Climate

I mentioned early non-sucky EVs available here in Europe. It was mostly those and Teslas (which suck for their own reasons and I don't just mean that Musk is a nazi - early Teslas also had REALLY poor quality for their price). Leafs sucked so badly, nobody wanted them after everyone found out how bad they were in the winter. I-Mievs were forced on social workers (as work cars) by the government here and they were barely useable brand new. The latter two models did more to destroy EVs' reputation in my country than oil industry propaganda ever could.

Then many companies copied Tesla's approach of "start with the high-end, then work your way down" for EVs. Which means if we want to talk about total cost of ownership over a period of more than 3-4 years, we only really have data on those high end cars... and a couple of turds that gave EVs an undeserved bad name.

As for the repairing electrical systems capable of killing a human being, I did mention that you should find someone who can do it. Definitely wouldn't do it myself and I normally do all my own repairs on my cars. It's essential for owning a cheap old EV, to have such a workshop available somewhere near you. Tesla had drive unit failures, so did Audi... So does the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and all its newer relatives and those started being made in the 2020s! And battery pack replacements are super costly for all of them. It's a lottery and you're quite unlikely to lose, but if you do, it's 5 figures for a new pack. Which is why I said you need to have a shop available to you that can replace individual cells or modules, depending on the design of the pack. For example, early Teslas literally used 18650 cells, same as most e-cigarettes. A single cell costs a few euros, but if it goes wrong, your car won't work properly. Tesla will only sell you a brand new pack. Same for other manufacturers, though the cells will be different.

We've only really had affordable AND good EVs available for about the last 4 or 5 years if not less, is my point. Earlier EVs were either expensive or shit or both, they all depreciated like crazy (even the cheap ones) and many had surprising reliability issues. Which is why you can now get the formerly super expensive ones for next to nothing... But may have to get high voltage repairs done outside of the dealer system at one point, since dealers don't repair, they replace.

In fact the early 2020s midrange priced EVs (Ioniq 5, Enyaq) have also depreciated a fair bit, despite the fact that most of the ones for sale are under 100k km and still in battery warranty.

For high-end depreciation example: Cheapest 2020 Q7 in Estonia, 39900 EUR, 175k km. Cheapest 2021 E-tron in Estonia, 24500 EUR, 169k km. The Q7 would've been about 80k new, the E-Tron about 100k.

For midrange depreciation example: Cheapest Ioniq 5 in Estonia, 29900, under 100k km. There was a 2022 for much cheaper, but it was an outlier because it had nearly 300k km on it. Cheapest diesel Sorento, 31490, 137k km. Those had a very similar price new, but the Sorento has been driven a fair bit more for the money.

So the depreciation difference is less noticeable on the cheaper, newer models. But that was my entire point: It's NOW cheaper to own an EV, but it wasn't always. That E-Tron didn't just dump its value like a tank because it's a luxury car (or, well, sold as one; I disagree). It's actually significantly less technologically advanced than the Ioniq 5. Charges way slower, gets 300km for a full battery because it's both heavy AND inefficient, etc.

If you go out and buy a new EV today and it isn't a 6 year old model that hasn't been updated, you can be pretty sure it'll keep its value okay. If you did it 8 years ago, it dropped like a tank and that really hurts the total cost of ownership.