Don’t Buy a Used EV in 2026 Until You Watch This

Buying a used EV right now feels risky on purpose. You've got horror stories about dead batteries, terrifying range loss, chargers that never work, and 10 different experts online telling you 10 completely different things. But here's the truth. If you know the important things to look for, you can buy a used EV that saves you money, saves you time, and keeps you and your family safer on the road than a majority of gas cars. So in this video, we're cutting through the noise and showing you exactly how to buy a used EV If you're already an EV expert, this video isn't for you. But if you're thinking, I'm open-minded to an EV, I want to save some money, I don't want to screw this up, and I just want something that works, then this video is for you. All right, so the video you're about to watch has some awkward eye contact. We did a super day where we filmed four videos back-to-back. It's a whole long story. Tried optimizing some things, and it kind of backfired. So we just wanted to be upfront and authentic about it. Unfortunately, it's there. But now back to the video. So Perry, let's start simple. Why does buying a used EV feel so much scarier than buying a used gas car? Because gas cars, we've had a precedent for 100 years on how we buy them and the tools we use and the dealerships we go to. We already know it's the, what did you used to say? You used to have this phrase, it's the evil we know. Was that my phrase? Yeah. All right, so now let's talk about the thing that no one wants to address when they're buying a used EV, which is the battery. So Perry, when someone says, I'm scared that the battery is gonna die, how justified is that fear today? That fear is justified. The battery is a big component. I don't wanna downplay that. However, a lot of us have had this precedent of our devices, our phones, our cameras, our things that are around us, where we're like, well, the battery degraded noticeably in three years and it must be garbage. That's what's gonna happen to my car. Like I saw a LinkedIn post recently today which said EV battery packs from BYD or whatever, like they're only gonna last five years, but I have a Toyota FJ Cruiser or whatever, TJ something or other from the 70s. It's like, that is the fakest fake news of all fake news. So what does a healthy EV battery actually look like for someone who's trying to buy a used car? How are you supposed to find out if your battery is good? Well, there's a lot of different things you can do. We've talked about this in a different video. So we have me and Carson do a discussion on the Model 3 and his Chevy Bolt and battery degradation. We go into a deeper dive on how you can figure out where you're at or how to look at and evaluate a car that you're thinking of buying. So just a really quick way, two quick ways that I'll mention, actually three, I'll give you a bonus one. One is the math test. So you can look at what your car had in range when it was new. So for instance, Carson has a 2022 Chevy Bolt EV and I believe it was either 258 or 259 miles EPA rated in range. Actually, that car is really hard for a lot of reasons. It has a gasometer. So it basically, like the Hyundai Kona EV and the Chevy Bolt, when you hit like the HVAC and you put heated seats on, it changes in real time. Tesla's a little bit easier because Tesla has a seated range. So my first Model 3 was a 2019 long range all wheel drive that had 310 miles in range. So 310 miles in range at 100% state of charge, right? So when it's charged to 100%, I should get about 310 miles. If I still had that car today and I go to plug it in and I'm getting 275 miles in range, I can do the math. So 275 divided by 310 or whatever, I can figure out the difference and then figure out how much it's degraded. So that's like the math way that you can do it, especially with Tesla. But that assumes that you have access to whatever the original miles was it was rated at, which can be hard because for instance- Can you just get that online? It's not that easy. So yes, you can get it online. The nuance, however, with this is, especially for Tesla, they change things on the fly. So there was times in 2023, I believe, the Tesla Model Y, your vehicle, at one point had like 312 miles in range for the long range with the aero wheels and then it went to 330 and then they got slapped by the EPA and that like went down. So in that one year alone, you have two basically adjustments. But that gives you the idea of how you do it, right? It's a math thing and it's static. The miles never changes on Tesla whether you're using the heater or not. It's based on what it could be at 100% or what it is at that state of charge, what the best case scenario range is. All right, so what if I don't want to do math and I actually love math, as you know. Isn't there just some kind of battery report that I can buy or something like a car facts for batteries? So I really like this tool called, again, this is a nuanced thing, but I like Recurrent. Recurrent makes it really easy and I would recommend cars.com. If you're shopping, car gurus, as far as I know to date of making this video, which we're in January of 2026, cars.com has the best integration with Recurrent. So all of the EVs that I've seen that are listed on Recurrent, they'll give you access to a Recurrent report. So you can go in and look at a Tesla or a Kona EV or a Chevy Volt, whatever you're looking at. It's gotten harder to find. They've kind of buried this now, but you can go and