6 ms·
The experience of owning an 8 (or 18) year old car has a big impact on how I view quality and there are as many people in my shoes as there are in new car buyer
by dalbasal 8y ago
The experience of owning an 8 (or 18) year old car has a big impact on how I view quality and there are as many people in my shoes as there are in new car buyers'. But.... us old car drivers opinion isn't that commercially important. Resale-ability impacts new car sales to an extent, but a lot of manufacturers (looking at you peugot & renault!) are willing to make cars that have no value by year 8-10.
Mercedes & Tesla trade at the higher end, where just the impact on perceived quality (in addition to the quantifiable financial benefits of buying a car that will maintain value) is important. OTOH, EV are already knowingly buying a car that ranks poorly on that front. Who wants to buy a 2015 model EV in 2018? Range improvements alone would kill the price.
So... not sure it matters too much yet. Going forward.. who knows. I think tesla may already be "in for a penny, in for a pound."
- close04 8y ago> (looking at you peugot & renault!) are willing to make cars that have no value by year 8-10 But if we're being honest the money you lose after a decade is a lot less then the money you saved when you purchased it.
- gsnedders 8y agoIs that true, though? Here (UK) Kia and Hyundai offer seven year warranties, and most of their products are competitive against Peugeot/Renault.
- jacquesm 8y agoThey mostly offer those long warranties because they severely damaged their brands with the quality of the products they rolled out initially. So now they have to give huge warranties to offset the meme that Hyundai and Kia will not survive even a few years out of warranty without major work.
- kbenson 8y agoIt apparently is a viable path for a company to enter the auto market though, as I think they've transitioned well over the last couple decades into respectable auto-makers with standard quality. That probably makes them a good purchase since you can still get those warranties for the time being. Honestly, I thought they would be phasing them out a decade ago.
- jacquesm 8y agoI think the brands that did this best are Audi and Skoda, they went from pariah status to nearly best in their class. Both were classic examples of turnaround management by VW.
- meguest 8y agoHyundai and Kia and now starting to challenge even the German car manufacturers with their i30N and Stinger cars. In fact, they specifically poached a number of former executives from BMW's M division to lead those projects.
- close04 8y agoBut I thought we were talking about different things. Mainly the value of the car after 8-10 years, long after any warranty expires. Low priced cars don't have much resale value after a decade because they had lower value as new. And that's a lot of money saved with the initial purchase. But when it comes to warranty you should take care, people imagine this is like the warranty on their phone. It's not, basically it says the body won't rust. The rest is covered by dozens of other clauses that more or less just guarantee than almost nothing gets replaced under warranty.
- rthomas6 8y agoI just bought a 2015 Leaf, and it was because it was so absurdly cheap. Yes, the range isn't great (only about 90 miles), but everything else is fantastic. I paid $11k for something that feels worth $20k.
- cobookman 8y agoBrand New Chevy volt is ~20k new with dealer and tax rebates. Chevy offers 0 down 0% financing. There's a fair argument that the volt is a better economical buy than the used leaf.
- rthomas6 8y agoTrue, but 20k is not 11k. And that's the out-the-door price with lower than average mileage bought by someone who didn't want to haggle. You can get a 2015 Leaf with 30k miles for 9k.
- jfrankamp 8y agoCan confirm! I got a 2015 for $9600, with 24k miles. It is fantastic and has more than _twice_ the trunk space of the volt which was a deal killer for the volt. We are a two car family and the other car is gas only for long range & occasional dual usage. We're jamming the miles on to the ~free-to-operate leaf as much as we can though.
- icc97 8y agoIt is an issue with resale value. But I drive about 12k miles per year, and the battery should last 500k miles. My last ICE car survived maybe 120k miles before being a write off. There's a good possibility that I'll only need to buy one Tesla for the rest of my driving days.
- rootusrootus 8y agoOr you could buy a Lexus. They seem to be good for a million plus miles.
- icc97 8y agoYes true, but a half million miles will do and I'd rather spend the time in a Tesla.
- ProfessorLayton 8y agoAuto makers very much care about resale value since it is pretty much the entire basis upon which a lease is priced, which is a huge deal considering ~30% of new cars are leased. Furthermore, almost 80% of electric cars are leased [1]. When electric cars aren't being made for compliance reasons, or to lower the overall emissions of an auto maker's fleet (and thus subsidized in some way), then resale value will be of critical importance. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-03/why-most-electric-cars-are-leased-not-owned https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-03/why-most-...
- gpetukhov 8y agothat's only in the US
- Godel_unicode 8y agoIt's also exclusive of Tesla, who doesn't release lease vs buy numbers