Model & TCO Survey (France, 2026)

Priority is TCO (depreciation + running costs), not sticker price, per steer: open budget, no segment preference, secondhand acceptable partly to sidestep new-car scratch-anxiety.

Models surveyed by segment (starting price, new, WLTP range)

• Budget/city: Dacia Spring ~€16,900 · Leapmotor T03 ~€17,900 · BYD Dolphin Surf ~€19,990 · Citroën ë-C3 · Renault Twingo E-Tech
• Compact: MG4 Standard €29,990 (350km) · BYD Dolphin €27,990 (340km) · Peugeot e-208 from €21,950 (433km) · Renault 5 E-Tech · Fiat 500e · Mini Cooper Electric
• Mid/family: BYD Atto 3 €33,990 (420km) · Renault Megane E-Tech ~€35,200 · Kia EV3 · Hyundai Kona Electric · VW ID.3
• Premium/SUV: Tesla Model 3 €42,990 (629km) · Tesla Model Y · Peugeot E-3008 · BMW iX · Kia EV6 / Hyundai Ioniq 5 (800V, fast-charge 300km in ~18min)

2026 French EV sales are led by: Renault 5 E-Tech, Tesla Model Y, Citroën ë-C3, Peugeot e-208, Tesla Model 3.

Running costs (annual, ballpark)

• Charging: home off-peak ~€2.50-2.80/100km; public standard ~€5-9/100km; motorway fast-charge ~€10-14/100km — home charging is 3-4x cheaper than public
• Maintenance: €381-700/yr EV vs €535-1,200/yr equivalent petrol
• Insurance: €793-818/yr EV vs €684-753/yr petrol — EVs now cost more to insure since the TSCA exemption ended in 2025 (previously worth 12-25% off)
• Combined TCO (entretien + assurance + recharge): ~€4,300/yr EV vs ~€5,250/yr petrol equivalent (2025 baseline figures)

Depreciation — the dominant TCO factor

• Average 3-year decote: 50-60% for EVs vs 30-40% for petrol; over 4 years, EVs lose ~45-55% of purchase price on average
• Budget/city EVs hold value best (Dacia Spring, Twingo E-Tech, Citroën C3); Tesla Model 3 dropped sharply (-35% in 2024) purely from new-price cuts, not usage
• Peugeot e-208 at 3 years resells at ~62% of new price, vs 55% for its petrol equivalent — a rare case of EV outperforming
• Battery health is the single biggest driver of resale value: ~85% capacity retained at 4 years supports strong resale; a degraded battery can roughly halve the car's value — a key thing to check when shortlisting secondhand candidates

Implication for later tasks: the Pareto frontier and used-vs-new comparison should weight depreciation/battery-health and running costs at least as heavily as new sticker price — a cheaper-to-insure/maintain, slow-depreciating budget EV can beat a pricier model on TCO even before incentives.

Correction (2026-08-09) — watch "from X€, up to Ykm" specs: the price-vs-range chart originally plotted the Kia EV3 and BYD Dolphin Surf as one point each, pairing the cheapest trim's price with the longest-range trim's WLTP figure — two different cars glued together. Corrected:

• Kia EV3: Air (58.3kWh, €35,990) → 436km, not the 605km advertised for the GT-Line Long Range trim. The trim that actually gets long range is Earth Long Range (81.4kWh, €44,990) → 571km. Properly priced, this EV3 trim costs more than a Tesla Model 3 (€42,990/629km) for less range — Model 3 dominates it outright on this chart, not just on desirability.
• BYD Dolphin Surf: Active (30kWh, €19,990) → 220km, not the ~300km estimated earlier. Boost (43.2kWh, €24,490) → 322km.
• BYD Dolphin Surf isn't a corner-cut budget car: 5-star Euro NCAP (strong for a 3.99m city car), LFP "Blade" battery (same chemistry family Tesla uses in standard-range Model 3s) backed by an 8-year/250,000km warranty guaranteeing ≥70% health retained — stronger than most rivals' standard terms. Early European reports are reassuring on the drivetrain/battery (issues so far are software/NVH/trim, not mechanicals), but BYD's only had passenger EVs on sale in France ~3 years, so there's no long-run (150,000km) reliability track record yet. DC charging tops out at 85kW (10-80% in ~30min) — city-car pace, not built for road-tripping.
• General lesson: any spec sentence combining "à partir de X€" with "jusqu'à Ykm" is describing two different trims — verify both numbers belong to the same car before trusting a chart built on it.

On reading depreciation trends forward: a chunk of today's steep EV depreciation (especially Tesla's) is manufacturers cutting their own new prices, not the market souring — and that pressure looks structural (Chinese manufacturing overcapacity: ~55.5M/yr production capacity vs ~23M/yr domestic sales) rather than a one-off that reverses. Rising battery raw-material costs (lithium) pull the other way. Net: don't treat current used discounts as a floor, but they're not obviously a temporary blip either — a real source of forward uncertainty either way.

Caveat: figures again come mostly from SEO/blog aggregators, not manufacturer or INSEE/UFC-Que Choisir data — treat as ballpark for shortlisting, verify actual model prices via constructeur sites (e.g. ADEME's official eligibility/pricing list) before deciding.

Sources: Vivacar · AutoHero (décote) · CapCar (occasion rentable) · LegiPermis (assurance) · Izetta Auto (entretien) · IZI by EDF (recharge) · PassionAndCar (MG4/BYD/Kia/VW) · Le Blog Auto (guerre des prix chinoise) · Motor1 (coûts batteries) · Smartactive (Kia EV3 trims) · euromotor.fr (BYD Dolphin Surf trims) · Motor1 (garantie batterie BYD) · Euro NCAP (BYD Dolphin Surf) · leasing-social.org (avis fiabilité BYD)