Where Used EV Prices Stand in October
- Used EV prices have stopped rising. Recurrent, which tracks the used electric vehicle (EV) market, wrote on September 30, 2026 that retail prices are “8% higher than a year ago, though steady over the last few months.”
- The first-half jump was real. Same-model used EV prices rose 5.1% from January to June, and the average 2023 Chevrolet Bolt EV listing went from $17,718 to $21,204.
- Gas did not keep the climb going. Regular gasoline has cost more than $4 a gallon every week since mid-July, and the average used EV listing still slipped slightly from its June peak through August.
- Wholesale cooled, then held. Wholesale EV values fell nearly 8% from June to mid-September, then were “mostly steady” in the full September reading.
Used EVs Kept Their Gains. They Stopped Adding to Them.
Used cars are depreciating assets, and for EVs that has been especially true since 2022. Then the first half of 2026 broke the pattern. Recurrent compared the same models over time and found used EV prices up 5.1% from January to June, and about 7% by mid-July.
The newer numbers show where that went. Cox Automotive’s average used EV listing price was $37,832 in July and $37,441 in August, which Recurrent calls “a slight decrease from the June peak,” still 8% above August 2025. That is an average of every listing, not a same-model comparison, so it can move when the mix of cars for sale changes. Recurrent’s own summary for shoppers is short: “prices have stopped rising.”
Wholesale prices, what dealers pay before a car reaches the lot, cooled faster and then steadied. Manheim’s mid-September report said “EV values are down nearly 8% since June, and the premium over last year has narrowed to 2.3%.” Its full September reading, published October 7, put its EV index 4.3% above a year earlier and 0.6% above August, with EVs “mostly steady.” For comparison, Recurrent’s July report put the same index 11.4% above a year earlier as of mid-May.
Recurrent reads the wholesale easing as a possible warning: wholesale “tends to lead retail, so that could be the front edge of a pullback, especially if gas prices fall.” A dealer it interviewed, Chris Taylor of Certified Autobrokers, disagrees: “I truly do believe we’re in a period of stabilization.”
How Far Used EV Prices Climbed in the First Half
A 2023 Chevrolet Bolt EV that listed for $17,718 in January was listing for $21,204 by June, a gain of 19.7%. A 2021 Volkswagen ID.4 went from $18,771 to $21,128. Across 108 make-model-year combinations, volume-weighted used EV prices rose 5.1% between January and June.
This was supposed to be the year of the buyer. Recurrent projected as many as 500,000 lease returns in 2026 and up to twice as many in 2027. A January analysis on this site argued that a wave of off-lease returns would push used EV prices down. The returns began arriving. In the first half, prices went up instead.
The gain did not reach every used EV. Sorted by January price, the market moved in two directions at once:
| Price band in January | Change, January to June 2026 |
|---|---|
| Under $20,000 | +9.4% |
| $20,000 to $30,000 | +5.6% |
| $30,000 to $40,000 | +6.5% |
| $40,000 to $55,000 | −1.2% |
| Above $55,000 | −3.3% |
Cars under $40,000 appreciated, while cars above $40,000 “stayed flat or continued to decline.” The cheapest band posted the largest gain and the priciest band the largest loss.
These figures avoid a trap that plain averages fall into. An average across all used EVs can climb because pricier cars made up more of that month’s listings, with no single car costing a dollar more. Recurrent’s comparison tracks the same make and model year from January to June, volume-weighted, so a 2023 Bolt is compared with a 2023 Bolt. That pattern looks less like rising demand for EVs and more like rising demand for cheap transportation.
Why Did Used EV Prices Rise in 2026?
Gasoline is the obvious answer, and it is part of one. Regular gasoline cost $2.796 a gallon in the first week of January, crossed $4 in April and peaked at $4.500 in the week of May 11. It averaged $4.331 a gallon in the United States in the week of October 12, 2026, up $1.27 from a year earlier. It has been above $4 every week since July 20.
The Bolt is a useful measuring stick because the Environmental Protection Agency rates it at 120 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe) and 28 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per 100 miles. American residential electricity averaged 18.31 cents per kWh in July 2026, the latest month in the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) table. With home charging at that average rate, that gives a fuel cost of:
A 30 MPG gas car covering the same 100 miles burns 3.33 gallons, which at $4.331 costs $14.44. The gap is $9.31 per 100 miles, or about $1,117 a year over 12,000 miles. The same math with October 2025 gasoline ($3.061) and July 2025 electricity (17.45 cents) gives about $638, so the fuel-price move added roughly $479 a year to what a Bolt saves.
