This week's EV bargain that I'm not buying

Nothing wrong with my memory, thanks. It’s a good friend, he ordered from tesla directly, wired them the cash, and got it shipped to Hamburg - they wouldn’t deliver it here (or not without silly expense) so he went there and drove it back.

2014 S class online seem to start about €30k, the (cheaper new) 7 series are around €25k, so it’s pretty similar when you consider the % depreciation, I know you Tesla boys like to be exact on these things, but it’s roughly similar.

not many luxobarge buyers would choose this older spec, with that outdated front end, early BEV, over the S Class of that era. Not a chance.

Although there is a lot more to go wrong in an old luxury petrol its very fair to say that there are a lot more ways to fix them and a lot more experts who are familiar with cost effective workarounds, not to mention huge availability of cheap secondhand parts. If I buy a Tesla with no warranty as the battery fails, will I have a local mechanic who can fix it or is it trailer to Tesla e.g. I see your car had the battery replaced under warranty, if this needs replacement again what would it cost- I'm guessing more than the car is worth?

Either way in the current mad market - where dealers are asking more for 2 year old diesel SUV's than they cost new - anything is possible and its very likely you have underpriced your car

This high cost of repair vs the value of the car issue is an issue on ICE cars too.

Has been for years.

Especially with the built in reliability flaws that complex modern cars bring with them

What do you realistically think happens a mk3 Mondeo diesel TDCi with injector failure and the car worth little.

It gets scrapped.

Its not like the old days of the Ford Sierra where you could source an engine of another Sierra for small money and get your mechanic friend to do the swop as a cash job.

Fine to raise concerns that EVs risk being too disposable.

But let's drop the pretence that ICE cars can still be fixed at home for cheaps and kept going for 450,000 miles with most drivers these days.

They can't

I’m not suggesting ICE cars are any different at that age - indeed I’m making the point that they’re the same - potentially.

there’s definitely fewer things to go wrong with EVs, but the reality is that a replacement battery pack will almost certainly lemon an 8-10yo ev.

the suggestion further up that EV depreciation is ‘glacial’ is simply not borne out by reality over the past decade, and in the current market is very little difference from ICE. My own 6yo ice hasn’t depreciated at all really in the past 2 years.

you may have been referring to 2nd hand EV depreciation perhaps, but with so few available in 2012-2019, that’s going to happen, albeit the Leaf was the biggest seller in that era and those all took an almighty dump.