Article Link! The Great American EV Fire Sale Is About to Begin

FrankenGlock said:
Not sure where you are getting that information but modern engines can go a very long time before needing a rebuild. Diesels can go upwards of a million miles. Even if the engine only lasts 200k miles, you can drop a used one in for a few thousand dollars if you want to keep the car going.

Electric may be the future but it’s still not ready for prime time. I’m betting on fuel cells or hybrids rather than all electric.
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I stand corrected. Only 40% make it to 200Kish. Another 17% make it a bit longer. So, a little over half make it past 200K.


🚗 Typical Lifetime Mileage (2000–Present)​

Based on recent studies of 156 car models sold in the U.S.:

  • 39% of modern cars last between 190,000–220,000 miles
  • 16.7% last between 220,000–250,000 miles
  • Top-tier models (e.g., Toyota Land Cruiser, Honda Accord, Ford F-150) often exceed 300,000 miles with proper maintenance.

So, the typical miles per year in the US is just under 15K miles per year.
So even figuring 20K miles per year to make the math simple, it's going to take 10+ years to rack up 200K miles. Now you have to find a car with a lower mileage engine than yours and hope the owner treated it well and changed the oil regular and did at least minimum service. Or buy a rebuilt from a company like Jasper, and that can be a crap shoot.

Bottom line is, unless you have a test stand to run the junk yard engine on to make sure it's good, you have to install it in the car and run it before you know. And if it knocks or blows blue smoke, you have to take it out and return to the junkyard, which will give you another engine, but no compensation for your labor time to change it for the second time.

So, no matter which you choose, ICE or electric, there's going to be a cost. It's just a matter of when and how much.
 
There is a difference between what it will last and what people will drive it. I think that figure is based on what people actually put on the car before it is scrapped or people determine they don't want to make any repairs. It could still be drivable, and the engine may still be working. A lot of Fords and other domestics will literally fall apart but the engine will still be running. It becomes a $100 car that will cost hundreds or thousands to keep on the road. I've yet to have a car that didn't hit over 200k+ miles.
 
I had an 86 VW Jetta I picked up for $75 with 175k miles hit in the rear quarter. Put about $1000 into it with bodywork, suspension, tires, exhaust and other basic maintenance. Basically "new", I drove it for 5 yrs or so during college. Speedo broke at 310k and I sold it 6 months after that so I estimate it probably had about 325k miles on it when sold. Compression test at 275k was 175PSI across the board, original engine, original head, never rebuilt. Also never overheated so there is that... ;)

My dot is still driving her first car, an 04 Jetta 1.8t 5spd I picked up with 235k miles. ORIGINAL clutch went out at about 265k, replaced with OEM LuK exact same part number. She helped me replace that as well as three timing belts/tensioners/water pumps. Car has about 330+k on it now, original engine, original turbo, never been apart aside from basic maintenance. :) It has a little valve seal smoke upon start up but with 20 valves (5x4cyl, 3in, 2ex), we're not in a hurry to do seals... ;)

The family "back-up" car is an 02 Jetta 2.Slo 8v 5spd with 260ish. This guy still runs OK but non-excitedly, has ice-cold AC and a trailer hitch. My son put 30k miles on it before getting himself a S-box 99 328 BMW... :rolleyes:

Another "spare" is a 06 GLI 2.0t 6MT with 245k miles. Compression is 180PSI across the board. De-carboned and a bunch of other work done to it, should get another 100k out of it... ;)
 
If only the brilliant EV manufacturers with their 6000 IQ points and government tax payer loans and subsidizes could read the market and give the public what they want vs. what the government wants us to have.
We just want affordable reliable transportation.

I guess I’m not surprised that the Fed and the automakers weren’t sharp enough to :

1: make batteries all a standard size, type, shape ….. uh you know, like a car battery.
2: Make all chargers standard.
3: make battery packs easily changed out, uh so you could swap them out…. , uh like fork trucks and Milwaukee cordless tools.


Worst part is the last several years of cultural and government insanity has been detrimental on the car companies ability to build reliable affordable transportation. Woke, DEI, EV mandates and whacko man made global warming BS has yielded an overall car market flooded with unreliable, unaffordable, gadget riddled throw away junk. Look at what’s happened to Toyota! Sad!!
 
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no4mk1t said:
I stand corrected. Only 40% make it to 200Kish. Another 17% make it a bit longer. So, a little over half make it past 200K.


🚗 Typical Lifetime Mileage (2000–Present)​

Based on recent studies of 156 car models sold in the U.S.:

  • 39% of modern cars last between 190,000–220,000 miles
  • 16.7% last between 220,000–250,000 miles
  • Top-tier models (e.g., Toyota Land Cruiser, Honda Accord, Ford F-150) often exceed 300,000 miles with proper maintenance.