find that Recurrent report, click that and it'll give you an estimated battery health. And basically that's doing the same thing I said, which is it looks at the stated range. It compares that to what the vehicle would have been when it was new. And this is based off of the VIN, so it's a little more scientific. And then there's even a more intense way that you can do this. We're currently in talks with a really cool company called Volt Test. And Volt Test is a hardware device that some dealerships have, where you can go in and you can have your car tested. And this looks at the real diagnostic data from your battery, from your BMS, what the cell voltages are, and it gets way more specific on what's actually the boots on the ground with the electrons and protons and all of those things. And it tells you what the actual degradation is in real black and white. All right, next up is range. So range is where people really spiral in their search for a used EV. Because it's just like your brain at the local buffet. You know, you're going in for that fourth plate, you think you need it of that teriyaki chicken piled really high. Range is kind of the same way. Everyone thinks that they need 600 plus miles in range, when really, unless they're towing something huge, like a big boat or a camper, they just need to focus more on the charging speed. So Perry, for a first time EV buyer, how should someone realistically look at range or the lack of range that their used EV has? I like to call this the 105 or the 110 rule. So look at what your daily commute is. And look, I would start with like a worst case scenario. So winter, right? Winter is hard on EVs. They're less efficient, they have less access to juice in the pack, and they're not as efficient when they're driving in those kind of conditions. You have slippery, icy stuff like we have today going on outside. You really lose a lot of range for various factors in winter. So that's the worst case scenario. So look at your commute in a week, you know, when you're evaluating that. Like, how far do I go in a week? And what does that look like? If you really are, you're a door-to-door salesman that's traveling across state lines constantly ping-ponging back and forth, like, you might really wanna consider going with something that's higher in range. If you are just, you know, working from home a couple days a week, or you're even going into the office, but the office is only five, three, four, five, six, seven, 10 miles away, you can start to figure out, well, I'm doing 20 miles away, five days a week, that's 100 miles a week. Like, you can really get away with the vast majority of used EVs. Like a Chevy Bolt Gen 1, like, is gonna be a great car for that person, but everybody thinks that the 1% time that they're gonna go on a road trip that they need to have three, four, 500 miles in range. So someone drives 30 to 40 miles a day, is a 150 mile range EV, is that unrealistic? It depends on so many factors, right? And this is where it's like, it's not one size fits all. And I'm sure we'll get a lot of nasty comments on both ends and some nice comments affirming this, but it depends on your situation. Now, if you live in an apartment and you have those numbers, it can be a little bit challenging. If you don't live in an apartment and you have access to good level two charging, then something like a Chevy Bolt Gen 2, which had very slow DC fast charging, but 11 kilowatt level two home charging, that can give you everything you need and more. And it's a little bit of a challenge if you're in an apartment because you can't home charge and home charging is really where EVs shine. Yes, of course, there's no arguing with that. I will say, however, now I've almost exclusively lived in apartments. Now we have this beautiful studio office here and this is great. We have access to level one charging here, which is rough, but we make it work amongst three people. However, having lived in apartments, it's not impossible. There are ways to supercharge. I've lived in townhomes before where I couldn't get into my backyard. It was just too tight. And I bought the house hoping that I could get back there and that didn't end up being the case. So you do crafty things with extension cords. A lot of apartments that are now being built in some states are requiring a level two, 30 amp, 50 amp outlet in the garage or whatever. And a lot of the apartments now have charge point, like level two things that you can share amongst people. And then you also look at your neighborhood. Maybe you don't have level two charging in your apartment complex, but like for me, I specifically looked for gyms and grocery stores when I was looking for my apartment where I would be able to charge. And a lot of times I was able to charge for free. So you wouldn't necessarily not get an EV if you didn't have home charging. You would really just scout out where could I actually charge around town? And the answer might be nowhere, right? And then maybe the EV just doesn't make sense for you. But if you look around, go to your grocery store. I remember in Pennsylvania, there was a Giant by me and a gym by me that both have level two charging. And then the park that I really like to go to had level two charging. All of it was free. And it was already stuff I had to do. I didn't have to drive further. I just picked an apartment that worked for me that was by the gym, by the grocery store, and by the park. And it's like, I was able to do everything and my car was always at 