Hi all, we live in bay area CA. Currently we have a 12 honda odyssey and 15 outback. I want to replace my 15 outback with an EV. My budget is around $46k. The use case is I want to drive the EV for daily drop off / pick up my two kids, typical total daily range is about 20 to 30 miles. Both my wife and me are working from home now, and probably late next year I will start to back to office, then the daily range will be around 60 miles. I have test driven the model 3 and model s. For model 3, I feel the suspension is too hard for me. I test drove for 20 min and my back already hurts. The model s is much better with a luxurious feeling inside. I was considering an used model s, but don't know if that makes sense. Any other recommendations? (I will test drive an used BMW i3 this week, but it looks very small and unattractive though.)
Age and number of kids? You might test a Bolt. As long as no cross country diving, the too low 50 kW fast DC charge rate won’t be a problem. The seats and suspension may be ‘American tuned.’ Bob Wilson
I think you are at least a year too early. However, a year from now, you might start to see used EVs cross your price point. Cars you might want to look at a year from now are the Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6 and the VW ID 4. Be patient!!! Used car prices are coming down. Keep an eye on their resale value here. https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/price-trends/
Cool, thanks for the suggestion! I think the data points about the resale value is very interesting. I am not in a hurry for sure.
The Nissan Leaf since 2018 is quite nice. The "plus" variant has a larger battery and costs more. The SV and SL have a suite of driver assist aids, at a higher price.
Is a Hyundai Kona too small for you? They're pretty affordable and you should be able to get a new one in your price range, at least per the Edmunds website. The Kia Niro EV is a little larger but otherwise very similar.
One thing to keep in mind is that prices of used EVs are incredibly high right now. For the more desirable models, used are actually more expensive than new. As was said above, this seems to be relaxing a little bit now.