So, the typical miles per year in the US is just under 15K miles per year.
So even figuring 20K miles per year to make the math simple, it's going to take 10+ years to rack up 200K miles. Now you have to find a car with a lower mileage engine than yours and hope the owner treated it well and changed the oil regular and did at least minimum service. Or buy a rebuilt from a company like Jasper, and that can be a crap shoot.

Bottom line is, unless you have a test stand to run the junk yard engine on to make sure it's good, you have to install it in the car and run it before you know. And if it knocks or blows blue smoke, you have to take it out and return to the junkyard, which will give you another engine, but no compensation for your labor time to change it for the second time.

So, no matter which you choose, ICE or electric, there's going to be a cost. It's just a matter of when and how much.
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I just bought a $400 junk yard transmission and “rebuilt” it myself, put in and rebuilt torque converter and my daughters 01 Civic is running again for less than $1000. I then rebuilt the one I took out as a spare 🙂 the car has 200k, I just keep it running between gun builds.
 
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I drove this home last weekend, was thinking of buying it now that the bottom has fallen out of the EV market and I could conceivably afford one.

20250808_183446.jpg

It is a 2015 BMW I3. That year came with a puny 60 a/h battery that only offers 65ish miles of range, at least over the 100 degree days I had it.

I drove it to the shooting range, twice, it garnered lots of curiosity and only a little contempt. It was educational as it seems like a good commuter because I am 5 miles from work and a bunch of EV chargers, including a couple DC fast chargers. Unfortunately I had to charge it at home using the 110 outlet in my garage, it took 12 hours to put 65 miles back on the clock. I did have some range anxiety over the weekend with it, especially since both my gas burners were locked up at work, leaving me a motorcycle with an oil sight glass getting ready to fall out as the only alternative vehicle.

This particular I3 has the optional range extender, it is an 800cc motorcycle engine powering a generator that charges the HV battery. It is not connected to the wheels.

Fun fact about the Rex model of this car, US regulations concerning this type of powertrain limit fuel capacity and how soon it turns on. It is basically an emergency backup, not something that the driver is meant to rely upon. Here in the States the gas tank is one gallon and the Rex turns on when there is 4 miles left in the HV battery. In Europe the fuel capacity is 1.7 gallons and the Rex turns much sooner. It is the exact same gas tank. The car is programmed to only permit you to burn the top gallon of gas in the USA.

With an OBD2 dongle and one of the mini tuner phone apps you can get the ability to manually switch on the Rex to charge the HV battery at any time below a 75% state of charge. You can also make it burn all 1.7 gallons of gas. I clicked both of thos options, no need to leave the dongle connected. Press the #8 radio preset to start the Rex engine. Yes, US regulations did this car a disservice. BMW was practically giving them away on the showrooms and their value has only plummeted since. For someone like me who just needs a people mover for many short trips it is a good option.

They offered it to me at $8500, I ended up declining to get that one due to the limited range. But I will keep an eye out for the newer ones that have 94 a/h or 120 a/h batteries. I'm also going to put a 220 outlet in the garage for faster emergency charging, my intention for an EV would be to take advantage of the free high speed charging available to me at work. I would also keep a gas burner at home as a backup. I do appreciate the additional layer of security of having a trunk to keep shooting gear out of sight and more secure.
 
www.slashgear.com

This Car Has The Worst Resale Value On The Market, According To A Recent Study - SlashGear

There has been a recent study showing the vehicles on the market with the worst resale value. However, this car model beats them all by a long shot.
www.slashgear.com www.slashgear.com

A recent survey from iSeeCars has taken into account over 800,000 five-year-old used vehicle sales from between March 2024 and February 2025, in order to evaluate which brands have lost the most amount of money relative to their msrp. It's bad news for EV owners, as on average, fully electric cars are losing 58.8% of their new value after just five years. The winner though, as it were, is the Jaguar I-Pace, which loses a staggering 72.2% of its value in the same period.
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The Jag CEO who presided over that queer ad recently got his walking papers. Financially, he did a respectable job. But the brand was negatively affected with the ad campaign and their vague promise to shift to EVs.

Every car company CEO knows that ICE is going to become a niche player and most vehicles will be EVs. The problem is the established automakers all have trouble making one that's worth a shit.

I get how this happens. When I was a young buck engineer hired into the company that began with the era of steam and built most of the steam boilers for power plants, ships, refining, industrial heat and hot water around the world for the past 100 years.... the engineering culture was fixated on not changing anything because they saw no need to change. They rejected computerized process control, modern, high efficiency equipment like motors, fans, and pumps, the shift away from coal, air pollution regulations, etc... Also smaller, regional power plants that can cycle quickly in response to demand instead of the tradition of huge base load plants.

