This Electric Vehicles fact sheet (PDF) serves as an intro to EVs. The first page summarizes the cars available on the market now, and the second page goes through the basics of electric vehicles. If you do just one thing while visiting this website, do this: grab this PDF and take a long look at it later. It’s two pages, designed to be printed out double-sided and handed out.
But you can get this information from national news sources, right? Why refer to this list from some guy on the internet? Here’s why:
This fact sheet is quite dense since it is summarizes of a lot of information onto one sheet of paper. Some of the shorthand used in the sheet:
April 2025 update note
There are several major changes to note this time:
Chevrolet has two great budget options! The Chevy Equinox EV is the new price leader on the chart, now cheaper than even the much inferior Nissan Leaf, thanks both to GM having now cranked their new Chevy up into volume production, and that it qualifies for the federal tax credit. The other budget option is the Chevy Bolt, which has been discontinued as a new car, but which is available in spades on the used market. I’ve created a new page here specifically about the Chevy Bolt with details that you’ll appreciate when shopping for a used one.
Volkswagen’s ID.4 continues to fail to qualify for the federal tax credit, so is rather pricey. But VW’s ID.Buzz “microbus” (a minivan, really) is now shipping in volume, and apparently a bit too much volume because VW has been discounting it heavily. If you’re interested in the ID.Buzz (and wow everyone was just swooning over it years ago when it was first unveiled), or a minivan in general, then ignore the listed MSRP shown here and go take a serious look at the options and then shop around with dealers.
Hyundai and Kia continue to qualify for the federal tax credit and thus have very attractive pricing for their highly rated EVs. The third brand in the Korean conglomerate, Genesis, continues to offer $7500 off if you lease, so you effectively get the federal tax credit that way. Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 is now being built at the huge new plant in Savannah, and now has the Tesla/NACS port and can directly use most of the sites in Tesla’s vast nationwide “supercharger” DCFC network, no adapter required. (See however my “perfect EV checklist” that points out that a Tesla/NACS port is not that important, and insisting on it is a novice move.)
As usual, there have been some price adjustments by Tesla. But the biggest development there is how Tesla demand is basically in freefall, due to the political actions of you-know-who. The great news is this is softening prices across the entire EV market, including non-Tesla EVs. Further, resale values of Teslas are also in freefall, which affects the entire used market, so there are amazing bargains to be had there too. We’ve got a new used EVs page here to cover some general used topics, and as mentioned above there’s a new page specifically about the Chevy Bolt.
It appears that 2025 is one of those uniquely great times to be in the market for an EV, so again, as stated at the top, don’t just take these MSRPs as a given, because manufacturers (via their dealers) may be heavily discounting the model you’re interested in. Seriously, just google your model name of interest and “discount” and see what news comes up. Pick your favorite car and then go shopping — you may be stunned at how low they will go!
General comments on purchasing, leasing and buying used
For a full decade we had been discouraging the purchase of any new EV — we recommended that you only leased new EVs. This was because EV technology was rapidly improving, including the range (in miles) and the charging speed (in kW), and you didn’t want to be stuck with a suddenly inferior car that was also plummeting in resale value. However, starting at around 2019-2020, EV technology reached a point where we think it’s now OK to buy outright instead of lease — the technology continues to improve, but it has slowed down from the torrid pace of the 2010s. New models now typically offer at least 250 miles of range and at least 100 kW of DC Fast Charging power. Those two minimum numbers mean the car is good enough for pain-free roadtrips, and you’ll be much less likely to regret the purchase years from now. That said, you may have your own reasons for wanting to lease (or try out a “lease takeover”!), in which case you should check out the leasing / lease takeover page on this website for more guidance specific to EVs.
Pretty much all carmakers are now exploiting the lease loophole that gets you the benefit of the full $7500 tax credit, even if their EVs might otherwise not qualify for it when purchasing. So even if a car does not seem to qualify for the tax credit, you should look seriously at leasing because the carmaker is probably throwing in $7500 off on that. You can always buy the car at the end of lease (or not even wait until the end and do the buyout right away) and you’ll have still effectively gotten $7500 off on the car. See the lease page for more.
Some of the car pages on this website (linked on the right side) have detailed information about finding a great value in a used EV. When evaluating a specific car that’s listed for sale, it can be difficult figuring out exactly which options the car is equipped with. The seller may have provided insufficient photos, or some features can only be discerned from photos if you know exactly what to look for. The “used advice” information on the car pages is to help you research used cars, literally a specific used car with a specific VIN. See the new used EV page here for basic guidance on buying used (including the warranty gotcha) and then for specific option / trim information on the dedicated pages for the Chevy Bolt, BMW i3, Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt and multiple Tesla models. If you’re buying used, don’t skip this guidance!