That is not enough to explain the Bolt’s $3,486 first-half gain on its own, which equals about three years of the full saving at current prices. Recurrent says the same thing: “We’d caution against pinning the appreciation on gas prices alone.” Its July report named several forces arriving together: buyers moving from new cars to used ones, which it says every gas spike reliably causes; demand that collapsed after the federal used-EV credit ended “snapping back”; and off-lease EVs “landing on dealer lots in larger numbers.”
Gas Went Higher. Used EV Prices Didn’t.
If gasoline were the whole story, late summer should have pushed used EV prices higher still. Regular gas rose from $4.096 a gallon on July 27 to $4.465 on September 28. Through August, the latest month of Cox listing data in Recurrent’s report, the average used EV listing eased slightly from its June peak, and Recurrent described prices as steady when it published on September 30.
No source pins the stall on a single cause, but the reports point to three things.
More cars to choose from. EVs leased in 2023, the first year the $7,500 federal credit applied to leases, “are now coming back at the three-year mark,” Recurrent says. Manheim’s mid-September report summed up EV values as “Cooling as off-lease supply builds.”
Buyers are still absorbing them. Cox counted 42 days’ supply of used EVs in August, meaning the inventory on hand would last about six weeks at the current pace of sales. That was down 15.4% from July but 20.2% above a year earlier, and level with the rest of the used market for the first time this year. Used EV sales were 44,350 in August, up 14.7% from a year earlier. In Manheim’s October 7 release, Cox chief economist Jeremy Robb said “EV days’ supply has fallen, as sustained high gas prices push more consumers toward fuel-efficient used vehicles.”
A shift in which cars sell. Cox says August’s lower average was “driven primarily by lower-priced brands gaining share and falling prices among several high-volume non-Tesla models.” So part of the slip is a change in which cars sold, and part is lower prices on some popular models.
Put together: demand is still strong, but a growing pool of off-lease cars is meeting it, and prices have leveled off rather than kept climbing.
Nobody Told the New-Car Lot
The used market’s strength mostly did not reach new EVs. Battery electric vehicle (BEV) share of new United States sales fell from 7% to 6% between the second quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026, and plug-in hybrid share fell from 1.9% to 1.4%, according to EIA, citing estimates from the research firm Omdia. BEVs had made up a record 12% of sales in September 2025, immediately before two federal tax credits for buying or leasing a new EV expired on September 30, 2025.
The luxury segment fell further. BEVs went from 22% of luxury vehicle sales to 14% over the same year. On the used side, cars above $55,000 fell 3.3% in price in the first half. The two are different measures, a sales share and a price change, but both point the same way. Conventional hybrids, meanwhile, reached a record 16% of new sales.
The third quarter brought a partial recovery. By Kelley Blue Book’s estimate, 262,649 new EVs sold in the third quarter of 2026, about 6.4% of new-vehicle sales and up from 5.8% in the second quarter, though volume was down 39.5% from a year earlier. That is Kelley Blue Book’s own count, so it does not line up exactly with the Omdia figures. Cox says “high pump prices are likely helping as well.”
The end of the credits did not stop the cheap end of the used market either. The $4,000 federal credit for used EVs under $25,000 ended on September 30, 2025, and used EV sales have since bounced back. Cars under $20,000 then posted the biggest price gains of the first half.
It was not a cost-push story either. Battery pack prices fell 8% in 2025 to a record low average of $108 per kWh and were expected to decline again in 2026. Batteries got cheaper in 2025 while used EVs went on to get more expensive in 2026.
Which Used EVs Are Still Gaining Value?
The overall market eased from June to September, but Recurrent published a set of popular models that kept climbing:
| Vehicle | June average | September average | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 | $25,702 | $27,165 | +5.7% |
| 2020 Tesla Model Y | $25,629 | $26,363 | +2.9% |
| 2023 Hyundai IONIQ 5 | $27,595 | $28,231 | +2.3% |
| 2026 Tesla Model Y | $46,885 | $47,732 | +1.8% |
| 2024 Hyundai IONIQ 5 | $27,271 | $27,729 | +1.7% |
These are models with at least 200 listings in both months, and they are the gainers Recurrent chose to show, not the whole market.
