Electric Car Value Trade In. Please Help

Just wondering, if I was to buy an 8 year old EV from a main dealer, do they certify the battery status, e.g. 80% remaining? If then can, I would be interested, if not I wouldn't be. I think this might be on a lot of people's minds, especially those buying a 3-4 year old EV - they need to be sure they can sell it after a few years...
 
Just wondering, if I was to buy an 8 year old EV from a main dealer, do they certify the battery status, e.g. 80% remaining? If then can, I would be interested, if not I wouldn't be. I think this might be on a lot of people's minds, especially those buying a 3-4 year old EV - they need to be sure they can sell it after a few years...

I doubt a main dealer will be selling an 8yr old car. Too old for most.

Until the regulations come in. Like getting a mechanic to check an ice car, you'd have to check the car yourself in addition to whatever the dealer offers in the way of checks. That's usually using an ODB scanner or such to check the car and battery. You can also discharge the battery and see what energy you get out of it. Dunno if any dealers are actually offering this. I suspect most rely on the battery warranty from the manufacturer. VWs is 8yrs. Low mileage isn't a good check either.
 
Car manufacturers don't provide free support and updates for their cars right now, do they? You might be surprised but there are no car manufacturers offering free updates for 14 year old cars.
Might cancel Security Updates after 5 years and then what do you do? .................
 
Might cancel Security Updates after 5 years and then what do you do? .................
ICE and EVs are in the same boat there, the security systems in modern cars are common across ICE and EVs, it's not like they developed new less secure tech just for the EVs!
 
oid Might cancel Security Updates after 5 years and then what do you do? .................

One of mine is off the updates list. But it has Android Auto and Apple Car Play so I just connect my phone for Apps.

Driving from A-B works the same.
 
You can also discharge the battery and see what energy you get out of it.
I suppose, when buying any 2nd hand EV, it probably makes sense to take it for a good, long test drive to see how the battery range stacks up.

Once the buyer is happy with the battery, it's probably a lot safer buying an older EV than an ICE car as there are a lot less things that can go wrong.
 
Just to mention "range" is variable depending on how and where its driven.

So in the same way you'd on an ICE car you'd empty the tank and see how much it fills up to work out mileage.
With the EV you have to see how "energy" the battery can output, or how much it will take to fill.
Different EVs have different battery reserves which you can't see. So there's the idea of approximate "useable" battery.

You're not going to drain a 300km range EV on a test drive.
 
I suppose, when buying any 2nd hand EV, it probably makes sense to take it for a good, long test drive to see how the battery range stacks up.
If not available via the head unit diagnostics, the apps available for EVs often include decent diagnostics information. Dealers can run tests as well, if I was biuying a used EV I'd be asking for a copy.
 
Just to mention "range" is variable depending on how and where its driven.

So in the same way you'd on an ICE car you'd empty the tank and see how much it fills up to work out mileage.
With the EV you have to see how "energy" the battery can output, or how much it will take to fill.
Different EVs have different battery reserves which you can't see. So there's the idea of approximate "useable" battery.

You're not going to drain a 300km range EV on a test drive.

I think given the high replacement cost of batteries for an EV, a longer test drive would be wise to see how the battery performs. At least that's what I would require anyway.
 
I think given the high replacement cost of batteries for an EV, a longer test drive would be wise to see how the battery performs. At least that's what I would require anyway.
depends on the warranty offered, its not as if replacing a combustion engine is cheap or easy and people buy used ICE cars all the time.
 
depends on the warranty offered, its not as if replacing a combustion engine is cheap or easy and people buy used ICE cars all the time.
I think a warranty is more important for an older ICE car as there is so much more that can go wrong. For an EV, I would want it for a few hours and pay close attention to the battery range. But that's just me!
 
Hi Everyone,
It has been a number of years since I have been on here as I have changed career. It is a very useful resource and fair play to Brendan for his hard work.

I am reaching out again as I have been caught up in what I believe is very unfair practice by a car dealership. My wife purchased an electric car in October 2023 (3months ago) from a local car dealership for €45,000. We were told the range would be 300km plus on a full charge.
However, this is not the case. A journey from Galway to Dublin requires a stop to charge the car and then charge again when we get to Dublin. We live in Galway.

So, we went back to the dealer in early January and explained that we were looking to change again and gave them an idea of the car we were looking for. They never came back to us. So last Saturday we went up to the show room and saw lots of cars that we had explained we were looking to purchase and were wondering why the salesman hadn't contacted us about them. Anyway, we were dodged on the Saturday and were told we would get a call on Monday.
The call came this evening, saying they could offer us €30,000 for a car we had purchased off them 3 months ago for €45,000. Surely there must be some law protecting us here, for this daylight robbery?
Thanks in advance for your replies
This following link to a Newstalk article quoting a car dealer in Wicklow pretty much summarizes the reasons and current climate regarding EV trade ins. https://www.newstalk.com/news/such-...rship-that-wont-buy-electric-vehicles-1647039
 
This following link to a Newstalk article quoting a car dealer in Wicklow pretty much summarizes the reasons and current climate regarding EV trade ins. https://www.newstalk.com/news/such-...rship-that-wont-buy-electric-vehicles-1647039
Just some of them really, primarily driven by a couple of brands milking early adopters and then having to slash prices as new entrants, and BYD in particular significantly undercut their pricing. It's not an uncommon cycle in product development.

The cost of lithium batteries which is a major component of EV costs also fell 33% last year, and is predicted to fall further this year. Of course, it's not feasible for such price cuts to continue, there's only so many times Tesla can chop €8,000 of the price of a car and still sell it at a profit.
 
I was more thinking...
Those who would prefer to defrost a car from their breakfast table would save some time compared to spending 10 minutes with a scraper on the windshield.
Also save time by charging at home compared to driving to a petrol station.

Yeah but most people drive by a petrol station or many every day, there's a big difference filling up in a few mins vs hrs when on a long trip, not everyone wants to stop to eat junk food while their car charges.
 
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