How much more are these going to depreciate?

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ElVerde

Member
Joined
Oct 18, 2017
Messages
10
I mean, you're looking at 10k mile 2014s for 17.5k or so......how much lower can they realistically go?

You can basically buy a 2014/15 for the same overall $$$ as leasing a 2017 for 3 years. If you don't need the extra 40 miles of range...why would you lease a new one? Why in the hell would ANYONE buy a new one?

Basically...if its worth more than $0 in 3 years, I'm way ahead on this 14/15, right? What am I missing?
 
You can generally get a lease for $400 per month for 2 years. That's around 10K out of pocket. Then you can decide if you want to stay with an EV, and which EV, and take advantage of the newer technology. To me, leasing is a temp solution that you might want to consider since the technology is changing so fast. I'm not trying to sway you either way but I'm just giving a reason some people lease.
 
But...wouldn't I be able to sell this thing for $7k in 2 years??

I mean...I can see how it could POSSIBLY be less...or more.
 
EV's are still relatively new and rare in the marketplace. Price is driven by demand, at least on the resale market. With EV's, newer vehicles have bigger batteries, and for the uninitiated, range anxiety is real. It takes a different mindset. Nobody wants to be stranded on the road with a dead battery. That takes experience. You can refill your ICE nearly anywhere...that is not true with an EV. But, the things will always retain some value as long as they work. Their resale price should never reach zero while they still function.
 
ElVerde said:
But...wouldn't I be able to sell this thing for $7k in 2 years??

I mean...I can see how it could POSSIBLY be less...or more.
$7k may be a safe number. Or maybe $5k. But finding a buyer might be an issue.
 
I bought used vs leased new because I drive more miles than any lease would allow for. I'm coming out of a 3 yr lease on a Fiat500e, where I tested the waters of EV'ing. If I didn't need more range I'd have probably ended up with a used 500e as those are dirt cheap, too. $7k for a 3yr old.
 
I just went to a local used car dealer here in the Bay Area where they have a few 2014 i3 BEV‘s between $14k and $16k, they where very open about them not selling well at all (and they probably expected me to make an offer).

I wonder if there is a sweet spot coming up where one can buy a mature 2015 REX for the same price range?
I also wonder if there is an affordable aftermarket insurance available? I think the battery is already covered adequately with 10 years..

Thoughts?
 
Both our electric BMWs (i3 REx and 225xe) save us around £900 per year in fuel costs. That in itself is a worthwhile benefit.

Almost 3 years in, I still love our i3 and the 225xe Tourer (18 months old) is a lovely, luxurious vehicle. We took the Tourer all the way down to Northern Italy this year.

My place of work is 10mi away and has plenty of free charge points, which saves me money and provides easy accessible parking spaces.

In maybe 2-3 years time I might look for a used 94Ah i3. Probably not a REx. Alternatively, I might check what else is available at that time from other manufacturers.

I've said it before on here: To me and my wife, it still feels like a privilege to own and drive cars like this.
 
Used EV prices may move back up a bit once the federal tax credit either expires or is recinded or used up (more a problem for Tesla, Nissan, and Toyota verses BMW). People tend to not look at the sticker, but what they end up paying after taxes, in most places, you don't get any of those tax credits on a used one.
 
psquare said:
Both our electric BMWs (i3 REx and 225xe) save us around £900 per year in fuel costs. That in itself is a worthwhile benefit.

Almost 3 years in, I still love our i3 and the 225xe Tourer (18 months old) is a lovely, luxurious vehicle. We took the Tourer all the way down to Northern Italy this year.

My place of work is 10mi away and has plenty of free charge points, which saves me money and provides easy accessible parking spaces.

In maybe 2-3 years time I might look for a used 94Ah i3. Probably not a REx. Alternatively, I might check what else is available at that time from other manufacturers.

I've said it before on here: To me and my wife, it still feels like a privilege to own and drive cars like this.

