“You Need To Lease Them”: How Is The Used Market For EVs? Car Seller Claims It’s Non-Existent

A conflicted car seller has issued a PSA for folks who want to buy or finance electric vehicles: They shouldn’t. Auto sales rep Braxton Epps (@braxton.epps) published a TikTok video explaining that folks shopping around for a new EV should probably lease them instead. That’s because, in his experience, the trade-in values of used electric vehicles depreciate at an alarming rate.

Used EV Market

“There is no used car market for EVs,” Epps says at the top of his post. The car seller said that folks who sell electric vehicles should tell prospective buyers that the market for used electric cars is very thin. It’s a responsibility he believes sales reps need to be upfront with their consumer base about. Otherwise, they’re going to be left with a vehicle that’s depreciated significantly upon purchase, meaning that in order to get the maximum value out of their cars, they’ll need to effectively drive it until the wheels fall off.

“We as sales people, Tesla included, need to do a better job of explaining to people that when you buy an EV, you have to understand … the market on it when you trade it in or try to sell it privately is not gonna be there,” Epps claimed.

He said popular assessment tools are way off the mark when it comes to actual used electric vehicle sale prices, so even if someone heads online to determine what they should get for the sale of their used car, they probably won’t attain those numbers. “EVs are the only vehicles where what KBB is saying, what Edmunds is saying, what all of those online trade value things are saying is not real.” The reason for that, Epps says, is simple: “Because they don’t sell.” 

He speculates that fears over battery degradation are why electric-powered cars aren’t moving like their ICE counterparts. “A five year old F-150 still has a 36 gallon tank. Doesn’t work for an EV. Five years later, that battery might have lost 25% of its life.”

Five Years Later, Less Than 50% Value

Epps went on to say that warning prospective car buyers about EV depreciation may seem counterintuitive. After all, sales people are supposed to sell cars. But ultimately he says that putting folks behind the wheel of an EV isn’t sustainable.

“I get it. It goes against everything we were taught. But we really are shooting ourselves in the foot when they come back and try to trade it and they’re shocked that they’re not even at half what they paid for the car two years later.”

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Epps says he doesn’t have an inherent bias against electric vehicles for their driving dynamics. His dislike of EVs only pertain to the resale values he’s witnessed firsthand. Consequently, he advises folks to lease electric vehicles instead to ensure they are getting the most bang for their buck. “You need to lease them and make it the dealership’s problem,” he advises consumers.

The EV Depreciation Problem

A 2024 study published by George Washington University corroborates the concerns expressed by Epps in his TikTok. The analysis looked at “more than nine million car listings at over 60,000 dealerships between 2016 and 2022.” Its findings indicated that electric cars on average netted drivers lower trade-in values when compared to ICE vehicles.

The same study does factor improvements in EV battery technology when it comes to range. It mentions that newer EVs performed better when it came to depreciation percentages compared to earlier EVs with shorter range thresholds. Furthermore, some EV brands retained their value better than others, naming Teslas as having a lower rate of depreciation when stacked against other electric offerings.

It isn’t just private buyers who are feeling the burn, either. Car rental company Hertz bought 100,000 Teslas in 2021, a move that resulted in a $2.9 billion loss for the company in 2024. That’s because, as Bloomberg reports, the market valuation of used EVs was worse than expected, leaving the brand with a highly depreciated inventory.

On the flip side, folks shopping around for used EVs could utilize this data to their advantage. Many have argued that improvements to battery technology in electric vehicles have made degradation a non-issue. And there are indeed studies showing there are plenty of electric vehicle models that don’t suffer from worn out power packs over time. And with more EV repair shops cropping up over the country, swapping out the individual cells in an EV battery can be more affordable than just replacing the entire unit. So those interested in purchasing a used electric car could nab themselves a deal that won’t cause massive financial strain down the road.

InsideEVs has reached out to Epps via Instagram direct message for further comment.

 

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