TOP 3 Affordable USED Electric Vehicles for 2026!
Here’s my top three used electric vehicle picks for 2026. And I’m going to tell you, I’m not just speaking from the internet. I’m not speaking from stat sheets. I’m not speaking from sales flyers. I’m speaking about cars that I know personally that I’ve driven tens of thousands of miles. And I can speak confidently and accurately about each of these vehicles has a downside, by the way. And that’s the part of the affordable part. You get what you pay for. It’s how life works. Let’s start with the the number three car. And this is this is hard to say between three and two anymore, but the Nissan Leaf. Now, we had the 2016 Nissan Leaf for years, the 30 kowatt battery, and we really enjoyed it. Great car. Great car. We just sold it recently, actually. I think the family I sold it to is right in front of me in their black bolt EV. Anyway, it’s a great car, but the battery started to get too bad. You know, the range was down to maybe 70 miles at a good day, maybe less when it’s really cold. And the biggest problem with the Nissan Leaf, any Nissan Leaf up until the one that’s supposed to come out 2026, is that Nissan, for whatever reason, cling to the Chattam DC fast charging port. The problem with that is it’s being phased out. But if you go to an Electrify America station now, you you probably won’t find a Chadamo port. Used to be when you went to Electrify America, there might be 10 stalls, all CCS except one for the Chattam. And now you don’t even see that. The new charge point chargers used to be you’d have like a CCS on one side, Chadam on the other side, just CCS or CCS now. So that’s the downside. The Nissan Leaf up until the one that hasn’t come out yet is never going to be a good road trip car. never again because you can’t charge it on the highway. Now, the one we have now is a 2021 which gets over 200 miles of range. It has lane assist. It has one uh one pedal driving. It’s way better than the 2016 Leaf in every way, but it still has that one downside, the Chattam Port. So, if it’s your only car or you plan on going to see grandma uh every couple times a month, a couple towns away, it might not be the right car for you. But if you’re around town, you’re driving, I don’t know, 150 miles a day around town like I do. I drive over 100 miles every day, the Nissan Leaf is a great purchase. That’s why it’s number three. Also, a used one, for example, this 2021, I don’t mind telling you, we pay like $17,000 for that with $17,000. Isn’t that interesting? 177 almost no miles. A brand new baby. Had a couple of recall notices. We took it right to the dealership. They did what they had to do to get it straight at no charge to us. Great car. So, you could find like a 2021, 2022 Nissan Leaf, you know, for under 20 grand. I’m sure of it every day of the week. That’s number three. That’s our third car. And it’s very close now to the BMW i3. In times past, I would have put the BMW i3 way ahead of the Leaf. But now, >> just like that, >> not so much. The the newer Nissan Leafs have have caught up. So, here’s the deal with the BMW i3. We have the range extender version, the Rex, is you get about 120 130 mi on battery and then you’ve got that range extender, that little tiny moped motor in the back kicks in and starts pumping juice into the battery fast enough for you to keep driving. It’s only got like a two gallon tank, but it means you can really drive across country. You can just stop every 100 miles, fill up the range extender, let the range extender keep juicing the battery, let the battery keep moving the wheels, and you just keep trucking. And that’s what edges out the Nissan Leaf for sure is the BMW’s range, etc. The ability to go the distance and now didn’t used to be these were even affordable use, but now I see them for 12 or $13,000 all the time. One down two downsides rather on the BMW i3 Rex. One is it uh the charge speed is slow. So if you want to actually drive across the country and you want to use DC fast charging to get you there, yes, you have the DC port. Uh, I think you can use Tesla chargers with an adapter, but it’s only going to charge 50 kilowatts an hour or whatever they call it there. So, it’s it’s going to you’re going to spend a half an hour every time you stop and charge or more depending on how juice the battery is. That downside doesn’t go away. Another downside is the tires. They’re very specific, very unique, very skinny tires. We buy the ones from Bridgestone. As far as I know, Bridgestone is the only one that makes ones uh tires for the BMW i3. So, that’s a downside. They they burn out pretty quick. I think I’m buying like two tires a year, front’s one year, rear’s next year. It’s okay. It’s worth it to me. But, it’s a solid number two pick because you can get them. They’re affordable and they do it all. Repair bills are expensive. I just had the heater replaced and in and ours. It’s got over 118,000 miles, I think it has. And the heater just stopped working. It kept blowing, but it wasn’t blowing cold. We did a video about it. So, that cost me almost $3,000 when I all said and done to get that thing fixed. that plus the oil change for the range extender. So, that’s our number two used EV that we would buy in 2026. And then there’s the one I’m sitting in right now. This one is become my number one pick. It jumped one spot from last year and that’s the Chevy Bolt and we’re in the EUV Premiere 2022. This car has everything. Ventilated seats, heated seats, 250 some miles of range. Depending on how you drive, you can get more or less depending on the weather and how you drive. It’s got Android Auto. It’s just it’s a great car. Heated steering wheel, of course. It just in every way it’s a great car. And you can buy these now. We bought this one for I think it was about 18,000. I’d have to go back and look, but it’s under 20 for sure. We bought this one with about 45 or 50,000. I think it had 50ome,000 miles. Very happy with this car. Excellent car in in every way. comfort, drivability, it’s fun, it’s zippy, it’s got plenty of storage in the back. Of course, the seats fold down if you need more. It’s just it’s hard to find a downside, but there is one. And again, charges very slow at DC fast chargers. So, if you want a road trip, you know, you’ve got enough miles. At my age, you’re going to stop every 150 miles or so anyway. You know, I’m not going to just drive all day like I did when I was a kid. but you’re going to spend some time at the charger because it only charges at that same speed actually as the Leafs and the uh BMW i3. So that’s the number one car for 2026, the used electric vehicle for 2026 is the Chevy Bolt, particularly the EUV. And you can buy these 2021, 2022, somewhere probably you might find a great deal like 15 grand, but certainly under 20 grand, you’ll be able to get into one of these and you’ll be extremely happy with it. I hope that information helps you a lot. I watched a lot of YouTube videos when I was shopping for my first used EV, which was the first car we bought, the Nissan Leaf, and I used it again to buy the other cars to convince my mom to buy the BMW i3 and for us to buy the 2021 Leaf and the 2022 Bolt. YouTube is just such a great resource when you can talk to people that actually drive these cars and actually know them and are not selling you anything. I have nothing to sell you. But I hope this information helps. Chatter Drive Lightning, the positively charged YouTube channel. If you haven’t subscribed yet, that’s okay. You should, but you don’t have to. We’d appreciate it if you did. At the end here, I’m going to put up a I’m going to put up a review of one of these three cars, but I haven’t decided which one yet. Thank you so much for the members of the channel. You guys are the ones that keep the wheels turning on the Positively Charged YouTube channel. We appreciate you so much. I was sitting in a parking lot here at Family Fair. Sarah’s inside shopping. But when I figure it out, I’ll put that video right up there. there. And I hope you enjoy that one, too. That’s it. Have a great day, everybody. Thanks for spending eight minutes or so with me.
Shopping for the right affordable used EV can be a challenge. We’ve been there! I hope this video helps you decide.
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