The expensive end lost value in the first half: cars above $55,000 fell 3.3% and the $40,000 to $55,000 band fell 1.2%. Recurrent’s September report does not repeat that price-band breakdown, but it found one surprise at the top. The Chevrolet Silverado EV and Ford F-150 Lightning, at median prices near $50,000, sell about as fast as a $28,000 Chevrolet Equinox EV. The fastest seller is still the Bolt EV, at a median of 13 days to sell and a median price of $17,990 from June to September, figures Recurrent gives for the model, not for one model year.
Is Now a Good Time to Buy a Used EV?
For a shopper, flat prices remove the spring’s reason to rush. Recurrent does not forecast a direction: it says the wholesale easing could be the front edge of a pullback, and quotes a dealer who expects stability.
On this site’s numbers, the case is strongest for someone driving high mileage in a cheap EV, because that is where the $9.31 per 100 miles adds up. At 20,000 miles a year it comes to about $1,860. That figure assumes a Bolt-class EV charged at home at the national average rate against a 30 MPG gas car; public fast charging costs more and shrinks it. The gas savings calculator runs the comparison with your own miles, prices and charging mix. The more the car costs, the smaller the fuel saving is next to the price.
The affordable end is where the cars are. “More than half of used EVs listed in September were priced under $30,000,” and Teslas were 45% of listings. For the Bolt, CarGurus put the average 2023 Bolt EV at $20,468 as of October 14: down 1.66% over 30 days, up 0.16% over 90 days and up 14.58% over a year. Its average across all Bolt EV model years, $18,469, was up 2.2% over 30 days. CarGurus notes that its historical data “excludes any additional dealer fees as of May 3, 2026.” CarGurus measures listings differently from Recurrent, so compare its figures with each other, not with Recurrent’s January and June prices.
The 2022 Tesla Model 3 rose 13.2% in the first half on Recurrent’s numbers. On CarGurus, a 2022 averaged $25,428 as of October 13, 1.69% less than 90 days earlier and 3.17% more than a year earlier. The used Model 3 guide has prices for every model year and what to check before buying.
If you are selling, Recurrent, which also makes offers on owners’ EVs, says: “For owners, this is a good market to sell into.” Its reasoning is that values are 8% above last year and “off-lease supply will keep growing.”
What to Watch Next
The fuel spread. Part of this year’s story is the gap between gasoline, $4.331 on October 12, and electricity, 18.31 cents in July. Residential power was 4.9% more expensive in July than a year earlier, so that gap can narrow from both sides. Recurrent notes that wholesale tends to lead retail and that a pullback could follow, especially if gas falls. Against that, Recurrent quotes Tyson Jominy of J.D. Power: “It’s upwards of almost 80 percent loyalty to EVs.”
Misleading year-over-year headlines. September 2025 was the last month of the used EV credit and sales spiked, then collapsed in October 2025. Recurrent warns that September 2026 sales may look flat against that rush and that October 2026 “will look like a historic surge on a year-over-year basis.” Its advice: “Neither headline will be the real story,” so watch the two-year trend.
The 2027 lease wave. Up to twice as many lease returns are projected for 2027 as for 2026. This year, growing off-lease supply met strong demand and prices leveled off. Next year tests that balance with more cars.
Sources (14)
- recurrentauto.com Recurrent: Used Electric Car Prices & Market Report Q4 2026
- web.archive.org Recurrent: Used Electric Car Prices & Market Report Q3 2026
- coxautoinc.com Cox Automotive: EV Market Monitor, August 2026
- coxautoinc.com Cox Automotive: Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index, September 2026
- coxautoinc.com Manheim Market Insights: September 2026 Mid-Month (PDF)
- coxautoinc.com Cox Automotive: Q3 2026 EV sales report
- cargurus.com Chevrolet Bolt EV Price Trends
- cargurus.com Tesla Model 3 Price Trends
- eia.gov Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update
- eia.gov Weekly U.S. Regular Gasoline Retail Prices
- eia.gov Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.3 average retail price
- fueleconomy.gov 2023 Chevrolet Bolt EV
- eia.gov Today in Energy, hybrid share reaches record high
- about.bnef.com BloombergNEF: Lithium-ion battery pack prices fall to $108 per kilowatt-hour
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