I've kind of wondered how much I should care about that. What's the chances the battery life is hurting in a used EV, versus the chances the last owner of a used ICE car only changed the oil every...
I've kind of wondered how much I should care about that. What's the chances the battery life is hurting in a used EV, versus the chances the last owner of a used ICE car only changed the oil every 40k miles? Is a used EV actually more risky than a used ICE? Genuine questions coming from someone who will be needing a new vehicle in the next 4ish years, and would like to go all electric.
EVs require almost no maintenance whatsoever, so you don’t need to worry about that side of things. Battery health is pretty correlated to mileage, so you just need to do research on how a...
EVs require almost no maintenance whatsoever, so you don’t need to worry about that side of things. Battery health is pretty correlated to mileage, so you just need to do research on how a specific model holds up with mileage.
Yeah. I believe the Technology Connections guy just put out a video saying that battery life on used EVs is less of a worry point than previously reported. I'm sure a lot of people are looking at...
Yeah. I believe the Technology Connections guy just put out a video saying that battery life on used EVs is less of a worry point than previously reported.
I'm sure a lot of people are looking at EVs with the soaring gas prices.
That just means they recharge while braking, not that brake maintenance is lessened. That being said, I don't know how the actual brakes are built compared to the traditional types.
Most EVs have things like regenerative brakes
That just means they recharge while braking, not that brake maintenance is lessened. That being said, I don't know how the actual brakes are built compared to the traditional types.
Because of the resistance that charges the battery when you lift off the throttle, and the one-pedal driving philosophy, you aren't actually engaging the brakes to slow down as frequently as you...
Because of the resistance that charges the battery when you lift off the throttle, and the one-pedal driving philosophy, you aren't actually engaging the brakes to slow down as frequently as you otherwise would. It's like dynamically being able to shift to a very low gear. Conventional cars are capable of this, too, but it's more aggressive and prevalent on EVs because of how the "drive train" works.
It’s both. Regenerative breaking doesn’t use the brake pads, it runs the electric motors in reverse essentially. The braking force is applied by the electromagnetic resistance caused by lenz’s...
It’s both. Regenerative breaking doesn’t use the brake pads, it runs the electric motors in reverse essentially. The braking force is applied by the electromagnetic resistance caused by lenz’s law.
Of course, you can’t only use regenerative braking, so there will be wear on the mechanical breaks. But it is less.
It’s similar to engine braking in manual cars, but more effective at slower speeds (which arguably comes up much more in start and stop urban traffic).
You absolutely have to maintain the brake lines. The cars still rely on conventional brakes to do faster and harder braking, and those are still done by hydraulics with brake fluid lines and they...
You absolutely have to maintain the brake lines. The cars still rely on conventional brakes to do faster and harder braking, and those are still done by hydraulics with brake fluid lines and they do go bad at the same rate as normal brakes. Every 2 years you have to drain the brake fluid and check the master cylinder. The brake pads themselves also degrade with time even you don't wear through them as quickly.
This can often surprise EV drivers who have to brake suddenly only to find that they have no sudden braking power, especially since this is hidden from you when the car slows gently with regenerative braking.
Generally speaking the one area where EVs require more maintenance than ICEs is tire replacement. The additional torque in these vehicles means your average driver has a little more lead in their...
Generally speaking the one area where EVs require more maintenance than ICEs is tire replacement. The additional torque in these vehicles means your average driver has a little more lead in their foot. Tires get run down a little faster. It isn't even due to the additional weight of the vehicle, per my understanding.
As was said, brakes are often not replaced for 30,000-60,000 or more miles due to the regen systems.
EVs are excellent. Never going back. Did a hybrid for a decade with 42MPG. The idea of having to go back to an ICE is the stuff of backwards nightmares for me at this point!
You also have to maintain the 12V battery. It's still required to power all of the rest of the electronics and in most vehicles, if you have a dead 12V you can't start the car, even if you have a...
You also have to maintain the 12V battery. It's still required to power all of the rest of the electronics and in most vehicles, if you have a dead 12V you can't start the car, even if you have a fully charged drivetrain battery. 12V battery failure is much less predictable because you don't have the tell-tale signs of a failing 12V battery like slower engine turnover. Some manufacturers, like BMW will give you warning messages when the 12V seems to not be recovering as quickly but others will just fail without any warnings at all.
At some point we should have see these 12V parts disappear but most cars still depend on conventional car parts to operate all of the rest of the non-drivetrain systems.
