Used or new: which EV actually costs less?
The sticker gap is not the answer. A used EV skips the steepest depreciation but arrives with battery warranty already spent, and on a private sale the tax is charged on a book value rather than on what you pay. This works the whole thing through for a vehicle, a province, and the years you would keep it.
Your situation
The one thing that measurably moves battery degradation. Mostly home or workplace charging sits near the low end.
The new one
The used one
Leave this blank if you do not know it. On a private sale the tax is charged on this or on the price, whichever is higher.
The used one costs less
By $24,350 over 5 years, or $406 a month.
The tax on a private sale is not charged on what you pay
It is charged on the greater of the price and a book value published by a commercial guide. Ontario uses the Canadian Red Book, British Columbia the Canadian Black Book, and Quebec the Guide d’évaluation Hebdo less $500. None of the three publishes those values for free, which is why the field above is yours to fill rather than ours to look up.
In Ontario the number is printed in the Used Vehicle Information Package, which costs $20 and which the seller is required to give you anyway.
What each one costs you
| Where the money goes | New | Used |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $74,995 | $44,997 |
| Federal luxury tax | $0 | $0 |
| Sales tax | $9,749 | $5,850 |
| Cash price, all in | $84,744 | $50,847 |
| Interest | $14,862 | $11,086 |
| Electricity | $2,264 | $2,264 |
| Insurance | $14,664 | $14,664 |
| Maintenance | $2,000 | $2,000 |
| Tires | $1,500 | $1,500 |
| Less what it is worth at the end | -$42,981 | -$29,657 |
| Total cost of ownership | $77,654 | $53,303 |
| A month, all in | $1,294 | $888 |
Where the battery stands
No Canadian battery warranty booklet has been read for this make.
What this assumed
Interest: 6.55% on the new one, from the Bank of Canada series for auto lending, observed 2026-06-01. The used premium is an assumption, not a published figure.
Insurance: $2,933 a year, from this site’s provincial EV premiums.
Depreciation: 20% in the first year and 8% a year after. An assumption. The only Canadian per-model figures are licensed commercially and none of them publishes percentages.
Winter: 33% of the year at 70% of rated range, which is −7°C on this site’s own figures. Losing range means using more energy, so the cold months are scaled up rather than down.
Battery: 1.8% a year at your charging mix, interpolated between the 1.5% and 3% Geotab measured for mostly-AC and heavy fast charging.
What does not change the answer
Registration costs the same whatever the car cost, so it adds the same amount to both columns and cancels. Electricity and tires very nearly do the same on two examples of one model. They are real money and they are in the total, but they are not what decides this.
What this cannot tell you
It does not know what the used one is actually worth — that is why it asks for the asking price rather than guessing. Battery degradation is a fleet rate rather than a measurement of the specific car in front of you: a battery health report from the seller beats any projection here. Insurance is a provincial average, not a quote. And depreciation is an assumption you can change.
Sources
Battery warranty terms and capacity floors come from our warranty tool, read out of Canadian manufacturer booklets. Insurance comes from our EV insurance figures. Electricity prices are the same ones behind the charging cost map. Battery degradation rates are Geotab’s 2026 telemetry study of more than 22,700 vehicles. The finance rate is a Bank of Canada series. Sales tax rules were read from each province’s own bulletin where this page says verified.