Haven't you heard?! If you’re at all interested in going electric, a recipe of US tax policy changes plus recent progress in vehicle and battery tech means the perfect time to buy a used electric vehicle is, well, now. Really: A $4,000 used EV tax credit for qualified buyers expires at the end of September, which means you’ll be competing with other electric bargain hunters for the next few weeks.
The question, of course, is how. Electric vehicles have some crucial differences from their gas-powered cousins, which means there are a few tricks to picking out whatever is the opposite of a lemon. WIRED spoke to car-buying experts about what to look out for when you go hunting.
Kick the Tires on the Battery
You’re going to want to start with the battery. This is the most foreign part of the electric vehicle for those making the transition from gas, and it can cost between $5,000 to $16,000 to replace—expensive! Make sure it works, and that its range suits your needs. (Will it easily cover your regular commute, say, both there and back?)
There are a few ways to do this. The first step is to get online and do some research. Most car sales websites have battery health predictors, which use real-world battery health data from similar vehicles to predict an EV’s estimated range versus what it was when the car was new. “Cars degrade differently from brand to brand,” says Sean Tucker, the lead editor for Kelley Blue Book. So plug in a specific make and model, and see if the baseline works for you.
Then, test out the vehicle’s battery. One unfortunate part of buying a used EV is that it can be really hard to find mechanics with the right tools to diagnose a specific car’s battery health. But there is a proxy, and that’s a test drive.
Jon Witt, a battery scientist at the EV data firm Recurrent, recommends taking a picture of the dash to capture the car’s range estimate, the outside temperature, the odometer and the efficiency. These numbers can get wonky when a car’s been sitting idle for a while. “Drive the car like you normally would,” Witt advises—a bit on the highway, a bit on the streets—and see if those numbers look more reasonable afterwards. Keep in mind that range can fluctuate up to 30 percent based on outside temperature, how your drive, and how quickly you were moving during the trip.
That said, signs of battery trouble should be pretty obvious after a drive. Did the vehicle say it had 200 miles of range, but then just 100 miles after a five-minute drive? Red flag.
EV batteries used to really scare secondhand buyers, but recent data shows that they’re lasting even longer than automakers expected them to. Ideally, you’ll be looking at 90 to 97 percent of the vehicle’s original range, says Liz Najman, the director of market insights at Recurrent.
Test the Charging
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