Just today started looking at EV or hybrid vehicles for middle child as a first car for a 16 year old. I want to go used and under $20k for sure, and preferably under $15k. Looking for something more stodgy than peppy as an added teenage limiter to bad behavior.
It needs to be safe and decent value (however that may be defined).
Took a quick look at used Prius at the dealer. Used were close to $20k for 100k in mileage. I get they hold their value and that your basic Uber driver gets 200k-3000k use. But still.
The BMW i3 has serious range constraints even with the extended drive. Plus, any BMW repair is costy.
Nissan Leaf seems to be much cheaper with well under 100k mileage at more like $15k.
Checking in with the Teeming Masses to see if they’ve got experience while looking at what would be good for a first time teen driver.
Seems like “range constraints” might not be a terrible idea for a first-time car, though I guess it carries the risk that the kid will get stuck somewhere. Is there any particular threshold you’re looking at? The slightly older LEAFs don’t go that far, <100 mi, but can be had for <$10k.
Those Prius prices seem high to me, but maybe because they’re dealer prices. We’ll be selling Wife’s Prius soon, prob for around $15k for a 2014 with about 50 k miles on it. I used Kelly Blue Book to get that number.
I’ll bet there are lots of Priuses under $15k in your local Craigslistings.
I would not buy a used BMW, a new one as a toy, sure, but there is a reason they don’t hold their value, repairs are expensive and complicated. Well that’s for their gas powertrains but I wouldn’t take them up on EV’s till they prove themselves.
Re: range constraints (read extra low range )
I think it’s not the best way to go as it does add more complication and more ‘judgment’ if a trip is worth it, and adding in the lesson that ‘just making it’ and ‘pushing the limits’ is how driving works. Normal, even slightly degraded EV range is fine, but one that is severally limited I feel teaches the wrong lesson.
Additionally it is time of the parent to also start letting go, a crippled range serves to hold on too much to those strings IMHO.
Further it is possible that this kid will have this car 5 years or more, unless the parents will buy them a new one for sure. This would be akin to all other kids having bikes and him still on training wheels.
Have you tried talking to the Little Guy about what he wants? As noted, the early Nissan Leaves are very cheap but have very short range. I would think the range would be too short to do much of the exploring that a kid likely wants to do with a car.
Electric cars, in general, are great because they are very low maintenance. No buying gas or changing oil to worry about. If you expect electric cars and charging infrastructure to constantly improve, you have to believe electric cars are the future and that getting him started with one might be the way to go. Sure, he won’t learn the foibles of gas powered cars but that would be like teaching him how to rejet carburetors or reline drum brakes. No one needs to bother anymore.
I would be looking at 3-5 year old mid-size family sedans. $15,000 should get you a 2017 Honda Accord or Toyota Camry with normal miles (lets say 60,000) and a lot of life left. The Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima are also very good cars still treated as off brands that can be had for even less but their dealers are terrible. More recent models will likely come with advanced safety features like automatic emergency braking, lane keeping assist, reverse sensors, blind spot detection, etc. that I would want my new driver to have.
Hybrids are great but given your price sensitivity, the current weirdness in the used car market, and the U.S.'s surprisingly enduring commitment to cheap gas, a big hybrid premium takes a long time to pay off.
Lots of colleges are installing EV chargers and offering free parking and charging for EVs. Depending on where he goes, an EV might be by far the cheapest and most convenient car to park on the campus. That is, assuming other students don’t catch on first and fill up those spots.
Yes numbers are increasing as a percentage, but absolute numbers of spots are still sparse. Might change over two years but relying on it?
38 for all of UC Davis is the most. Maybe some others not ChargePoint? That’s a big place. Having a spot to charge overnight or even for several hours a day might be less than a sure thing even there.
I’m a big EV fan. But driving to and from college and charging on campus are not yet best case uses for EVs. Maybe a used Volt?
I’m not sure if that article is accurate, or perhaps just a few months old. My university has something like 21 ChargePoint pedestals that represent about 40 charging spots, but about half of them just opened this spring. Possibly important to the OP, none of the charging places are anywhere near the parking lot for the largest dorms.
