Looking for a used EV under $20,000? Here are some ideas

Enlarge / What's the cheapest used electric car you'd take a chance on? Let us know in the comments. (credit: Sakkawokkie/Getty Images)

When you write about cars for a living, you can expect people to ask for your advice on which car they should buy. But when the question is actually "which used car should I buy," many automotive journalists go quiet. Driving an ever-rotating string of low-mileage new models leaves you unprepared to comment on long-term reliability. Last week, a friend posed an even harder variant of the question, asking for suggestions for a used plug-in electric vehicle. And my default suggestion of a sub-$20,000 BMW i3 wasn't going to cut it.

As luck would have it, I noticed that Kelley Blue Book-which does keep track of things like long-term reliability and depreciation-just published a list of its best affordable used hybrids and EVs for 2021, with top-10 lists for cars that cost less than $15,000 and those that are under $20,000.

As you might expect, at those price points, the lists are dominated by parallel hybrids like the Toyota Prius. No Teslas, I'm afraid-the cheapest used Model 3 that shows up in a brief search this morning still costs $28,000, and the rest all had prices that started with a three. But some battery EVs do make KBB's top-10 list.

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