Guest Post: A Look At The Resale Values of Plug-In Electric And Conventional Cars

Have you been considering a plug-in electric car as your next buy? Then you might give it a rethink. A recent study suggests that these cars depreciate more in value as compared to their conventional counterparts. They are most likely to reduce in value, when their life extends beyond 5 years.
Kelley Blue Book, at the behest of USA TODAY, performed an evaluation and found out, that some of the biggest value gaps are true for the 2014 models that are powered solely by batteries without the help of gas engines.

Eric Ibara, the director of residual consulting for Kelly Blue Brook has said, “Pure electrics have been slow to catch on in the resale market” and that customers are now more interested in buying new electric cars, rather than settling for a completely new one.

Ford Focus Electric
While a powerful traditional Focus Titanium with an automatic transmission would be something worth 36 per cent of the initial list price ($35,995), the compact would be something around 20 per cent of the same.

Chevrolet Spark EV
There is a huge difference between the resale value of the conventional and the electric versions.  Very surprisingly the traditional version of the Chevrolet Spark EV would retain 40 per cent of its original value (i.e list price of $ 28,305) whereas it’s projected that the electric version would be only 28 per cent of the list price.

Nissan Leaf
Now, its projected that even one of the most popular electric vehicle would be able to retain a residual value of 15 per cent for the 2013 model. However, the Nissan compact would be able to secure 36 per cent of the list value.

Quite shockingly though, these three electric vehicles; Fiat 500e, Nissan Leaf and Smart Fortwo made it to the top of the list of the models, listed by KBB, that had the highest depreciation value among all the vehicles for the year 2014.

As per usatoday.com, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors had declared, in the month of May that he himself would look in to the resale price of its Model S-all electric Sedan for customers who are availing the finance program offered by Tesla. As per the conditions of the program, the resale value would be higher than that of Mercedez-Benz, BMW, Jaguar or Lexus.

However, there’s really no reason to fret. A good look at the used car reviews, updates and news would actually tell you that there are sales incentives packages offered to buyers whereby they do not have to pay anything near the list price. Plus big discounts reduce the resale value of the cars. But the hybrid cars with plug-ins and backup gas engines are definitely placed better. It’s not really necessary that the resale value of both the versions of the car would always differ vastly. The resale value of Toyota’s Plug-In Prius is pitched at 35%, with only a 2 percentage variation from its traditional counterpart. The Panamera E-Hybrid from Porsche has a 37% resale value as compared to 41 percent for the traditional model.