doverturtle
New member
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2023
- Messages
- 2
I have been looking at used electric vehicles as my next car purchase and am finding quite a few low-mileage Nissan Leafs along with a few other brands. It can be difficult to decide what is the best deal, so I have been working on a quantitative approach to determining this. I am planning on taking advantage of the federal tax credit for used cars, which means the car price cannot exceed $25,000 and it needs to be a 1-owner car at least 2 years old.
Here is what I have so far (explanations follow the table):
Car Purchase Price Sale Price Mileage Age Certified? Price Ratio Mileage Ratio Overall Ratio
2020 Nissan Leaf SV $38,410 $23451 17266 3 Yes .40 .48 .83
2019 Hyundai Ioniq Limited $37,745 $22900 26490 4 Yes .40 .55 .73
2018 Kia Soul EV Plus $37,035 $18400 37055 5 No .50 .62 .81
2020 Nissan Leaf SV $39.105 $23488 13188 3 No .40 .37 1.09
2020 Nissan Leaf SV $38,490 $23888 16123 3 No .38 .45 .85
These are cars within a 75-mile radius of my house. The purchase price is the original price as shown on the original sticker that is available in the Carfax. The sale price is the current asking price (side note: not one of them is willing to budge on the price). The price ratio is calculated by the following formula: [(Purchase price - Sale Price * (1-.018)) / Purchase Price]. The .018 is an attempt to normalize the sale price due to whether or not it is certified. Kelly Blue Book says there is a 1.8% increase, although I have seen some sites say it is as high as 5% to 8%. The mileage ratio is calculated by the following formula: [Mileage / (12000 * Age)]. The 12000 represents the average miles per year a typical car is driven. I know this number varies as well depending on the site. The price ratio should be as high as possible while the mileage ratio should be as low as possible. Therefore, to calculate the overall ratio: [Price ratio / Mileage ratio]. This number should be as high as possible.
I had been focusing on the first car in this list since it is certified, however my analysis shows that the best deal is actually the Leaf with the 1.09 ratio. I played with changing the certification from 1.8% to as high as 10%, but it doesn't change the numbers enough. Can anyone comment on if this is a valid approach, or is this an exercise in futility? Maybe there is a better way for me to take certification into account? I have this table in Microsoft Excel, so it makes it easy to change numbers around to see the effect. I am curious about any thoughts on this.
Here is what I have so far (explanations follow the table):
Car Purchase Price Sale Price Mileage Age Certified? Price Ratio Mileage Ratio Overall Ratio
2020 Nissan Leaf SV $38,410 $23451 17266 3 Yes .40 .48 .83
2019 Hyundai Ioniq Limited $37,745 $22900 26490 4 Yes .40 .55 .73
2018 Kia Soul EV Plus $37,035 $18400 37055 5 No .50 .62 .81
2020 Nissan Leaf SV $39.105 $23488 13188 3 No .40 .37 1.09
2020 Nissan Leaf SV $38,490 $23888 16123 3 No .38 .45 .85
These are cars within a 75-mile radius of my house. The purchase price is the original price as shown on the original sticker that is available in the Carfax. The sale price is the current asking price (side note: not one of them is willing to budge on the price). The price ratio is calculated by the following formula: [(Purchase price - Sale Price * (1-.018)) / Purchase Price]. The .018 is an attempt to normalize the sale price due to whether or not it is certified. Kelly Blue Book says there is a 1.8% increase, although I have seen some sites say it is as high as 5% to 8%. The mileage ratio is calculated by the following formula: [Mileage / (12000 * Age)]. The 12000 represents the average miles per year a typical car is driven. I know this number varies as well depending on the site. The price ratio should be as high as possible while the mileage ratio should be as low as possible. Therefore, to calculate the overall ratio: [Price ratio / Mileage ratio]. This number should be as high as possible.
I had been focusing on the first car in this list since it is certified, however my analysis shows that the best deal is actually the Leaf with the 1.09 ratio. I played with changing the certification from 1.8% to as high as 10%, but it doesn't change the numbers enough. Can anyone comment on if this is a valid approach, or is this an exercise in futility? Maybe there is a better way for me to take certification into account? I have this table in Microsoft Excel, so it makes it easy to change numbers around to see the effect. I am curious about any thoughts on this.