EV Price Shock: Mercedes EQS Loses Almost Half Its Value In A Year
According to a new study, EV resale values are low, but hybrids are hanging onto a lot of their value after a year on the road
- EVs account for half of the 10 vehicles that have depreciated the most after a year on the road, making them potentially good used car deals.
- The Range Rover is currently the only model that has appreciated after 12 months.
- Hybrids hang onto their value well, and account for half of the top 10 models that have depreciated the least.
Buying a lightly used vehicle is a great way to get a deal on a relatively sound car, as long you aren’t too picky about options. But not every used car depreciates equally, so here are the vehicles that lose the most and the least value after a year of ownership.
If you’re only interested in the amount that you can save, there is no better segment to look at than EVs. The new technology has been expensive to develop, driving up MSRPs, but is still relatively young, meaning that consumers are unsure how long the batteries will last.
Read: New Cars Are The Most Affordable They’ve Been Since 2021 But Not By Much
Those factors, among others, have conspired to make EVs five of the most aggressively depreciating cars in America this year, according to a study from iSeeCars. The VW ID.4, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the Kia EV6, and the Nissan Leaf all lose more than 30 percent of their value in the first year of ownership.
However, the king of the depreciators is the Mercedes-Benz EQS. With an average used price of $71,231, buyers can save as much as $65,143, or 47.8 percent of the vehicle’s value when they buy second-hand.
Top Depreciating Vehicles After 12 Months
The EQS has the unfortunate double-whammy of being an EV as well as a premium car, a segment in which vehicles tend not to hold onto their value that well. Indeed, the EQS is joined by the Alfa Romeo Stelvio, Giulia, the Jaguar F-Pace, and its internal combustion counterpart, the Mercedes S-Class, among the top 10 depreciators this year.
But not all luxury vehicles are losing astonishing amounts of value after a few months of usage. In fact, according to the same study, the only vehicle whose price actually appreciated this year, was the Range Rover. Its average used price of $147,311, means that a used version is worth about $4,000, or 2.8 percent, more than a brand-new example.
10 Vehicles That Depreciate The Least After 12 Months
However, the Range Rover is the exception, not the rule in the industry. Of the top 10 vehicles that have depreciated the least over the last 12 months, five are hybrids. That squares with reports that hybrid vehicles are becoming more popular as growth in the EV segment slows due to high prices.
Price has been cited as one of the major factors impeding the growth of all-electric vehicles, but iSeeCars’ data suggests that if buyers are willing to buy used, there are affordable EVs out there to be had. For example, after a year, the Nissan Leaf loses 45.7 percent of its value, and trades for an average of $18,756.
Not every EV is a screaming deal, though. Among the vehicles that have depreciated the least over the course of the last 12 months are the Tesla Model X and the Model Y. While the latter lost 8.3 percent of its value, the former lost just 6.9 percent, and both outperformed the industry average of 12.8 percent.
