Used car survey, Spring 2023

Spring is in the air, the ski-hills are green, and that means its time for our bi-annual used car survey. As before, we set our price threshold at 35 000 CAD, limit of 100 km from Toronto, and we need to see at least three offerings for a car to make our list of used value screaming EVs. With the recent Tesla price cuts, I am happy to see we now see Teslas for the first time in our survey. Overall inventory is fantastic, with 243 listings on offer, there is plenty of choice for the EV shopper.

A word on methodology. We use autotrader.ca mostly as its the one I know, it does filters for both electric cars, price, and location. There are other sites that help people trade used cars, Clutch, Car gurus and Kajiji to name a few. For each model we find, we need at least three entries in order to make the list, mostly as a way to discourage one offs (say a vehicle that has been driven to the ends of the earth and back several times over, or crash damage). We also limit our geographical search to 100 km away from Toronto. As before we set a hard price limit of $35 000 CAD. Mostly as if your budget is higher, it makes a lot of sense to buy new. You get a more current EV, and thanks to incentives the price is not too different. In fact, with an MSRP of $41 248, and a Canadian federal incentive of $5 000, a new 2023 40 kWh Nissan leaf is $36,248 just $1,248 more than our budget limit.

With that, lets dive in and look at the results shown below.

Inventory has never been this good. Over 200 EVs looking for a new home. Prices have also fallen slightly since our last survey, with the first generation Nissan Leaf now available from only $11 000. As always with used EVs, there are ways to evaluate the battery capacity (see this post). As Nissan puts the “battery life” gauge right there on the dash, we can get a rough measure of battery life from the first generation Nissan Leafs by taking a careful look at the listing. I did check a few of these, and found that 2-3 battery capacity bars have been lost. This corresponds to about 80 % state of health, not bad for an 8 year old EV. I did dock the EPA range a little for the first generation Leaf for this reason (130 km instead of 150 km).

We now have Tesla in our survey, while there are plenty of Tesla cars on autotrader, once you add our price filter of 35k, only these older model S cars meet our three-car minimum. While its possible these older model S Teslas have “unlimited-supercharging”, as with all things Tesla, its hard to nail down exactly what that means (source). Further, Tesla has been known to ban salvaged vehicles from the supercharging network (source). While used certainly does not necessarily mean salvaged, as with all used EVs, if you can, ensuring that fast charging works before purchase is prudent.

The Chevy bolt returns to our used EV survey. The Bolt offers loads of value, very good range, an actively cooled battery, CCS fast charging, a reasonable price point and fun driving. There is really nothing like it, a shame that GE has chosen to discontinue the Bolt (source). For a commuter, the Bolt along with the Spark are two fine used EVs from Chevy. There is also lots of BMW I3s, Ford Focus Electric, Hyundai IONIQ, Kia Soul, Smart for two and E-Golfs on offer. All of these EVs will get you to work, the kids to school and the fridge filled.