to an electric washer/dryer or an electric stove. A low amp 240V circuit could be cheaply ran to most garages using romex cables for a couple hundred your self if you're familiar with wiring. This level of charge gives you around 20-40mi/hour worth of charge and fills up most evs over night.
Finally level 3, also known as fast charging or DC charging is the most abusive on the battery pack but can 80% charge most evs in 1hr/20min depending on the vehicle. This charging is normally recommended for long trips on the highway or if you can't charge at home or work.
Evs milage varies highly based on weather. Evs have special efficiency tires that are quite costly and don't have significant traction in the snow. Switching to winter tires reduces the range by around 10/20 % and the range will be reduced by heating the battery pack and you some more. Because of this I would recommend getting a ev that has around 4x the range you use daily to compensate for winter weather if you live in a cold climate. That said evs are much better in snow due to heavier weights allowing better traction. The instantaneous torque also helps getting out of snow banks.
While there's a lot to learn, driving and maintaining a ev is significantly easier then a ICE (internal combination engine) vehicle. The information just isn't widely circulated yet
I bought a used Volt years ago, and it was great. 30-40 miles on battery and then the gas engine kicked on for unlimited range on gas. Was a great car, except rear seat got to be too small for my kids.
I bought a 2018 Chevy Volt with 20,000 miles on it in early 2020. I've been extremely happy with it. It's the best of both worlds in that it gets 40-60 miles fully electric, which is more than enough for most days, and then switches to gas after that.
I fill up my gas tank maybe once every three months (and even then it's only halfway because I won't use that much gas before it goes bad). If I'm on a road trip I can top up on gas instantly and not worry about waiting for a charger to be open.
The biggest thing to consider is charging. Do you own or rent? If you rent...what's the charging situation going to be? I know a few complexes near me that offer electric charging via ChargePoint or similar self service chargers.
If you own, make sure to budget an extra $1,000 for the installation of a new charger. The charger itself isn't too expensive (you can get a basic one for $300) but you'll also need to get a new circuit and NEMA 6-50 plug installed in a spot that allows you to charge the car. That costs a decent amount since you need a licensed electrician to do it.
Also don't forget that you need the extra capacity in your electric panel for the charger. If your panel is too small, you'll need to install a new electric panel or an additional subpanel.
Yea, im working on that now. 100amp service and my panel is maxed. i use my level 1 charger and have only needed to use the fast charger 1 stop down the highway when i did a day trip from STL to chichgo and back.
True. Luckily, I had four or five blanks so I was able to just add a new circuit (which was still about $400).
If your house is really, really old and the panel hasn’t been updated in like 50+ years, you might have to get the whole thing replaced to get higher power service to your house, but that’s a very rare case.
Yeah, I had to do that. 100A service built in 1986, did not have enough capacity to add a 50A circuit to my garage.
You can also just use a Level 1 (120v) EVSE that plugs into a standard outlet. It'll be slow, yes, but overnight will give you enough range for most people's daily driving plus a little extra.
That’s true. You’ve just gotta make sure that your circuit can handle at least 20A. I have a 15A circuit in my garage and whenever I tried to use my level 1 charger, it just kept tripping the breaker after half an hour or so of charging.
Oh man, that's not a good sign. Do you have anything else on the circuit? IIRC Level 1 chargers are supposed to be limited to 12A. There are some EVSEs with current limiting circuitry, but that will obviously charge even slower.
Circuit breakers do wear over time; you might just need to replace that breaker.
I just ended up having a dedicated 50A circuit installed with a plug on the outside of the garage for my charger.
But a 12A charger on a 15A circuit isn’t great regardless of how old it is. Most circuits (for home use at least) are only designed for continuous use at 80% of their amperage. They can spike up to 100% but not for hours on end. Without anything else running, that’s right at 80% load.
You're making it sound like electrical systems are more delicate than they are. The reason why you don't want to run things at 15A for long periods of time is because the wires can heat up and start fires, which is part of the reason why they will wire up the outlets with wires rated for 20A or more depending on the length they need to travel. Combine that with every part of the electrical connection being built to exceed the rating they're listed under, you're completely safe.
Beyond that, every house I've seen with a garage has it's own dedicated circuit, even very old ones. So unless you have an exception to the rule of thumb, you should be fine.
I don’t think I’m making it sound that bad, honestly. Most people will be totally fine. And if I made it sound dangerous…it isn’t dangerous at all. It’s working exactly like it’s supposed to…it’s tripping and preventing the fire. It’s just something to be aware of.
Heat is the reason my breaker tripped. A continuous 80% load will eventually trip the breaker just because of heat. I’m sure a newer panel/breaker will last longer than that, but mine is probably 30 years old at this point.
I worded my comment badly; I've edited the language to be a bit less dramatic.
My plan when I bought my Bolt was to buy a faster charger, but the original 120V turned out to be all I needed. My daily commute is about 30 miles round trip. There are maybe 2-3 occasions per year when I wish I had a faster charger.
I also had a used 1st gen Leaf. Mine had the main control board swapped twice (warranty) + a handful of other issues (some warranty some not) that weren't related to EV components. Would not recommend that car.
I think you might have pasted the wrong link.
Does anyone know if the newer Leaf models have more reliable battery life etc? I got a great deal on a 2019 model and it should be arriving next week. I just got my home charger unit installed and I’m pretty excited about the switch to EV!
https://thedriven.io/2023/02/02/is-there-an-issue-with-the-nissan-leaf-battery-overheating-during-highway-driving/ i have not done much research but this says they can still have issues.
I bought a secondhand 2015 Golf GTE plug in hybrid and degradation has been a non-issue.
They're supposed to do 50km on a single charge from factory specs, so realistically that'll never happen as soon as they roll out of the shop.
Even so, it'll give me somewhere between 25 and 45 kilometers of range depending on driving speed and outside temperature. The battery degradation is negligible.
Eventually it depends on the model and whether the previous owner fast charged all the time or not (I charge mine at the slowest setting on purpose) and you'll see that many secondhand EVs are generally ok.