What kind of ks are you achieving in your 225xe. As of this week my 225xe has covered 20,000k and 14,000k of the 20k is battery. Saved 980 litres of petrol.
 
I had a give away lease for my first 2 years of i3 driving at a net <$100/mo lease. When my lease was up there was no way I was going to duplicate that deal, not even $200/mo. I ended up buying a used ‘14 for $14K. As long as Leafs hold the bottom up around $6K, I can’t imagine this car being sub $7K in 3 years.
 
Kiwi said:
What kind of ks are you achieving in your 225xe. As of this week my 225xe has covered 20,000k and 14,000k of the 20k is battery. Saved 980 litres of petrol.

The 225xe is on 19.2k miles now. The i3 just under 38.9k miles. Combined annual mileage is about 25k miles. £800-£900 of annual fuel savings is a careful estimate - it might actually be higher. It can certainly be felt in our wallets!
 
If I purchase an i3s with rex engine loaded it's $86956nz and a 225xe loaded $73043nz. I'm thinking of replacing my 225xe middle of next year. I'm leaning towards purchasing a new 225xe facelift as the i3 depreciation and higher price is looking at not being worth the extra money to purchase. I'm hoping BMW will update the 225xe battery with a higher milage in 2018
Reason for staying with 225xe

X drive
more power
nicer interior with 3 seated in the back seat
tires last 3 time the distance
auto opening tail gate
a lot less petrol stops
Heads up display
larger sunroof
fuel saving $103nz per month and its petrol cost $44nz per month.

BMW 225i X is $15,000 more than the 225xe. Once you add the fuel saving it really makes the 225xe more worth while.

I'm writing this more for my own piece of mind. My wife says go with the new 225xe next year.

Why does BMW even produce the i3
 
In order to answer the original question of how much more they can depreciate, it's important to understand why they're depreciating at such a high rate. The short of it is product education. As long as people remain ignorant to the actual needs and continue insisting on 200mi range EV's because anything less is garbage next to a Tesla Model 3, there will be little demand for low range EV's like the i3.

WHY THE DEPRECIATION IS HAPPENING: (Deep breath. This is going to be a long one)

1. The i3 is overpriced to start with. The uniqueness of the car has a premium. Any and everyone who steps into one thinks, "I like this, but what? This is a $50k car?" So the used prices is just getting back to reality of the actual market value of the car.

2. EV's in general are a new technology (not really, but you know what I mean). People were scared to buy them b/c they didn't really know what to expect and b/c they recognized that battery technology was improving so quickly. So this answers one of your questions about why anyone would buy a new one. The answer is that people don't buy new ones. They either buy used ones or lease new ones with good reason.

3. The Tesla brand brought to attention EV's to more people than who otherwise would've been interested in EV's. It brings people who really have no business driving one at all. The 100mi range number is arbitrary and it keeps growing. People now want 200mi ranges. The first question a newb asks after learning you got an EV is, "What's the range on it?" Low number in their head is bad and high number is good w/o any sort of reasoning. Toyota, BMW and DOT did studies about "average" commutes, came up with different numbers and designed their car's ranges accordingly. People are looking to only charge their EV's as often as they get gas at a gas station. This is ludicrous thinking, but it's true. So as long as the ignorance of their actual needs continue to grow and they don't recognize that their EV range doesn't need to exceed their daily out and back commute + errands needs, longer range will always be better. Most people don't see that with 10% left on their battery, they're still carrying 100% of the weight of a battery. It gets less efficient as the battery gets depleted. To sum it up, as long as people want larger and larger batteries with longer ranges without recognizing the drawbacks like cost of replacing the system, time it takes to charge a larger battery, slower, etc, the low range EV's will relatively be viewed as even lower and seen as garbage.

Luckily this is the case, b/c there's people like us who find the i3's range is perfect whether it be the BEV or the REV and understand exactly what we're getting into and why we didn't buy the other cars. So no need to complain. Just embrace their ignorance of the "other side" and realize this translates to a huge opportunity for us to pick up these cars for cheap.

