To be fair it's not really 'depreciation' if you got value out of it via a tax credit. Yes, the resale value is lower, but you effectively got a rebate off the cost so it's a wash.
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as an aside, California's grid is woefully inadequate for EVs as admitted by the chairman of their own regulating agency. They have no timeline when they think it may be able to handle expected demand (if ever) at the same time they are pushing to end sales of all combustion engines and pushing for reliance on 100% electricity for everything including new homes (natural gas appliances already banned). This Summer they issued multiple "flex alerts" and advised EV owners NOT to charge at home because the grid would fail during heat waves. Shows what happens when ideological zealots control everything and common sense is missing. Reality bites.EV infrastructure is way too immature outside of California, and having to charge your vehicle all the time is tedious, particularly if you're parking a vehicle as large as the F-150 outside your garage. When its raining and you have to jump into the gas powered vehicle real quick, no biggie. But when you have to run over to get a high powered electrical outlet to plug into the vehicle so that you can make it to work and back in the morning, that's not great.
The highest cost of vehicle ownership is also not fuel, its depreciation, and some of the highest depreciating vehicles to date are EVs, such as the BMW i3 with 69% depreciation after 5 years and the Nissan Leaf with 67%.
A Jeep Wrangler by contrast has a 31% depreciation after 5 years.
So running some numbers, let say you buy a BMW i3 for $51.5K minus $7.5K tax credit = $44K or a Wrangler Rubicon for $44K.
The i3 would lose $35.5K of its original $51.5K MSRP is $16K residual value.
The Wrangler would lose $13.5K of its original $44K MSRP is $30.5K residual value.
Even if it cost nothing to install the charger in your home and charge the vehicle, the Wrangler would have to use $14.5K in fuel during those 5 years to break even, but at 22mpg, it should only use $8K in fuel in that time.
In my state and most others the hurtle for flipping a new vehicle is having to pay the “sales tax” twice…..In two years they will announce phev mav an ranger and ev ranger and we will be debating waiting for those. Until we get that flying car there's always going to be something new coming.