The major ones to worry about are pre-2017 EVs with older battery management systems. The biggest offender is the Nissan Leaf, which didn’t have active cooling until last year I believe.
The major ones to worry about are pre-2017 EVs with older battery management systems. The biggest offender is the Nissan Leaf, which didn’t have active cooling until last year I believe.
The leaf has always had active cooling AFAIK. My 2012 model had liquid cooling and I actually broke it down because I didnt realize I was supposed to top off the coolant. Other ones to worry about...
The leaf has always had active cooling AFAIK. My 2012 model had liquid cooling and I actually broke it down because I didnt realize I was supposed to top off the coolant.
Other ones to worry about are the Mitsubishi I-MiEV and the Fiat 500i. There are probably more to watch out for if you are outside of the US.
I was curious, so I looked. The Leaf does have a fan, and coolant, but only the former is for the batteries. The latter is for the motor, inverter, converter, and on-board charger (basically all...
A friend of mine has a first generation Nissan Leaf and he replaced the battery shortly after he bought it, I think like 4-5ish years ago. He had to get some translator for the battery. As far as...
A friend of mine has a first generation Nissan Leaf and he replaced the battery shortly after he bought it, I think like 4-5ish years ago. He had to get some translator for the battery. As far as I know he hasn't had issues with the cooling of the battery.
The part that heats coolant for cabin heat failed recently, so he bought his own heater hose and ran it to the back of the car where he installed a diesel heater, hooked it up to the diesel heater and it worked. He even left the broken part in the loop, so the part that used battery power to heat up the coolant is still there but doesn't do anything, then he turns on the diesel heater which heats the coolant and then for the cabin controls he just turns on the heat with the fan I believe (or maybe just the fan, I can't recall now), and the fan blows air over the heater core like normal and blows in hot air to the cabin.
So he ended up getting extended range in the winter compared to what he got before because his cabin heat was no longer drawing power from the battery.
I can only speak to Tesla's and their battery degradation is pretty well documented nowadays. There is a sharp drop in people's first year of ownership but the degradation then levels off and is...
I can only speak to Tesla's and their battery degradation is pretty well documented nowadays. There is a sharp drop in people's first year of ownership but the degradation then levels off and is fairly mild. I think Tesla's claims of ~10% degradation over 100k miles has proven to be true. My cousin purchased his Model 3 brand new in 2022, which then had an estimated 270 miles of range. Nowadays, some 40k miles in, he gets ~250 miles, which tracks with what I've read for estimated degradation. People lose ~5% in the first year and then ~1% each year after that, assuming an average of 15k miles/yr.
Beyond that, as others have pointed out, maintenance on EVs is fairly limited. You have your standard brakes/tires that need to be replaced in regular intervals and then like washer fluid but there's nothing else you really need to worry about. As u/nukeman points out though, if you go for the "first" gen of EVs that came onto the market 2012-2018ish, you do have to pay more attention to the battery tech and battery management tech. I'm not knowledgable enough here to really give advice but depending on your usage and the climate in your area, those EVs could also be worth looking into.
Overall, I will say I don't think EVs are inherently more risky than ICEs. Low maintenance + low running costs is truly something I envy.
You should care about battery health and take a look at it. A better analogy would be an ICE car with a motor that is about to dissinegrate and the seller is trying to hide the symptoms and claim...
You should care about battery health and take a look at it.
A better analogy would be an ICE car with a motor that is about to dissinegrate and the seller is trying to hide the symptoms and claim it's all good.
I don't think a used EV is more risky than a used ICE. As we get more and more old EV's we'll get a better baseline on how they hold up. I'm curious to see what 20+ year old EV's will look like.
Across the U.S., people like Shepard are finding that used EVs are more attractively priced than ever — and are snapping the cars up as a result. It’s a welcome development in what has otherwise been a tough year for an industry that’s key to combatting climate change.
With the oil shock created by the war in Iran, used EVs are likely to become even more attractive to shoppers. Nationally, gas prices have surged to over $4 per gallon on average; in California, the country’s EV capital, they’re nearing $6. Unlike new EVs, used versions have mostly reached priced parity with gas-powered cars, according to new data from Cox Automotive — making the preowned versions the cheapest way for people to ditch increasingly costly-to-fuel gas cars in the near term.
[...]
New EV sales dropped by 28% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, per Cox. That was primarily driven by the loss of federal tax credits under the megabill passed by Republicans in Congress last year.
