Do You Think Used EV Prices Will Drop By $4,000 In 3 Months?

Last Updated on: 5th July 2025, 12:11 am

As noted earlier today, Republicans in Congress decided to end all EV tax credits on September 30, 2025. That includes the $4,000 tax credit for used electric cars. In theory, when you buy a used electric car, it’s effectively $4,000 cheaper due to the tax credit.

The argument some people have made is that the used EV tax credit just raises used EV prices by $4,000. The argument is that people are only going to pay what they can pay on the used EV market, so if they can afford a $12,000 car, they can buy a $12,000 car with no tax credit or they can buy a $16,000 car with a $4,000 tax credit. Therefore, with no tax credit, used car sellers will just sell EVs for $4,000 less.

Before getting to ramifications of that if it’s true, I wanted to poll you readers to see what you thought of this. Do you think that used EV prices will effectively drop by $4,000 on October 1 or so? Or do you think they won’t drop that much, if at all? The poll embedded below (linked above) is just one short question. Just be sure to click “Done” after answering the question.

If used car prices do drop — whether by $4,000 or $3,000 or $2,000 — remember that there is of course another side to such a transaction. There’s the seller’s side. If the tax credit was a ruse and didn’t actually do anything to help used electric car buyers, it certainly must have helped people selling their EVs — normally to buy another one. When the resale value of their car is thousands of dollars less than it would have been, they are either going to lose more money or they are just going to hold off and not sell their EV, and not buy a new one.

This might be even worse, because this will significantly hurt the electric car market overall — and will also thus lead to fewer used electric cars down the road for second-hand buyers. Yikes.

Anyway, I look forward to finding out what you all think about this topic, and will report back the poll results in a few days or so.