Back in 2024, long before the Trump White House murdered the $7,500 tax credit for EVs , my wife and I locked in an insanely good deal on a lease. We put down about $4,000 and leased a Kia EV6 for an astounding $137 a month. Our household cell phone bill runs that rate. That two-year lease was even extended for another six months, for a completely manageable $148 per month.
๐ The Core Development
There were a few factors in our favor regarding that deal. First, there were, of course, the $7,500 Biden incentives. New York State added another $2,000 discount on top of that. Additionally, when we locked in this lease, carmakers had miscalculated market demand, with a glut that began in 2023. By September of 2024, dealers struggled to sell EVs fast enough, stuck with electric cars for an average of over three months compared to a somewhat healthier 79 days for gas cars. Dealers finance their inventories; the longer they sit unsold, the deeper they go into the red. So even though our EV6 Light Long Range Wind stickered for $51,845, we got it (well, use of it) for dirt cheap.
That was then. As of this fall, with our lease expiring, I was eyeing new EVs, but not liking prices. Cox Automotive says the average sticker on a new electric whip in September hit an eye-watering $55,879. Still, have you seen gas prices? We wanted to stay electric. Fortunately, used EV prices are much lower. At the time of my research, I saw CarGurus ' price tracking showed the 2023 Chevy Bolt selling at an average tab of $20,518; the 2024 EV6 at $27,846; and the 2023 Hyundai Ioniq 5 at $27,436.
๐ Background & Sector Context
My goal was to find the right used Ioniq 5. That was the car I wanted back in 2024, but there were better deals on the EV6. No shade to the Kia; we've loved it. But we dug the Ioniq 5's retro-futuristic styling more, and it's a little bit shorter, so it fits better in our very cramped garage.
The rub? We didn't want to spend more than we would've on a used Honda Civic, which CarGurus showed running at $23,967 for a 2023 at the time of my analysis. With the 2023 Ioniq 5 averaging $27,436, that's a $3,469 average premium over the Honda. The 2023 Bolt is already cheaper than the Civic, but we liked the bigger Ioniq 5 and its all-wheel-drive availability.
๐ Industry & Real-World Impact
Maybe you're less price-sensitive. But on most folks' budgets, if you're buying a used or new EV, you really have to get close to price parity with the gas car for the costs to pencil out. I recently wrote that energy costs still matter more than falling EV prices . The point of that story is that even though gas prices have shown increases exceeding 30% in a year while home electricity rates have only risen by about 5%, if you're paying thousands more on an EV, it's going to take years to recoup the higher outlay.
โก Prefer Visual Stories on Mobile?
Experience this news piece in an interactive 5-slide visual format crafted for mobile devices & Google Discover.
๐ฎ Strategic Outlook & What Lies Ahead
I didn't want to go into the hole on financing a more expensive car only to get pennies back per mile on the relatively cheaper cost of fueling an EV. Here's just a little bit of the math of this, because it's important to understand the cost burden of a more expensive electric car, even if it's cheaper to fuel.
The easiest way to see the apples-to-apples comparison of fueling costs, and, in turn, the payback time for spending more on an EV, is to measure that tab over 100 miles. On the gas car, that's 100 divided by the MPG of the car in question, multiplied by the price of a gallon of gas. This calculation gives you how many gallons you'll burn and the cost to purchase them. For EVs, you need the kilowatt-hour-per-100-mile rating of the EV you're shopping for, which you can find on fueleconomy.gov . Multiply that number by the kWh price where you live, which gives you something like the fueling-equivalent cost to drive that EV 100 miles versus the gas-car price.
