Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Electrically assisted bikes, trikes, etc. that are legal in the UK
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saudidave
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Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by saudidave »

Last weekend I sold my Raleigh Motus Grand Tour on ebay after deciding to keep the "new other" Raleigh Centros that I'd picked up a month ago, having been notified of it by ebay whilst tracking secondhand Motus prices. A month ago I'd concluded that my Motus, the top of it's range and absolutely immaculate, was worth around £1400.00 in the marketplace but a week ago there seemed to be a lot more of them for sale and as a consequence prices were falling. I eventually got £1100.00 for it.

My conclusion is that the current economic climate of massive inflation and uncertainty has triggered sales of the ebike boom of lockdown purchases two years ago when furlough was underpinning incomes and the economic outlook was still buoyant. Has anyone else observed a similar trend?
UpWrong
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by UpWrong »

Yes, it looks to me like prices are becoming more realistic. Since warranties are not transferrable, I'd knock a third of the retail price before making deductions for wear and tear etc. The problem with eBikes is you can't be certain of the battery condition, so in some respects paying 50% of retail ought to be top dollar.
richtea99
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by richtea99 »

A quick look at Orbea Gains suggests you could be right:
- secondhand F40 at £707, no bids and less than a day to go
- new F40 at £1400 Buy it Now

New price was (in 2021) around £2100, and occasionally cut to £1700-1800.
They're both last year's model, but I'd call them good value, i.e. less than I paid for something similar in 2020.

I would have thought petrol prices might have pushed them up a little, but maybe the market is getting saturated.
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Cugel
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by Cugel »

richtea99 wrote: 28 Jun 2022, 6:25pm A quick look at Orbea Gains suggests you could be right:
- secondhand F40 at £707, no bids and less than a day to go
- new F40 at £1400 Buy it Now

New price was (in 2021) around £2100, and occasionally cut to £1700-1800.
They're both last year's model, but I'd call them good value, i.e. less than I paid for something similar in 2020.

I would have thought petrol prices might have pushed them up a little, but maybe the market is getting saturated.
I recently paid £3500 for a 2019 e-bike with a list price of £6000. This same e-bike is available here and there for anything between full price and that £3500 (although I think that was the last one at that price so the cheapest is now£4200).

The price drops may be less because the market is flooded and more because the e-motor technologies are still evolving quite rapidly, as might many battery technologies before too long. Perhaps buyers are wary of older models because (unlike with most other aspects of bikes) the newer e-motor technologies may be genuinely improved by significant amounts?

In practice this is still a bit of a stretch. The bike I bought with all that money off has a Fazua motor that's near identical in every way to their latest version of that motor/battery. But they are about to bring out a more developed model that increases the battery capacity from 250Wh to 400+Wh for overall the same weight, so .....

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
saudidave
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by saudidave »

UpWrong wrote: 28 Jun 2022, 5:07pm Yes, it looks to me like prices are becoming more realistic. Since warranties are not transferrable, I'd knock a third of the retail price before making deductions for wear and tear etc. The problem with eBikes is you can't be certain of the battery condition, so in some respects paying 50% of retail ought to be top dollar.
There is a lot of paranoia about ebike battery failure, or any vehicle battery failure come to that. The reality is that the failure rate is relatively very low and they are good for at least 500 -800 charges, possibly much more. If the bike in question has a 50 mile range and lasts the minimum 500 charges, that's 25,000 miles before it's shot. If you buy any machine second hand it's a gamble and with a battery you can always insist on a diagnostic report before you proceed. The bottom line is if you can't afford to gamble the saving presented to you, then don't do it and pay twice as much for a new one, as you would with any secondhand product. Ebikes are no riskier than any other hi tech product; cars, motorbikes, phones, computers, et al.
PH
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by PH »

saudidave wrote: 28 Jun 2022, 9:44pm Ebikes are no riskier than any other hi tech product; cars, motorbikes, phones, computers, et al.
I think that's the right comparison and my valuation would be similar for those items as well. It's a different comparison to that of a non assist bike, it would be for me anyway. I even differentiated when buying new, while I'm happy to buy bike stuff online from distant sellers, when it came to an E-bike I chose to use a local dealer even at a higher price.
Bonzo Banana
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by Bonzo Banana »