80%. Yeah, and you also can't beat free. Nope, nothing's cheaper than free. Nothing's more expensive than free too. Now let's talk about money because this is where used EVs can really actually shine. So Perry, where do you see the best values right now in used EVs? Yeah, everybody talks about depreciation. If you look in our comments, there's a lot of people that have never owned an EV talking about, oh, depreciation is so bad, blah, blah, blah. Those of you that took a hit from 21, 22, and 23 that bought EVs, Model Y, Model 3, whatever, for like a top tier premium, my heart goes out to you. Yes, you did get hammered pretty hard with the depreciation. However, I am losing millions. For a lot of other people, this is a great time to buy. And I specifically look at, you know, if you have kids that are in college or you're a younger person or you're like me, right? You and I are doing this YouTube channel pretty much full time. We're trying to make this work. I'm like open to downgrading my car into something like a Chevy Bolt Gen 1 or Hyundai Kona EV because road tripping is so infrequent. It's 5% of the use case for most people. And so you can get, and then I saw a guy comment yesterday on our YouTube channel. He, one of the comments on our video, the Bolt video, we were looking at the new 2027 Chevy Bolt. He said he bought a 2017 Chevy Bolt with 60,000 miles, battery replaced for $4,000. That's insane. And a brand new battery and a warranty on the battery component until 2032. It did have hail damage and some other stuff, but for $4,000, I mean, there's ATVs and go-karts that cost more than that. So why are some EVs faster depreciating than gas cars? This is a whole thing. And everybody pretends that they're a macro economics, like expert. Professor. Yeah, and the reality is people forget, like they love to throw out depreciation, but the pendulum swings both ways. In 2022 and 2023, people were selling all cars, especially EVs and especially Teslas for an appreciated price. So a lot of people were trading in their used Teslas, 21s and 20s. They were making money and getting the new thing, like a brand new Model 3 or Model Y, like lateral move, but they were making money. And I even did this. I had a Fiat 500 at a bar. I sold that for a profit because things were appreciating at that time because of supply shortages and buying a new car was getting harder and rates were harder and dealers were marking things up like crazy. So you got to look at all of it into account, but what has historically depreciated was high-end performance, German, unless you're going into like Ferrari one-off. But isn't that even the case with regular gas cars? All those cars that you just mentioned, they have massive depreciation. Like those things have been around forever. The thing with EVs that makes them somewhat unique until this big depreciation effect, that was largely the other factor as we didn't get into this, is the tax credit. People don't realize, but the used market responded to electric vehicles as if everybody qualified for the $7,500 tax credit. Now, if you go to a state like New Jersey or Pennsylvania or Colorado, they had state incentives as well. And so those vehicles were depreciated even more because the market treated them as if you were going to get the $2,000 or $4,000 from New Jersey or the bajillion dollars that you got from Colorado. So the markets treated these cars as if everyone qualified for those incentives when that's not necessarily the case, but that is just how the cookie crumbled. So now Perry, obviously for EVs, one of the biggest selling points is lower maintenance costs. But let's be honest, what maintenance worries basically disappear with EVs? Like all of it. Like it would be easier for me to answer that question and tell you the things you need to worry about. Winter wipers. Okay, yeah, let's talk about those. Tires. What about suspension? Suspension's still a thing, right? Like the suspension's... How many miles should somebody think about suspension? So Model 3 and Model Y, they're notorious for having little bushing control arm ball joint related things. I've seen a decent amount of, especially depending on the year. Those things come up and I've seen them typically at like 100,000 miles-ish, 80,000 to 120,000 miles. I've seen people reporting things. Suspension's still there, but then let's step back and talk about what you're not doing. So in a typical car, a lot of manufacturers have pushed the interval for oil. They've pushed the interval for timing belts because now they've moved to timing chains. They've pushed the interval for spark plugs by using radium or whatever to like 100,000 miles. The timing belt, they're pushing that up, but it doesn't change the fact that timing belts still stretch. Timing guides, these plastic guides that guide the timing chain through the cams and all of the different components that they need to rotate around in perfect harmony and in synchness. A lot of times those plastic pieces, especially for Audis, they've fallen apart or melted into the chain, stretched the chain and they've had issues. Now you have an engine that's basically useless. So a lot of those factors, serpentine belts, 12-volt batteries, Tesla uses lithium-ion batteries now for their 12-volt system. So that's not something you're thinking about replacing. Like you've got your oil changes, transmission flushes. Some guy commented that like you need to do differentials or some gear thing on Teslas every 50,000. Tesla's recommended interval