[slap_shot]

Exactly. I'm not sure what the appeal of these crossovers are (they're effectively small sedans on the Chassis of a small SUV) but at that price point, just get a foreign sedan that you can drive into the ground. I have a number of friends with 100k+ miles on Carollas that drive like they're brand new.

Some vehicles have gotten insanely expensive, but the real dollar cost per mile of a safe and reliable vehicle has never been cheaper.

[PH95VuimJjqBqy]

I purchased a 2004 corolla off the lot and that bad boy is running smooth at 165k miles.

It's ugly as all get-out, for some reason people love hitting me, including a freaking semi truck on a double left turn that turned too tightly. I literally have a line going down the side of my car marking where the trailer rotated into me.

But you know what I like more than a pretty vehicle? Reliable, no car payments, cheap insurance.

Just maintain it well and those vehicles will last you a lifetime.

[Gibbon1]

I'm a broken record but you can buy used Chevy Bolts with 20-30k miles for $18000.

That's about 10 cents a mile capital cost. And the electricity will cost about 5 cents a mile.

[hellojesus]

The problem with Bolts are the batteries. They are expected to last 8 years or 100k miles.

At 10k/year mileage, you're looking at 2-3 years of use gone, so about 5-6 left.

Battery replacement is ~$16k, which is a huge time bomb.

https://chevyguide.com/chevy-bolt-battery-replacement-cost/

[jwalton]

I am typing this sitting in my 2015 Leaf (in a parking lot), which still has 11 out of 12 segments left in the capacity meter. When I first got it (second hand) it had 155km of range on a fresh charge. Now it claims to have around 140-something.

If you go digging in the media you can certainly find examples of Leafs that haven’t faired as well as mine, but I suspect they are in the minority. Also the earlier Leafs had batteries that were not nearly as reliable, especially in hot climates.

[tzs]

They are warrantied for 8 years or 100k miles...but so are most of the others (including Tesla Model 3 standard range).

The ones with better than 8/100k warranties are Rivian (8/175k), Tesla (S & X: 8/150k, 3LR and Y: 8/120k), Hyundai (10/100k), and Kia (10/100k).

Chevy is slightly worse than all the other 8/100k because Chevy's warranty says it will retain 60% of battery capacity, whereas everyone else says 70%.

[hellojesus]

Thanks. I misread the article as needing to be replaced at that point and not that they should at least last that long. A reread says that they should expect to last 10 years. I assume they'd go longer with even more range degradation.

Does the expected battery replacement at years 8-12 kill the resale value for models older than 8 years?

[tzs]

People are actually mostly getting good performance well beyond that. Estimates are now typically that most people can expect 15-20 years or more, unless they use the car in someplace very hot, always use a very fast charger, charge up to full every time they can, and things like that.

It seems to be distance that matters more than time. Tesla has found that for their oldest models, most people still have around 90% capacity at 200k miles. The average American takes about 14 years to drive 200k miles.

The data suggests that if you don't need a low mileage battery pack replacement, because say a particular model year turns out to be a dud you will probably get 150k or more miles.

Here's some articles on EV battery life [1][2][3].

My expectation is that there will be a pretty good used market for EVs.

For example, for my next car I'd like an EV and I want to get at least 100k miles with nothing but routine cheap maintenance and replacement of consumables such as tires and fluids.

A used EV might be ideal for that, say one with 50k miles on it. That would be enough to be past early failures due to a bad model year, but still should have well over 100k left on it with good capacity.

[1] https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batter...

[2] https://blog.evbox.com/ev-battery-longevity

[3] https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a44852031/how-long-do-elec...

[hellojesus]

This is good news, thank you. I've wanted a Leaf for a long time but the prices skyrocketed when covid hit. I may start to look at them or the bolt again.