Senior execs and their minions rejected anything new. "That's not how we do things here, son". If I had a nickel every time I heard that lecture from some guy who thought he was my Dad... Those guys all ended up getting laid off and became 50-something WalMart greeters. They were shocked and angry when that happened.

Companies with long traditions of success seldom learn to adapt when a major technology shift occurs. They die a slow death. The carmakers we grew up with are fucked. It was a good run.
 
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Alex said:
With sales like this I don't know how they keep the doors open.

nypost.com

Jaguar sales plummet after botched rebrand, EV pivot

The uproar from the ‘woke’ ads was likened to Bud Light’s bizarre 2023 partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
nypost.com nypost.com
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Rawdon Glover, the UK Md of Jaguar Land Rover, defended the campaign last year, claiming its message had been lost “in a blaze of intolerance.”
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Yes... perfect.... blame and insult the consumer. That's always a great strategy!

The EV, expected to cost around $200,000 won’t be out until late 2025, according to India-based The Economic Times. Making matters worse, Bloomberg reported that the company has effectively “gone dormant” this year as it phased out all of its gas—and diesel-powered models ahead of time, leaving dealerships empty.
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Who is going to pay $200k for an EV made by a company that already has a dubious reputation for reliability and has now resorted to castigating its target market for rejecting their freak show ad campaign?
 
If the Toyota chief literally believes that his day will come. His peers all disagree. You agreee with him so he's right. I say he's fucked. Or he is spinning a yarn and not revealing his strategy, which would be very Japanese of him. Toyota is still claiming hydrogen is viable. You declared that effort a total failure as has most of the world. So what makes anyone sure Toyota is right about EVs?

Mazda was sure the Wankel engine would catch on. After 59 years it didnt.
 
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Bongo Lewi said:
If the Toyota chief literally believes that his day will come. His peers all disagree. You agreee with him so he's right. I say he's fucked. Or he is spinning a yarn and not revealing his strategy, which would be very Japanese of him. Toyota is still claiming hydrogen is viable. You declared that effort a total failure as has most of the world. So what makes anyone sure Toyota is right about EVs?

Mazda was sure the Wankel engine would catch on. After 59 years it didnt.
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You said every CEO. I found at least one big one that disagrees. History is replete with luminaries and visionaries who were lone dissenters and who were right. Galileo comes to mind. 😊

I do disagree with him on hydrogen even Visionaries can get a few things wrong.😊
 
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The bigwigs explained something they called the 1:6:90 rule, where considering the amount of raw materials needed for the battery in one battery-electric vehicle designed for 300+ miles of range, six plug-in hybrid batteries could be made or 90 batteries for hybrid-electric vehicles like the Prius.

"For the same limited resources, instead of replacing one internal combustion engine, you can replace 90," the Toyota executives said.

"The overall carbon reduction of these 90 vehicles over their lifetimes is 37 times as much as a single battery-electric vehicle."

This was the ah-ha moment from that article. Then there is the disposal piece of the pie. Electric vehicles are rolling hazardous waste sites.
 
Racer88 said:
You said every CEO. I found at least one big one that disagrees. History is replete with luminaries and visionaries who were lone dissenters and who were right. Galileo comes to mind. 😊
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Same thing people say about "every scientist agrees" that climat change is human caused, that covid came from a wet market, that the covid shot was safe, etcetera.
As soon as you find ANY scientist who disagrees, or even hundreds of them, thye are ostracized, as are you.

Makes any conversation difficult.

Thats one thing I love about this forum, we can still debate here.
Maybe we ARE all old fogies but at least we can have civil conversations!
 
Racer88 said:
You said every CEO. I found at least one big one that disagrees. History is replete with luminaries and visionaries who were lone dissenters and who were right. Galileo comes to mind. 😊

I do disagree with him on hydrogen even Visionaries can get a few things wrong.😊
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Ten years. EVs everywhere. Toyota will be making them too. We have been over this. Only time will tell.

History is also full of companies in every sector who went under because they couldn't adapt or refused to try. Most, in fact.

People who loved steam locomotives (and still do) were certain diesel/electric was never going to replace them. There are a thousand examples of this denial. EVs are a mega trend. Nothing is going to stop it. Not wishes, not critics, not gasoline huffers who love the smell.

I'll repeat my mantra. A child born today will never drive a gasoline powered passenger vehicle. Unless he or she rides in the 4th of July parade with Grandpa in his jalopy.

Screenshot 2025-08-18 at 9.15.24 AM.png
 

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