saudidave wrote: 28 Jun 2022, 9:44pm
UpWrong wrote: 28 Jun 2022, 5:07pm Yes, it looks to me like prices are becoming more realistic. Since warranties are not transferrable, I'd knock a third of the retail price before making deductions for wear and tear etc. The problem with eBikes is you can't be certain of the battery condition, so in some respects paying 50% of retail ought to be top dollar.
There is a lot of paranoia about ebike battery failure, or any vehicle battery failure come to that. The reality is that the failure rate is relatively very low and they are good for at least 500 -800 charges, possibly much more. If the bike in question has a 50 mile range and lasts the minimum 500 charges, that's 25,000 miles before it's shot. If you buy any machine second hand it's a gamble and with a battery you can always insist on a diagnostic report before you proceed. The bottom line is if you can't afford to gamble the saving presented to you, then don't do it and pay twice as much for a new one, as you would with any secondhand product. Ebikes are no riskier than any other hi tech product; cars, motorbikes, phones, computers, et al.
Batteries do fail with time but only a small percentage I'm sure but capacity reduces but the rate of how the cell capacity reduces is dependent on the quality of cells and how hard a life those cells have with regard discharge rate. Some cheaper ebikes have low capacity battery packs which have a higher failure rate and less full charges maybe 250-350 charges because they are small low capacity battery packs where each cells is discharged at twice the current of a larger battery pack.

I would definitely want to take off a serious chunk of money for a ebike that is 2 or 3 years old and may have a battery pack end of life.

I remember reading a forum posting where someone was amazed that they sold their ebike for more than what it cost them even though they were only at maybe 50-60% battery capacity. Bought before the pandemic bike inflation. So a £300 ebike after years of use sold for close to £400 with a battery on the way out. The seller was very happy with the price but you wonder if the buyer would have had buyer remorse shortly after purchase with a compromised range and a replacement battery being the best part of £200. This was a entry level ebike, if I remember rightly a Viking model with 20" wheels.
saudidave
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by saudidave »

Bonzo Banana wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 5:53am
saudidave wrote: 28 Jun 2022, 9:44pm
UpWrong wrote: 28 Jun 2022, 5:07pm Yes, it looks to me like prices are becoming more realistic. Since warranties are not transferrable, I'd knock a third of the retail price before making deductions for wear and tear etc. The problem with eBikes is you can't be certain of the battery condition, so in some respects paying 50% of retail ought to be top dollar.
There is a lot of paranoia about ebike battery failure, or any vehicle battery failure come to that. The reality is that the failure rate is relatively very low and they are good for at least 500 -800 charges, possibly much more. If the bike in question has a 50 mile range and lasts the minimum 500 charges, that's 25,000 miles before it's shot. If you buy any machine second hand it's a gamble and with a battery you can always insist on a diagnostic report before you proceed. The bottom line is if you can't afford to gamble the saving presented to you, then don't do it and pay twice as much for a new one, as you would with any secondhand product. Ebikes are no riskier than any other hi tech product; cars, motorbikes, phones, computers, et al.
Batteries do fail with time but only a small percentage I'm sure but capacity reduces but the rate of how the cell capacity reduces is dependent on the quality of cells and how hard a life those cells have with regard discharge rate. Some cheaper ebikes have low capacity battery packs which have a higher failure rate and less full charges maybe 250-350 charges because they are small low capacity battery packs where each cells is discharged at twice the current of a larger battery pack.

I would definitely want to take off a serious chunk of money for a ebike that is 2 or 3 years old and may have a battery pack end of life.

