The residuals question maybe more important than it at first seems.
A lot of these cars at the very top of the food chain do hold their value or even appreciate. At the very least the buyers do seem to be at least pretending to be making "an investment" in order to justify the purchase. This is deeply entrenched in the hypercar world, for example when it comes to working your way up the Ferrari ladder, part of the explicit draw is that after enough spending you get access to the limited high-end releases which hold their value. The buyers could theoretically flip their allocations for a profit (although they would be banned if they were to do that, and it takes a lot of spending to get to that position so it's not incentivized).
The F40s and McLaren f1s of the world transition from hypercar to collectible classic. I do think that the battery situation genuinely makes the perspective buyers uncomfortable. The hybrid battery in a P1 is 150,000.
Ferrari has a program where for the low price of about 10k per year, the buyer gets a new hybrid battery at the 8 and 16 year mark. This is probably the sort of approach that the EV hypercar manufacturers have to pursue in order to alleviate customer concerns. Unlike metal parts that sit in a warehouse (and a secondary universe of high end restomod stuff), it might genuinely be an issue if these battery chemistries aren't available in the coming decades when it comes to resale value.
Fade_Dance•5mo ago
A lot of these cars at the very top of the food chain do hold their value or even appreciate. At the very least the buyers do seem to be at least pretending to be making "an investment" in order to justify the purchase. This is deeply entrenched in the hypercar world, for example when it comes to working your way up the Ferrari ladder, part of the explicit draw is that after enough spending you get access to the limited high-end releases which hold their value. The buyers could theoretically flip their allocations for a profit (although they would be banned if they were to do that, and it takes a lot of spending to get to that position so it's not incentivized).
The F40s and McLaren f1s of the world transition from hypercar to collectible classic. I do think that the battery situation genuinely makes the perspective buyers uncomfortable. The hybrid battery in a P1 is 150,000.
Ferrari has a program where for the low price of about 10k per year, the buyer gets a new hybrid battery at the 8 and 16 year mark. This is probably the sort of approach that the EV hypercar manufacturers have to pursue in order to alleviate customer concerns. Unlike metal parts that sit in a warehouse (and a secondary universe of high end restomod stuff), it might genuinely be an issue if these battery chemistries aren't available in the coming decades when it comes to resale value.