By contrast, used EV sales increased by 12% over the same period. The reason? Declining prices. The average cost of a used EV is now within about $1,300 of a comparable gas vehicle, Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive, said during a March forecast call. “That affordability shift has clearly shown up in the data,” she said, “significantly expanding access for mainstream buyers.”
In the U.S., new EVs still outsell used ones. That’s likely to change as the market matures, since the overall used car market is roughly three times as large as the new car market. Right now, EVs make up only about 2% of the used car market, but that share is growing, according to Cox data.
[...]
These latest data points aren’t coming out of left field, said Scott Case, CEO of Recurrent, a data-science firm specializing in collecting information on used EVs. His company tracked a 35% increase in used EV sales from 2024 to 2025, as well as a consistent downward trend in pricing, with 56% of used EVs selling for $30,000 or less as of January.
[...]
In particular, a lot of those used EVs are coming off leases made popular by a “leasing loophole” that allowed automakers and dealers to offer a full $7,500 federal tax credit, without the income qualification and manufacturer restrictions that applied to claiming the credit on direct sales.
[...]
And the latest vintages of used EVs offer an impressive value when compared with their gas-powered equivalents, Case said. Recurrent’s latest data indicates that a used EV is a year newer and has nearly 30,000 fewer miles than a similarly priced used gas car.
I have a 2023 Ioniq 5 on the way in the next week or two. I needed to buy a second vehicle and I just couldn't see myself getting a pure gas vehicle again. Our only vehicle we have had for the...
I have a 2023 Ioniq 5 on the way in the next week or two. I needed to buy a second vehicle and I just couldn't see myself getting a pure gas vehicle again. Our only vehicle we have had for the past couple of years has been a 2017 Chevy Volt, and honestly, if GM made another one today I would be all over it. A PHEV with 60-70 miles of EV range with a gas generator for back up would be my ideal vehicle.
When the Ioniq 5 arrives in a few weeks, I am thinking of just going on a long road trip to see what the charging conditions will be like.
[useless moaning] Even at a "bargain", those used are still $25,000+ CAD used. Life has just gotten crazy expensive. We have an aging vehicle that I've been mulling over selling, and it's only...
[useless moaning]
Even at a "bargain", those used are still $25,000+ CAD used. Life has just gotten crazy expensive. We have an aging vehicle that I've been mulling over selling, and it's only aging more every day, but the trouble has always been that I don't have the money to replace it with anything other than another one just as old and falling apart. I think if wages have kept up with pricing this kind of price tag would be fine. I remember new cars being <$20,000 and my salary hasn't moved much since.
Probably not as bad as you think. Just make sure you enter in fast chargers to the GPS otherwise it won't precondition the battery and you won't get the max charge rate out of the car. The Ioniq...
When the Ioniq 5 arrives in a few weeks, I am thinking of just going on a long road trip to see what the charging conditions will be like.
Probably not as bad as you think. Just make sure you enter in fast chargers to the GPS otherwise it won't precondition the battery and you won't get the max charge rate out of the car. The Ioniq doesn't have manual battery conditioning as an option. That means you need to update the infotainment system to get new charger locations. Luckily Hyundai lets you download the update to a usb drive from their website so you can do it yourself unlike older vehicles.
Our friend at Technology Connections has you covered, and is even himself using a 2023 Ioniq 5. Keep in mind this video is a road trip in extreme cold. The car does great, and with warmer weather...
Our friend at Technology Connections has you covered, and is even himself using a 2023 Ioniq 5. Keep in mind this video is a road trip in extreme cold. The car does great, and with warmer weather does even better.
Well, I'm coming up on one year with a used 2023 Chevy Bolt 2LT operated in a cold climate. Cost: $16k at 23,000 miles. Real numbers at 80% charging: summer range, 240 miles; winter range, 120...
Well, I'm coming up on one year with a used 2023 Chevy Bolt 2LT operated in a cold climate. Cost: $16k at 23,000 miles. Real numbers at 80% charging: summer range, 240 miles; winter range, 120 miles.
I love driving it - it's got more than enough acceleration, comfort, maneuverability, cargo capacity, etc. in routine commuter use. I charge it on weekends with a standard 120v outlet, rarely with a public parking space level 2 charger if I have more driving to do than a weekend charge will cover quickly.