I remember reading a forum posting where someone was amazed that they sold their ebike for more than what it cost them even though they were only at maybe 50-60% battery capacity. Bought before the pandemic bike inflation. So a £300 ebike after years of use sold for close to £400 with a battery on the way out. The seller was very happy with the price but you wonder if the buyer would have had buyer remorse shortly after purchase with a compromised range and a replacement battery being the best part of £200. This was a entry level ebike, if I remember rightly a Viking model with 20" wheels.
In my personal experience which is solely with Bosch bike batteries, a bike I have that is three and a half years old shows a degradation of around 15% and a bike I've just sold that was two and a half years old had degraded lesss than 10%, if that. I have recently purchased a Raleigh Centros that is two years old and had been stored, unused or charged, in an integral garage from new. The 500Wh battery on it is indicating a range of 130miles, as it would when new. Prior to my buying it it had been charged just once and lost about 10% of that charge during it's two year storage. I've also had lots of cameras with lithium ion batteries over the past two decades that don't seem to degrade at all over 2 or 3 years and indeed one 15 yr old battery that has been charged hundreds of times shows no sign of failure either. In view of this I find it difficult to believe that a 2 or 3 yrs old ebike, well cared, for has a battery pack appproaching end of life
Bonzo Banana
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by Bonzo Banana »

saudidave wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 8:19pm
Bonzo Banana wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 5:53am
saudidave wrote: 28 Jun 2022, 9:44pm

There is a lot of paranoia about ebike battery failure, or any vehicle battery failure come to that. The reality is that the failure rate is relatively very low and they are good for at least 500 -800 charges, possibly much more. If the bike in question has a 50 mile range and lasts the minimum 500 charges, that's 25,000 miles before it's shot. If you buy any machine second hand it's a gamble and with a battery you can always insist on a diagnostic report before you proceed. The bottom line is if you can't afford to gamble the saving presented to you, then don't do it and pay twice as much for a new one, as you would with any secondhand product. Ebikes are no riskier than any other hi tech product; cars, motorbikes, phones, computers, et al.
Batteries do fail with time but only a small percentage I'm sure but capacity reduces but the rate of how the cell capacity reduces is dependent on the quality of cells and how hard a life those cells have with regard discharge rate. Some cheaper ebikes have low capacity battery packs which have a higher failure rate and less full charges maybe 250-350 charges because they are small low capacity battery packs where each cells is discharged at twice the current of a larger battery pack.

I would definitely want to take off a serious chunk of money for a ebike that is 2 or 3 years old and may have a battery pack end of life.

I remember reading a forum posting where someone was amazed that they sold their ebike for more than what it cost them even though they were only at maybe 50-60% battery capacity. Bought before the pandemic bike inflation. So a £300 ebike after years of use sold for close to £400 with a battery on the way out. The seller was very happy with the price but you wonder if the buyer would have had buyer remorse shortly after purchase with a compromised range and a replacement battery being the best part of £200. This was a entry level ebike, if I remember rightly a Viking model with 20" wheels.
In my personal experience which is solely with Bosch bike batteries, a bike I have that is three and a half years old shows a degradation of around 15% and a bike I've just sold that was two and a half years old had degraded lesss than 10%, if that. I have recently purchased a Raleigh Centros that is two years old and had been stored, unused or charged, in an integral garage from new. The 500Wh battery on it is indicating a range of 130miles, as it would when new. Prior to my buying it it had been charged just once and lost about 10% of that charge during it's two year storage. I've also had lots of cameras with lithium ion batteries over the past two decades that don't seem to degrade at all over 2 or 3 years and indeed one 15 yr old battery that has been charged hundreds of times shows no sign of failure either. In view of this I find it difficult to believe that a 2 or 3 yrs old ebike, well cared, for has a battery pack appproaching end of life
I've seen forum postings for Bosch batteries where they literally self-brick because someone has stored them in a low state of charge and the charge level gets to a low charge and the Bosch BMS will self--brick preventing the BMS being used to recell a battery and preventing the battery pack being used at all. It can only be stripped of cells to be re-used by non-proprietary ebike battery packs. However that said Bosch fit decent cells as they are a premium brand. You have to understand that an entry level ebike will have more generic Chinese cells. Also as previously stated a cell that is discharged at 12A won't last as long as one that discharges at 6A, its the nature of how these cells work. Also time itself isn't the issue its the number of discharge cycles. Many people are using basic ebikes as daily transport racking up 100s of miles per week sometimes. Perhaps charging every day or even twice a day, it's not hard to get through 500 charges over 2-3 years in such circumstances. Over 95% of ebikes according to Chinese manufacturing statistics are hub motor based and they form the majority of sales of ebikes around the world. Mid-drive is more of a niche product for general commuting although definitely dominant for proper e-mountain bikes. The ebikes you have mentioned don't seem to have been used much at all which is surprising given their huge cost but you can't assume ebikes aren't used when buying s/hand, many will be selling because the ebikes are well used and could be problematic and they want something again fully working. Again lots of problems with Bosch ebikes if they are well used, they are mechanically quite complicated with nylon cogs and sometimes an internal belt and they have small motors geared to very high rpm, there has also been water ingress issues in the past although that is probably more off-road use. They also typically don't supply spares to end users so repairs can be hugely expensive. A cheaper ebike can pretty much swap out any components with a bit of re-wiring possibly.

