this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2026
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Electric Vehicles
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Yes, it's a good thing for buying a very used car. You'd have to be a fucking idiot to buy one brand new and mildly stupid to buy a lightly used one.
It's not a good thing if you want to buy an EV that's still worth something with the intention of being able to sell it before it becomes a heavy heap of problems. Heavy depreciation is good when you're buying 10+ years old, not when you're buying 2-3 years old with warranty still intact. For that case you'd want moderate depreciation, where it's already lost some price, but you know it'll still be worth something in 5 years. Plus most people still need to get financing of some sort on a ~20-30k purchase. If it depreciates too quickly and something happens to your finances, you'll be underwater on that loan or lease while trying to get rid of it.
Meaning any EV under 10-15 years old is currently a really bad deal financially, meaning an early Tesla Model S is basically the smartest EV purchase unfortunately.
That's a ton of assumptions that I think do not hold any real water. The smartest car purchase for most urban or suburban commuters in the US (and likely most other car dependent countries) is a used EV. The best ones have heavily depreciated because of the top 10% churning their cars, they have 80-90% of their battery range (which most people don't even need), and they cost almost nothing to own and operate.
I would argue no one should be buying a car with the intention of selling it later, because all cars depreciate terribly (COVID was a very unique circumstance).
The warranty does not care about the value of the car, it's only for parts and repair so what you said doesn't make any sense.
Your other point is if you buy a depreciating asset with a loan and then lose your income you'll have a hard time paying off that loan. That's literally true for everything in the world. No one should be buying a car they can't afford, and definitely not with a loan they can't safely afford. There's always refinancing which would in your hypothetical would always be a better move as again the ongoing cost of an EV is something like 1/6th or 1/10th of a gas car.
I think you're giving terrible advice and have been given very bad information.