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A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

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Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#201
post #94
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't all those laws focused on new cars? I can't imagine the backlash a government would receive by zeroing out the value of most people's most expensive possession.

When new car sales move to electric from gasoline, you'll start to see gas stations go out of business...slowly at first but accelerating as the percentage of gas powered vehicles declines. You'll still have your car and be allowed to drive it, but the days of just finding a gas station wherever you need them will be over. Much like early days of electric cars, people will need a concrete refueling plan for every tri…

Gas stations don't make much money on actually selling gas - consumers are irrationally price sensitive when it comes to the price of gasoline, so the stations are generally selling it at or near cost.

As long as people still pop into the convenience store to get a soda and a candy bar, it doesn't matter if they're filling your tank with gasoline or charging your battery.

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#202

Tangentially in the business. Two recent stories told to me: 1) Saw at Manheim Auto Auction (one of the largest) 300 Nissan Leafs run through the auction line in one afternoon ahead of some of our cars. Drop in "value" of leafs went down 10%+ in one day. All were recently off lease. 2) For similar reason, Santander is holding 4000+ cars on auction lots "waiting for pricing to stabilize". Reality is, when they run tho…

Man I've been looking for a decently priced leaf for a long time. I'd like to attend an auction like this in the Bay Area. It may be this location but Craigslist is pretty slim pickings.

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Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#203
post #61

Awesome. My 20 year old car is in great shape but it is getting older and I will need to replace it sooner or later.

I'm hanging on to my 2001 Honda Civic because I'm hoping self-driving cars make taxi services cheap enough to render it obsolete before I have to replace it.

Yeah. My stance is that I'll buy new if I get a fully self-driving car. But until that's available, buying 10 year old cars is amazing value.

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#204
post #32

With many countries tabling laws to outlaw the sale of diesel and gasoline cars around 2030, this is going to accelerate extremely quickly. In 5 years (2022), everyone will know it will be illegal to buy a gasoline car in just under 8 years. I think there will be very little demand for the regular old gas powered car. (excepting maybe exotics, or "pleasure drives", which much be a tiny fraction of overall sales) That…

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Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#205

Tangentially in the business. Two recent stories told to me: 1) Saw at Manheim Auto Auction (one of the largest) 300 Nissan Leafs run through the auction line in one afternoon ahead of some of our cars. Drop in "value" of leafs went down 10%+ in one day. All were recently off lease. 2) For similar reason, Santander is holding 4000+ cars on auction lots "waiting for pricing to stabilize". Reality is, when they run tho…

Leaf is a special case because of the battery degradation issues. 100k miles on a Leaf is basically end of life (unless you buy the $5k battery replacement). That being said, you can pick one up in California for $5k in perfect condition with Definitely a niche thing for heavy urban areas that have the charging infrastructure though. I can't imagine owning one in the Midwest.

Any advice on how to make sure you're getting a good one, or where to get one? We considered Leafs several years ago, but the range wasn't quite good enough for our needs.

Since then, our needs have decreased and range has increased a bit. Would love to trade in one of our 25 mpg vehicles for a Leaf. Plenty of chargers around Palo Alto, including at work!

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#206
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't need nearly as many charging stations as we need gas stations because electric cars can be charged at home.

Maybe that is true in rural and suburban environments, but I doubt it in dense urban environments. Adding a charger to every spot in residential parking garages and on every residential street is a bigger infrastructure project than converting over gas stations to chargers. You also have to consider the time it takes to recharge an electric car is much higher than the time to refuel an ICE car.

I live in a Bay Area apartment with no garage and commute every day with an EV. I've never plugged my car in at home once.

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#207
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brand new flat or house built today in Madrid, Spain are fitted at best with a 20A connection. The standing charge alone is more than what I pay for electricity (standing charge and consumption) in a 2 bed flat in London. The vast majority of flat and house I have seen in Spain have 15A or 20A. That includes city, and country houses. It is a cost cutting measure rather than an infrastructure limitation (people chose…

Seriously, 20A? How do you even run an air conditioner on that, much less an entire house? 200A (at 240V split phase) is standard here in the Midwestern US. It's easy and cheap to get more if you want a better connection, such as for an EV or a home shop with welders and large motors.

> Seriously, 20A? How do you even run an air conditioner on that, much less an entire house?

The poster mentioned Spain, which uses 230V (unlike the USA, which uses 120V), so 20A should be around 4600W if I did the calculation correctly. With a quick search I found a window AC with 18000 BTU using only 1700W, so even with 15A it would be possible to run one AC with plenty to spare.

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#208
post #146
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$15 due to a single sale seems very significant. Correct me if I'm wrong, but by your reckoning just 100 super collectable sales (average $5m) could raise the overall average by over $500.

It's still insignificant in terms of the OP comment. Also there aren't 100 cars with an average price of 5 Mln sold per year, far from it [1] 1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_cars_...

That list shows that of the top ~20 cars sold in 2016 the average price was ~$10m.

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaf is a special case because of the battery degradation issues. 100k miles on a Leaf is basically end of life (unless you buy the $5k battery replacement). That being said, you can pick one up in California for $5k in perfect condition with Definitely a niche thing for heavy urban areas that have the charging infrastructure though. I can't imagine owning one in the Midwest.

Any advice on how to make sure you're getting a good one, or where to get one? We considered Leafs several years ago, but the range wasn't quite good enough for our needs. Since then, our needs have decreased and range has increased a bit. Would love to trade in one of our 25 mpg vehicles for a Leaf. Plenty of chargers around Palo Alto, including at work!

Make sure the battery has at least 8 bars left. There's two gauges on the dash: current charge and battery capacity. Capacity is the skinnier one on the right [0]. If you find one still within the warranty window below 8 bars, Nissan will even replace the battery free [1]. Also make sure you get one with a quick charge port, it's worth every penny. Other than that you really can't go wrong.

http://www.plugincars.com/sites/default/files/leaf-dash-bars... [0]

https://www.nissanusa.com/electric-cars/leaf/charging-range/... [1]

Re: A glut has used-car depreciation accelerating

#210
post #143

This bubble has been building for years now. Wholesalers and other exporters have been hiding the problem for a while now, and but somethings got to give. The problem is multifaceted: 1) Lease rates arent necessarily in sync with the used car market 2) Buyers are keeping cars longer if they purchase 3) Subprime loans and buy here/pay here dealers are multiplying. THIS IS A BUBBLE. I wont call when its going to burst,…

Any predictions on how the popping bubble will ripple through the economy? With the housing bubble, there was a huge pull-back in consumer purchasing, as people lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in home equity. That caused a drop in consumer confidence and purchasing, which led employers to cut back on wages/hours, which led to further drops in consumer purchasing.

Do you think we'll see the same domino effect here, but just at a lower magnitude? Or is there a different path for this bubble to ripple out through? Perhaps when people lose cars they lose jobs that they can no longer commute to?

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