So the cars with the worst depreciation after 5 years nationally are 1) Nissan Leaf; 2) Chevy Volt; 5) Ford Fusion Energi; the rest are German Luxury cars. There is no doubt that the Honda Clarity will make that list in 5 years, for the wrong reasons. The list is misleading for BEVs and PHEVs because of federal and state tax incentives that dramatically lower the acquisition price when new are not factored in. Depreciation is based on the typical used car price vs. the original MSRP. If I sold my almost year old Clarity for $27000 today, I'd be thrilled because that's more than what I actually paid (not including tax and reg) but the press would report that as almost 40% depreciation after less than a year, which sounds outrageous when there is actually 0% depreciation (caveat, I don't expect my Clarity to be worth that much when you can get a new one for even less at current dealer discounts). The point I'm making is that a lot of potential PHEV buyers might balk at even considering them when they see their reported depreciation, which is highly misleading. This is just another of the misleading information out there that limits the sales of this terrific vehicle class!
The interesting part is the warranty for covered states. In the thread below it has a pdf of the items covered for 15 year/150000 miles. I guess these still hold for future owners? That would be far better than most used cars with little or no warranty. But not sure if it's just parts and not labor though, but still. https://insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/hondacare-extended-warranty.451/page-3
I agree completely with the economics of PHEVs, even when considering depreciation. I bought a 2012 Chevrolet Volt in 2013. Car now about 5.5 years old and 72000 miles. I paid $32k for it including tax (2013s were already out and they wanted to get rid of it). After federal tax credit, cost was $24.5k. I have tracked the fuel and maintenance savings for the car (only maintenance is tires and changing the oil... these type cars just don't have issues from driving when 80% or more electric miles). I know we've had a few software gremlins with the new model of the Clarity, but I consider them annoyances, not problems (at least in my case) - eventually I'll get the dealer to reprogram for the fixes from the SBs. Anyway, considering the savings from fuel and maintenance compared to an internal combustion engine car with similar characteristics, I'm pretty happy with the current value of the Volt. I expect to have the same or better feeling for the Clarity if I keep it at least 5 or 6 years, since so far it is saving more fuel dollars than the Volt did. I do wish Honda would give us a break on the oil changes. I expect that I'll probably have burned about 15 gallons of gas when I am due for an oil change. Still to me, that's an annoyance, not a real problem.
I'm hoping the official book value on this car tanks quickly after one year, since I have to pay property tax on the book value of the car. :-(
Don’t you think this is totally dependent on the price of gas? If gas was $4.50 a gallon, I think all of these cars would be selling for a lot more. Sent from my iPad using Inside EVs
If gas was $4.50 a gallon, they would probably sell well even w/o the tax credit. I remember when oil was $140/barrel some years back. You had to pay thousands over MSRP to buy a Prius. Now, green cars tend to be heavily discounted (Teslas not included). The general point of my post was to say that the low resale value of BEVs and PHEVs has a lot to do with financial incentives and not that they are bad cars or undesirable (actually, the Leaf does have a pretty bad battery design). It is pretty straightforward that once the car is driven off the lot that the resale value is less than what someone else can buy a new one for. Currently, it's easy to find discounts of $3,000 off MSRP (some have reported over $4,000 off). Add that to the federal tax credit and that's over $10,000 off MSRP. Depreciation for BEVs and PHEVs in reality starts at that point and not at MSRP, from which all cars are compared.
I thought my BEV's resale value was pretty good after 3 years and 38,000 miles. Bought a Focus BEV for $25,500 - $7,500 tax credit - $2,500 state rebate = $15,500. I sold it to a Toyota dealership for $11,600. I think they sold it for $13,300. If you care about resale, get a good deal when to buy the car. I'm jealous of those in MA and RI getting $5,500-$5,700 off MSRP plus $2,500 from the state plus $7,500 tax credit.
The biggest factor that drove PHEV down in value other than incentives was the fact they were not using lithium batteries and the warranty requirements came because these packs failed prematurely. We get the benefit now and should not have the same issues with our liquid cooled lithium batteries. On another note, I can totally see people repurposing the powertrains in these vehicles once they end up in junk yards because the electric motors will still be good.
I think Ontario clarity owners if they bought before Sept 11th will have the best resale due to the elimination of the 13k rebate.