is 50,000 to 100,000 miles to replace that. Now that's a very loose interval, right? Like typically when something says you have to do your timing belt at 120, you're not trying to push it to 150. They don't give you a 50,000 mile window to do your timing belt. Like it's like you do that or you're gonna pay the price. And paying the price is? Interference motor, pistons hitting valves, very expensive. Gotcha. Yeah. All right. So then in this case, what about software updates? So one thing I always thought was interesting about electric vehicles is the fact that the car can actually modernize itself through software updates over the air. So Perry, talk a little bit more about that and how that is different from a gas car. So I hope we see more of this. I would say Rivian, Lucid, Tesla, a lot of these EV first brands have done an excellent job at making their cars more valuable over time, which is why we did see some appreciation in the early 2020s. Because vehicles literally got more efficient. You got sentry mode, like security cameras. Like you got all of these features added in updates that that is a precedent we never really saw with internal combustion engine vehicles. Like, yeah, like if you had to go in and there was like a TSB, a technical service bulletin for something and they had to do a recall, like Subaru, whatever. Maybe they would like flash your car with something and generally it got worse. Like they would give you something that was a recall and then somehow that would impact you negatively. Like it would use more power or more fuel or whatever. A lot of times like that was what happened. But for these EV first manufacturers, which are really software first companies, like we've seen a lot of amazing things come down where our cars became more valuable over time. And that's a new precedent or even recalls, right? To be able to have my home be the shop and to put, there's an airbag recall or this or that. Tesla recently did a thing where they increased the responsiveness of airbags for their vehicles. And that was just a software update that people were able to put on their car. Full self-driving, like all of these different things have just been easy software updates for people. Or back in the car day, I used to race and I used to love performance. And that was like my thing, right? I love doing that. You pull your car apart, put these parts on it. An exhaust system easily for like a WRX or whatever. A nice car could be like $2,000, $1,000, $2,000. For me, you can buy the acceleration boost on your Model Y or on my Model 3. For two grand, I can go on there and swipe my credit card and up my zero to 60 by half a second. Like that's insane that you can do that right from your phone. All right, so now we know that software updates, I would not even consider that really maintenance because that just happens when you're parked in the driveway as soon as you accept the update. But now what about the hardware? So now the hardware itself, like the actual control unit, the computer. Now electric vehicles, one thing we've read in the comments and one thing that we know about is they are essentially large computers. So I know for example, my 2023 Tesla Model Y has what's called hardware three and then the new 2026 Juniper and the models a little bit older than that have what's called hardware four. So what guidance would you have in terms of navigating hardware on not just Tesla but EVs as a whole? Where would you, how would you approach that? Depends on what's important to you and a lot of it's out of your control. As of recording this, just this week, it's come out that some Juniper Model Ys that are being produced now are on hardware 4.5. And there's like a way you can like rip your dashboard apart and figure that out and look at the main computer. It's like so much of it is really out of your control. But if having full self-driving capability is super important to you, then look at 2023 Model Ys that have hardware four and don't look at earlier Model 3s that didn't have hardware four or whatever. But there is, we are seeing the iPhone effect and I do have empathy for people in the comments who are like, it is exhausting. It's like I've been leasing EVs because I constantly feel like no matter what I get, I'm gonna be behind hardware wise. So you can play that game, stand in the iPhone line and wait for the latest and greatest thing that it is, unfortunately right now, it's not this easy thing where like they just rip out the computer for hardware three and just plug it in for hardware four. It's like the cameras, the main computer, all these components. So and that seems to be true for Rivian with the direction they're taking and probably Lucid even though I don't know a ton about how their autonomous driving is set up. Next up is used EV recommendations. So now I don't wanna give a list of the top 10 cars because that is going to be quickly outdated. So as of January, 2026, I wanna give people a way to think about how they should actually go about buying a used EV. So Perry, if someone asked you, what's the smartest type of used EV for a first timer? How would you answer that question? And here, I wanna assume you're talking to somebody that is looking at their budget and they're looking at this used EV to be their primary car. Again, yeah. So the first things are those assumptions, right? I would assume most people listening to our channel are really interested in getting an EV on a budget. You know, we don't do a ton of like $100,000 