Chevy Bolt, BMW i3, or something else? At $10K, you have lots of EV options

2026 is shaping up to be a strong year for affordable electric vehicles. There’s a new Nissan Leaf that starts at a hair under $30,000 (as long as you ignore the destination charge), and the reborn Chevrolet Bolt—with a new lithium iron phosphate battery—also has a price tag starting with a two (again, ignoring the destination charge).

Moving closer to $40,000 expands your choices further: the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Chevy Equinox EV, Toyota bZ, Tesla Model 3, Ford Mustang Mach-E, and Subaru Solterra all fall within that bracket, and some of those are pretty good cars. If you only want to spend a fraction of that, you won’t be buying anything new, but neither do three-quarters of American car buyers.

A recent look at the used EV bargain basement turned up cars that cost $5,000 or less; as long as you’re OK with limited range and slow charging, going electric on a shoestring is possible. Spend twice that and you’ll find plenty of options.

United States

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