Front pageEditionsSunday, October 18
Six-Figure Cars at Four-Figure Prices — and the Bill That Shows Up After
The depreciation curve on used luxury and used EVs has never been friendlier to your buy-side, or less forgiving of your recon math — plus Google changes where your inventory shows up.
A Maserati Levante can shed six figures in five years, a $107,995 Audi EV is trading under $50,000 with BMW's iX tracking the same slope, and a $130K Audi S8 now prices against a loaded Highlander. Those are gorgeous acquisition numbers and brutal ownership numbers — air suspension, 21-inch rubber, and dealer-only diagnostics don't depreciate with the sticker. The spread is real money if you can source, recondition, and turn fast; it's a six-month floor plan anchor if you can't. Price the repair, not the romance, and know who your buyer is before you bid.
New data on the most and least EV-friendly states underlines what any dealer three states from a fast charger already knows: adoption is wildly uneven, and so is resale. Gas prices are nudging shoppers back toward the EV question just as the federal credit disappears, which pushes more of that demand onto used inventory — yours, if the charging story in your ZIP code holds up. Check remaining battery warranty before you check the Carfax; it's the single line that moves a used EV from a hard sell to an easy one.
Google's new Vehicle Top Ads format has dealers in the forums asking the only question that matters — does it shove organic VDP traffic further down the page — while the same boards are back to arguing which paid lead sources still convert and which free syndication tools actually post clean to Marketplace and Craigslist. Meanwhile the consumer-side channels keep drilling "three red flags in the finance office" into your customer's head before they ever walk in. Assume the person on your lot watched that video on the drive over, and have your F&I presentation ready to survive it.
Genesis is telling roughly 95,000 sedan owners to park outside over a fire risk — worth running your VINs this morning if any crossed your curb. Separately, the long-running case against cylinder deactivation got another airing, which is a useful reminder that a lot of late-model V8 inventory has a known lifter problem hiding behind a clean history report. Documented service records are the cheapest defense you have on both counts, and they sell the car besides.
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