If I had a do-over (and more money), I might have gotten something with AWD and more range in winter. This season's very heavy snow and ice were a challenge with front wheel-only drive, and I spun the wheels more than once even with high-quality snow tires. I had to swap cars with my spouse for the rush 200 mile trip when my relative was hospitalized, since I wasn't going to take time to stop and charge on the way.
But I hated driving an ICE car again given the sluggish acceleration, noise, fuel cost, etc.
Biggest risk is battery quality/life, right? How easy is it to check & verify that nowadays?
I've kind of wondered how much I should care about that. What's the chances the battery life is hurting in a used EV, versus the chances the last owner of a used ICE car only changed the oil every 40k miles? Is a used EV actually more risky than a used ICE? Genuine questions coming from someone who will be needing a new vehicle in the next 4ish years, and would like to go all electric.
EVs require almost no maintenance whatsoever, so you don’t need to worry about that side of things. Battery health is pretty correlated to mileage, so you just need to do research on how a specific model holds up with mileage.
Yeah. I believe the Technology Connections guy just put out a video saying that battery life on used EVs is less of a worry point than previously reported.
I'm sure a lot of people are looking at EVs with the soaring gas prices.
Well, their power trains don't. They still have regular car stuff, like brakes, suspension, steering, electrical systems and so on.
Eh. Most EVs have things like regenerative brakes / one-pedal driving, and so even that you have to worry about less.
That just means they recharge while braking, not that brake maintenance is lessened. That being said, I don't know how the actual brakes are built compared to the traditional types.
Because of the resistance that charges the battery when you lift off the throttle, and the one-pedal driving philosophy, you aren't actually engaging the brakes to slow down as frequently as you otherwise would. It's like dynamically being able to shift to a very low gear. Conventional cars are capable of this, too, but it's more aggressive and prevalent on EVs because of how the "drive train" works.
It’s both. Regenerative breaking doesn’t use the brake pads, it runs the electric motors in reverse essentially. The braking force is applied by the electromagnetic resistance caused by lenz’s law.
Of course, you can’t only use regenerative braking, so there will be wear on the mechanical breaks. But it is less.
It’s similar to engine braking in manual cars, but more effective at slower speeds (which arguably comes up much more in start and stop urban traffic).
You absolutely have to maintain the brake lines. The cars still rely on conventional brakes to do faster and harder braking, and those are still done by hydraulics with brake fluid lines and they do go bad at the same rate as normal brakes. Every 2 years you have to drain the brake fluid and check the master cylinder. The brake pads themselves also degrade with time even you don't wear through them as quickly.
This can often surprise EV drivers who have to brake suddenly only to find that they have no sudden braking power, especially since this is hidden from you when the car slows gently with regenerative braking.
Generally speaking the one area where EVs require more maintenance than ICEs is tire replacement. The additional torque in these vehicles means your average driver has a little more lead in their foot. Tires get run down a little faster. It isn't even due to the additional weight of the vehicle, per my understanding.
As was said, brakes are often not replaced for 30,000-60,000 or more miles due to the regen systems.
EVs are excellent. Never going back. Did a hybrid for a decade with 42MPG. The idea of having to go back to an ICE is the stuff of backwards nightmares for me at this point!
You also have to maintain the 12V battery. It's still required to power all of the rest of the electronics and in most vehicles, if you have a dead 12V you can't start the car, even if you have a fully charged drivetrain battery. 12V battery failure is much less predictable because you don't have the tell-tale signs of a failing 12V battery like slower engine turnover. Some manufacturers, like BMW will give you warning messages when the 12V seems to not be recovering as quickly but others will just fail without any warnings at all.
At some point we should have see these 12V parts disappear but most cars still depend on conventional car parts to operate all of the rest of the non-drivetrain systems.
The major ones to worry about are pre-2017 EVs with older battery management systems. The biggest offender is the Nissan Leaf, which didn’t have active cooling until last year I believe.
The leaf has always had active cooling AFAIK. My 2012 model had liquid cooling and I actually broke it down because I didnt realize I was supposed to top off the coolant.
Other ones to worry about are the Mitsubishi I-MiEV and the Fiat 500i. There are probably more to watch out for if you are outside of the US.
I was curious, so I looked. The Leaf does have a fan, and coolant, but only the former is for the batteries. The latter is for the motor, inverter, converter, and on-board charger (basically all the HV components except the batteries).
A friend of mine has a first generation Nissan Leaf and he replaced the battery shortly after he bought it, I think like 4-5ish years ago. He had to get some translator for the battery. As far as I know he hasn't had issues with the cooling of the battery.