As ever a bit of research about the bike and the motor system you are intending on buying. Worth finding out repair costs and the cost of replacement batteries in case there are problems. Lots of manufacturers have had problematic models, models to avoid.

If you just put in 'bosch dead battery' here;

https://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threadloom/search

You should get lots of hits regarding failed Bosch batteries that have self-bricked.
saudidave
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by saudidave »

Bonzo Banana wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 11:19pm The ebikes you have mentioned don't seem to have been used much at all
With the exception of the Raleigh Centros I've just bought I've not made any mention of the mileages I've done on the other two ebikes I've owned, how much I've used them, nor the charge cycles they have had.
Bonzo Banana
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by Bonzo Banana »

saudidave wrote: 4 Jul 2022, 9:07pm
Bonzo Banana wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 11:19pm The ebikes you have mentioned don't seem to have been used much at all
With the exception of the Raleigh Centros I've just bought I've not made any mention of the mileages I've done on the other two ebikes I've owned, how much I've used them, nor the charge cycles they have had and you've just made that statement up. How much of everything else you have written is a figment of your own imagination?
Not sure what point you are making there, just seems like a very childish post. Everything I have posted is easy to google and see examples of what I've said as for maybe mis-reading what you said thinking it applied to more than one bike rather than one that is certainly possible. When people start getting defensive about something and needing to be insulting it just shows something extra is going on in their head. I try not to be keyboard warrior myself but instead respond with questions related to the technical comments themselves.
Dingdong
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by Dingdong »

I've never paid more than £1000 for an ebike (In bought my first one 7 years ago), and have recently become a total convert to the Bafang hegemony. I think it's brilliant and for the cost I very much doubt I'd stray into the second hand ebike territory. It's just not worth the hassle, to me at least. In prefer to stay every new project with a brand new battery, that way I know what kind of lifespan I'm into I've converted 6 bikes so far and I'm amazed that no one is doing this commercially in my area. Paying 5-10k for a nice shiny ebike from the big players seems crazy to me in context.

Conversion would be a good business for a youngster, once you've done a few of them it really is like falling off a log! :lol:
UpWrong
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by UpWrong »

They are falling. I'm seeing smart Tern and Wisper eBikes going for significantly less than I'm accustomed to seeing.
saudidave
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by saudidave »

UpWrong wrote: 28 Aug 2022, 8:45am They are falling. I'm seeing smart Tern and Wisper eBikes going for significantly less than I'm accustomed to seeing.
Yes, they definitely are falling, I suspected they were when I started this post and they definitely are. Second hand anything is taking a big hit and it's probably because the kind of person looking for a second hand bike or any other form of luxury goods is a lower income individual who is severely impacted by "inflation" (a.k.a. corporate greed), or a trades/professional with kids/mortgage et al, whose disposable income is being squeezed.
stodd
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Re: Are secondhand ebike prices falling?

Post by stodd »

Dingdong wrote: 25 Aug 2022, 5:33am Conversion would be a good business for a youngster, once you've done a few of them it really is like falling off a log! :lol:
One problem would be liability insurance. Fine if you do a conversion for a friend (until something goes wrong and he/she ceases to be a friend), but much more difficult for a real startup business.
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