Lucid, Cybertruck EV reviews. Like that's just... You're probably not watching this video if you're interested in that. So those are the assumptions that I would do. And then I would continue further and ask them like, what does their daily life look like? What does their routine look like? How far are they driving each day? What things are important to them? Do they live in a cold climate? Do they live in a warm climate? How do they drive? Do they care about performance driving? Do they care about handling? Do they not really care? Do they have kids? Do they have a dog? Do they blah, blah, blah. I would ask them all these questions to understand what their life looks like and then we can start to drill in to which cars make the most sense for them. For instance, if you live in a colder climate, the Fiat 500e is probably not a great car for you, right? You have 149 miles in the best case scenario to start with and now that's gonna go downhill. So if you're a road tripper, like the first gen and second gen, 2017 to 2023 Chevy Bolt EV are not great because they only DC fast charge up to 55 kilowatts. Hyundai Kona, if you're really bootstrapped for budget, you have a Chevy Bolt budget and you wanna stick to that, maybe the Hyundai Kona gives you a little bit faster charging around the same amount of space and it costs very close to the same. So I'd really have to listen to their scenario and see what's important. I love when we interviewed the guy at Saleun, the E-Range EV tires. He said, you get like traction, wear rating and something else. He's like, you have to figure out on the triangle which ones are the most important to you and then you kind of map that out and work backwards and I think it's the same thing for picking out your first EV or any EV. Do features and stats like range and charging speed, do those matter more than brand when buying a used EV? So if Carson was here, he would say yes. He's like, we call him the feature whore of the team. He loves every feature, the latest and greatest, he's gotta have it. To me, again, having empathy for those people in the comments who were talking about how the hardware is always becoming outdated, to me, I don't really care. Whether it has CarPlay or Android Automotive or whatever, it's like, I actually personally prefer Tesla's system because it's so integrated and so good and so usable but it's like, it's gonna be obsolete in a matter of years anyway so does it really matter? I do like having the high quality, high fidelity speakers of the premium Tesla models versus a Chevy Bolt or a Hyundai Kona. I don't necessarily love that. I wish that I did have cooled seats because we live in a moderate climate where we get both snow and 100 degree days pretty frequently. So you just have to figure out but I think it's silly to buy a vehicle on just compute infotainment hardware alone. All right, so now let's slow this down a little bit. And let's go to the question of what is the single biggest piece of advice that you have when somebody is buying a used electric vehicle? Buy slightly over what you need and really look, buy slightly over what you need, 105% of your use case, 110% of your use case. Not 200%, like you need 500 miles in range so you gotta kinda like escalate IQ and now you're upset because it costs just as much as buying a gas version. Buy just slightly over what you need. Think about how you're gonna use it, spend time with it. Like I love that Tesla allows people to go on self demo drives. You can actually see how fast the thing supercharges and you don't have to have a salesperson there. I don't know how many people that have talked to me and said, I hate EVs, they're the stupidest thing ever and I'm like, oh, what do you drive? They're like, well, I have a Chevy Bolt and I pretty much exclusively road trip or I have a Toyota BZ4X, whatever and they hate it because it charges slow. It's like the peak charging rate isn't the whole story, the charging curve, like there's more to the story than just what you see on a data sheet so go test drive the thing extensively. Spend time with it, especially now that we're in a buyer's market for EVs, both new and used. Spend, there's no reason, no excuse for you not to be able to spend time with it. Enjoy that process, take the time to do it and make sure like you're buying what you need and not exactly 2X, 3X because it can get expensive very quickly and then think about where you are. Again, the person that I assume we're talking to is not just concerned with practicality but also reliability and serviceability so Tesla dealer is far away from us here where we are and so that might not be a good fit for everyone even though they do have mobile technicians that can come out and do some things. Someone in this particular community, they might want to get a Chevy Bolt or a Hyundai Kona or an Ioniq 5 because there's a Hyundai dealer, a GM dealer here easily accessible. And of course, the biggest piece of buying advice I always have is never be afraid to walk away from a deal that does not make sense. All right, Perry, well thank you for helping us to hammer out this decision on how you should actually go about buying a used EV. We really want to hear from you, what is your biggest fear about buying a used EV? Like what are you most scared about? We would love to hear that in the comments. Maybe we can make a video on that in the future and then until next time, thank you for watching and God bless. You're gonna hold that? Look, I love trees. I love the environment.