The EV Price Gap Is Finally Shrinking
Buying a new car in America keeps getting more expensive. The exception, oddly enough, is the segment that spent years being written off as too pricey to bother with.
Kelley Blue Book's August pricing report puts the average new vehicle at $50,089, up 1.9% year over year. EVs moved the other direction, averaging $54,813 — down 2.7% annually and 1.2% from July.
Yes, electric cars are still more expensive than the average new vehicle. But the premium is now $4,724, and it's shrinking. For a category long dismissed on sticker alone, a narrowing gap while everything else climbs is worth noticing.
Here's the part that complicates the "EVs are only cheap because of discounts" argument. EV prices dropped even as manufacturers pulled back on incentives. According to Kelley Blue Book, cash rebates and subsidized lease and financing deals averaged 12% of EV transaction prices in August, down from 14.6% a year earlier.
Based on August's average prices, that still works out to roughly $6,600 per electric vehicle — about double the incentive level across the broader new-car market. So the support is thinning, but it hasn't disappeared. Big deals remain, including Lucid offering $10,000 off 2026 Gravity SUVs from inventory plus 0% financing.
Tesla did much of the heavy lifting. Its average transaction price fell to $52,616 in August, down 3.4% from 2025. Because Tesla still commands such a large share of total U.S. EV sales, where its prices go, the electric-car average tends to follow.
Combustion shoppers aren't so lucky. Kelley Blue Book reports prices rose across the five biggest segments, with compact cars up 2.9% and subcompact SUVs up 2.2% — precisely the affordable end where buyers can least absorb it. Midsize SUVs also became the most popular segment, bumping compact SUVs to second and dragging the average upward.
The upshot: for the first time in a while, it may actually be worth pulling EV and combustion offers side by side instead of assuming the electric one is out of reach.
[Images: Tesla, Ford, Lucid, Hyundai]
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The cost of fuel is transient, the US has secured a major interest in the Venezuelan oil fields, the pipelines bypassing the Straits of Hormuz are nearing completion. That will increase the worldwide availability if crude immensely. The real issue is lack of refineries, two have closed recently in CA, others are past their service life and are in dire need of replacement. If a right wing administration remains in power the refineries will be built, if a left wing administration comes into power the assault on petro energy will begin anew. What you end up driving in 2030 will largely depend on which faction is in power. Those that support the petroleum industry or those that want only wind or solar.
That’s 100% wrong .Every manufacture has killed some or all of their ev , why they don’t sell .Having dealers in the family I can tell you they never or rarely take an ev in as trade .If they do the look at the lowest auction price and offer way below that .You comment is so out of touch that you can not be taken seriously.The industry periodicals have articles almost every month discussing the high depreciation of EVs .I referenced the BaT sales ( and they sell high priced as well as just normal stuff and projects ) and the best depreciation of a lucid ( according to ev cultist the nirvana of EVs) is slightly over $80,000 , the worst was well over $100,000zAll were very low miles ( 900-22,000 miles ) and three years old or less.Lowest price originally paid was $141,000 ,highest $179,000 .Youre smokin’ meth with your boy Hunter if you think EVs don’t fall off the cliff regarding depreciation .
Hey hurran, name one thing wrong I said .Ywo weeks ago a lucid with less than 25,000 miles bid only to 38,000 .Facts suck , so does ev cultist fake news .
Totally fake news .Just read an auto manufacturer periodical that discussed the continued high depreciation problem of EVs.Every manufacture has killed at least one or more EVs and some have killed all EVs.Some dealers will not take them on trade and when they do they check the lowest auction prices and offer a lot less.Another , very easy to verify if you weren’t lazy, is BaT .They had a 23 lucid with 900 miles that cost the owner $141,000 sold for $54k .Another 2022 lucid that the owner paid $179,000 and had 12,000 sold fit $63k.last week another lucid 23 lucid that cost the owner $145,000 sold for 28k .Facts suck comrade Skippy .Americans don’t like to subsidize you ev cultist buying YOUR vehicles .That alone cost EVs years , maybe decades , in acceptance by Americans .Note we are also not going to pay for your required infastructure .You ev cultist have to make it on your own .