The part that heats coolant for cabin heat failed recently, so he bought his own heater hose and ran it to the back of the car where he installed a diesel heater, hooked it up to the diesel heater and it worked. He even left the broken part in the loop, so the part that used battery power to heat up the coolant is still there but doesn't do anything, then he turns on the diesel heater which heats the coolant and then for the cabin controls he just turns on the heat with the fan I believe (or maybe just the fan, I can't recall now), and the fan blows air over the heater core like normal and blows in hot air to the cabin.
So he ended up getting extended range in the winter compared to what he got before because his cabin heat was no longer drawing power from the battery.
I can only speak to Tesla's and their battery degradation is pretty well documented nowadays. There is a sharp drop in people's first year of ownership but the degradation then levels off and is fairly mild. I think Tesla's claims of ~10% degradation over 100k miles has proven to be true. My cousin purchased his Model 3 brand new in 2022, which then had an estimated 270 miles of range. Nowadays, some 40k miles in, he gets ~250 miles, which tracks with what I've read for estimated degradation. People lose ~5% in the first year and then ~1% each year after that, assuming an average of 15k miles/yr.
Beyond that, as others have pointed out, maintenance on EVs is fairly limited. You have your standard brakes/tires that need to be replaced in regular intervals and then like washer fluid but there's nothing else you really need to worry about. As u/nukeman points out though, if you go for the "first" gen of EVs that came onto the market 2012-2018ish, you do have to pay more attention to the battery tech and battery management tech. I'm not knowledgable enough here to really give advice but depending on your usage and the climate in your area, those EVs could also be worth looking into.
Overall, I will say I don't think EVs are inherently more risky than ICEs. Low maintenance + low running costs is truly something I envy.
You should care about battery health and take a look at it.
A better analogy would be an ICE car with a motor that is about to dissinegrate and the seller is trying to hide the symptoms and claim it's all good.
I don't think a used EV is more risky than a used ICE. As we get more and more old EV's we'll get a better baseline on how they hold up. I'm curious to see what 20+ year old EV's will look like.
From the article:
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I have a 2023 Ioniq 5 on the way in the next week or two. I needed to buy a second vehicle and I just couldn't see myself getting a pure gas vehicle again. Our only vehicle we have had for the past couple of years has been a 2017 Chevy Volt, and honestly, if GM made another one today I would be all over it. A PHEV with 60-70 miles of EV range with a gas generator for back up would be my ideal vehicle.
When the Ioniq 5 arrives in a few weeks, I am thinking of just going on a long road trip to see what the charging conditions will be like.
[useless moaning]
Even at a "bargain", those used are still $25,000+ CAD used. Life has just gotten crazy expensive. We have an aging vehicle that I've been mulling over selling, and it's only aging more every day, but the trouble has always been that I don't have the money to replace it with anything other than another one just as old and falling apart. I think if wages have kept up with pricing this kind of price tag would be fine. I remember new cars being <$20,000 and my salary hasn't moved much since.
Probably not as bad as you think. Just make sure you enter in fast chargers to the GPS otherwise it won't precondition the battery and you won't get the max charge rate out of the car. The Ioniq doesn't have manual battery conditioning as an option. That means you need to update the infotainment system to get new charger locations. Luckily Hyundai lets you download the update to a usb drive from their website so you can do it yourself unlike older vehicles.
Our friend at Technology Connections has you covered, and is even himself using a 2023 Ioniq 5. Keep in mind this video is a road trip in extreme cold. The car does great, and with warmer weather does even better.
Well, I'm coming up on one year with a used 2023 Chevy Bolt 2LT operated in a cold climate. Cost: $16k at 23,000 miles. Real numbers at 80% charging: summer range, 240 miles; winter range, 120 miles.
I love driving it - it's got more than enough acceleration, comfort, maneuverability, cargo capacity, etc. in routine commuter use. I charge it on weekends with a standard 120v outlet, rarely with a public parking space level 2 charger if I have more driving to do than a weekend charge will cover quickly.
If I had a do-over (and more money), I might have gotten something with AWD and more range in winter. This season's very heavy snow and ice were a challenge with front wheel-only drive, and I spun the wheels more than once even with high-quality snow tires. I had to swap cars with my spouse for the rush 200 mile trip when my relative was hospitalized, since I wasn't going to take time to stop and charge on the way.
But I hated driving an ICE car again given the sluggish acceleration, noise, fuel cost, etc.