Having an EV on campus in Boulder wouldn’t be that difficult, because there is tons of charging all over, but certainly could be an issue other places for dorm and apartment living.
I’d be very cautions with a first generation Leaf, as those have a deserved reputation for cooking their batteries to death. If you find one in good shape, then it could make a great first car.
EVs (that aren’t Teslas) tend to have lots of depreciation, so could be a great value, but I also understand that used car prices in general are high at the moment. If it were me, I’d start with my budget and look at cars, and definitely keep EVs and hybrids in the mix.
Appreciate the replies all. Good food for thought.
Anyone with experience on the Chevy Volt? A gearhead work buddy has one and thinks it is great. He’s saving it for his eldest as a first car. (He also just totaled his brand new top of the line Tesla - tboned someone at 40 mph. cockpit photos had zero damage and the 3 passengers came out without a scratch).
Yeah, I was shocked at the prices you were seeing. Might be dealers who don’t have much stock they need to get rid of right now. Our Craigslist has Prii for $5k-15k.
Now, the cheapest ones are older with 70-150k miles, but I’ve got friends with an old Prius and it’s barely lost any battery charge/range, and has needed almost no maintenance (shouldn’t be a surprise, it’s a Toyota).
I bought an old hybrid off Craigslist, but took it to a mechanic before I bought it. He checked the cells on the hybrid battery and the normal car stuff, and said “It’s going to need $700 of repairs…” so i offered the seller 700 less, and he took it.
Even without that discount, it was an awesome deal (less than $3k, but then I’m cheap and not risk-averse).
Oh, when my daughter got her first car she did all the shopping, I just went along for the closing. We think that made her more responsible, and she paid for most of it, kept up with all the oil changes, filled tires regularly, checked the anti-freeze each winter, etc etc.
Oh, and she did not get it when she was sixteen. I wasn’t going to live with a spoiled kid…
This.
New EVs have much better range than those of a few years ago, couple that with some battery/range degradation & that could mean multiple stops going to/from school, & that’s assuming stops are enroute & not out of the way. If you knew where the kid was going, the distance there, & what the recharge situation was like on campus it would be a very different call than the unknown variables that you know will be coming.
From what I understand used car prices in general are very high right now. The pandemic induced microchip shortage has limited the supply of new cars, causing a spike in demand for used cars, which is pushing up prices.
Sorry, but it’s a bad time to be buying a used car, much moreso if you buy from a dealer.
That’s the consensus from a great car site: Jalopnik.com. They have lots of advice, and they have a guy on staff whose job is to search out used cars for customers. All through the last year, they’ve detailed the effects of the pandemic (some i hadn’t thought of, like the higher % of people who used to take the bus or commuter train, but who now feel safer in their very own ‘new’ used car).
But buying person-to-person has been affected less. So keep checking Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist… (any others out there?).
Good luck! Get the car checked out before you buy!
Exactly! My wife has an Acura RDX that she’s leasing, and that lease ends January. She heard about the used car shortage, and for laughs called the dealer to see if the cared to buy the car back now above the current payout. Much to my surprise, they offered a substantial amount more, and when they heard she was going to compare against Carvana, they upped the offer further. So now she’s driving my Bolt (which I think @China_Guy should consider) until her Tesla shows up end of next month.
But are they sparse? I don’t have data on the utilization of the existing spaces on college campuses. I do have this story about a jerk who parked his definitely-not-electric Jeep for free at his campus by pretending it was electric. Clearly he was able to find a free electric car parking space at least once. My hunch is, he saw that the spots were often empty and figured free parking was worth sticking $20 worth of plastic to his car.
The college I teach at doesn’t have a lot of charging stations, but I’ve checked at all times of the day, and there’s always been free spaces.
And those are right up next to classroom buildings. Even closer than the bike racks (which is how I get my “VIP parking”). So drive to class, recharge, and you might be good for the rest of the week, depending on how tethered to a car you are.
Not only do I suspect that your campus charger numbers may vary, but that with the fairly small n, demand for those chargers might change quickly as well. With campuses ranging from single digits to several dozen chargers and some with tens of thousands of students a very small percent choosing to try to live on campus with EVs could swamp charger supply pretty quickly.
Of course more demand would beget more supply but living through that process could be difficult.