4. The hot girl effect.
Mercedes suffers from this too. That was my last car. I bought it 3rd hand from the person who got it as a CPO car. He paid 32k. Not sure what the original MSRP was, but I paid $18,200 with 55k miles on it and it was only 2 years old. Mercedes has the second worst resale value of any luxury vehicle (behind Jaguar). The hot girl effect is like how people think the hot girl is always taken and "must have a boyfriend". If enough people think that, then no one goes after them and that's why a lot of them are actually single. People also think hot girls are high maintenance. They don't always. So b/c of these misconceptions, what's seen as a highly desirable girl becomes only that. No one actually pursues them and they remain single.

No one is pursuing the BMW i3 for the same reason. it's seen as too expensive. With a $50k price tag, how much can they actually drop? As a BMW, doesn't it have a high maintenance cost? The public thinks that the i3 is too pricey to buy and too pricey to maintain, so they avoid it and buy stuff that is safer and more attainable, leaving the i3 to be less pricey and overly attainable.

Another example is the fast lane on the freeway. Everyone wants to go in the fast lane to go faster. At a certain point, there are so many people in the fast lane that it becomes the slow lane. It gets all the attention while the actual fast lane is the third lane over. People's actions, right or wrong have the power to change the conditions. We'll see examples of that to follow.

WHAT'S IN STORE FOR THE FUTURE FOR DEPRECIATION?
I was at the dealer 3 weeks ago and saw a 2018 MSRP for $61k. Later this year, BMW is supposed to release an even longer range battery. Not the 94ah one, but the even larger one. Not released yet (in the USA at least). There will be a point where the public will say no to the i3. It's not like BMW can charge $75k for this new one that's supposed to be released. Imagine a 2019 (out in late 2018) i3s REX for $75k. It's not going to happen. $65k maybe. But the point is that the potential buyers will no longer become buyers at a certain price level. BMW will have no choice but to extend the savings of battery prices as they get cheaper and cheaper to the public in the form of a car not priced at the same increase in tier as the versions that came before it.

As long as prices get higher and demand for high range EV's continue on the rise, there will be more and more leases and fewer and fewer finances of these cars. More leases means more inventory when the leases end.

So the question is will we see another influx of inventory from lease returns. Highly likely, but at the same time, confidence in EV's is growing from consumers. Remember that people are leasing b/c of low confidence in reliability and concern about higher range vehicles in the future that they don't want to miss out on. There will be a range cap too. I still think 200mi is crazy, but it doesn't mean it can't get crazier. Once SF people can go to LA on a single charge and back, that's the absolute limit. Haha. When consumers find their sweet spot, they won't know it. But once they do realize it, that's when depreciation will stop freefalling.

My guess is that the sweet spot will be like the new Nissan Leaf. Consumers will want a 150mi range car and won't want to pay for a battery that gets them any further. When that hits, whatever the price is for sub 100mi range cars will be what it is. No more tapering off.
 
Honestly, I think the biggest factor in depreciation (in the US at least) is the availability of EV incentives.

i3 purchasers in Southern California can get $7,500 from the federal government, $2,500 from the state, and $10,450 more from their electric utility company. That makes a $55,000 car effectively less than $35,000 -- so start counting your depreciation from there!

https://www.insideedison.com/stories/residential-customers-can-now-get-10-000-off-a-bmw-i3

Where I live there's no state or utility incentive for the i3, so I'm hitting the used market. Fortunately for me, those incentives are basically priced in, as long as you're potentially willing to buy and ship from a remote location, as I'm doing.
 
The only semsiable way to buy an i3 is using your company to be able have tax right offs. What I am seeing from BMW is the i3 will be the cheapest EV ever manutatured as the X3 will be a lot more dollars as well the next i cars.
Trump is going to be the biggest factor as he has said he will remove the law for reducing petrol consumptions going forward. This would quickly kill EV’s.
 
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