40 used electric car bargains from £5,000 to £40,000

The Story

Want a used car that happens to be electric? Here are some of those. Around 40, actually.

Want a used car that happens to be electric?. Here are some of those. Around 40, actually. Published: 15 Oct 2026 External link to Top Gear Magazine Subscription – 3 months for £6Up to £5,000: Citroen C-Zero/Mitsubishi i-MiEV/Peugeot IonThey’re not fast, they won’t go very far, and they’re certainly not stylish, but when pretty much the only alternatives were a G-Wiz or a second-hand milk float, these largely identical triplets were pioneers. With just 64bhp and a 93-mile range, their specs look laughable now, but if all you want is cheap, clean urban transport minus the misery of taking the bus, then all three will do the job.

We know Kia now as one of the very best EV manufacturers in the biz, and this is where it began, with the first-gen Soul EV. A range of 131 miles was impressive back in 2014 and is still usable now, and unlike most other EVs of its day, the electric Soul didn’t have looks that would make passing children point and laugh. Well, not much anyway. If you’re a couple, though, remember to use caution when telling people about ‘our Soul’.

10Feeling brave?. Here are 10 used retro hero cars that inspired the stars of the Paris show1111 used Jaguars to buy if you don’t like the new Type 01 EV16The weird and the wonderful: 15 cars with unique manual gearboxes1111 used Jaguars to buy if you don’t like the new Type 01 EVNissan Leaf (first generation)Where it all began for proper, usable mass-produced EVs. The original Leaf proved to the world that electric cars didn’t have to be joy-deficient little boxes that would crumble like a cheap shortbread if you bumped into a wall at 5mph, and when the only other car to do so was the vastly more expensive Tesla Model S, Leafs sold by the bucketload. As a result, there are loads of dirt cheap examples around now, so shop around for a good one.

Another favourite of early adopters, and it’s easy to see why. The Zoe was another early proponent of the ‘car that happens to be electric’ school of design, and back in 2013, that made it a deservedly popular thing. Just make sure you track down one with a battery that’s fully owned and not still under lease, lest you find yourself forking out monthly payments or having to buy out the lease yourself.

The Smart Fortwo, née City Coupe, was envisioned as electric from day one, but after multiple trials, it wasn’t until 2012 that an electric Fortwo was actually ready for general sale. E-power just made sense here, making the Fortwo Electric Drive a zippy around-town companion. 90 miles of range was hardly stellar, but then you’d hardly be taking a petrol Fortwo far out of town, would you?.

Will the i3 name being repurposed as the electric equivalent of the 3 Series erase the quirky original’s place in BMW history?. We doubt it. This was a little egg-shaped pioneer, and with its carbon fibre chassis and incredible packaging, still feels ahead of its time now, never mind in 2014. By the time it died in 2022, it still felt fresher and more modern than most rivals, and had figures that stacked up too. Now, it’s a bargain. Simple as that.

Who’da thunk it – the cheapest electric car you can buy new gets even cheaper once someone else has spent a few thousand miles scooting around town in it and farting into the seat (try not to think about that bit). The Spring is very much not a motorway car, especially in anaemic 44bhp form, but as an urban or rural runabout, it’s packed with charm and is about as simple and unthreatening a toe in the EV waters as it’s possible to get.

This badge-engineered trio were the best city cars of their day, and making them electric did them no harm whatsoever. They were the thinking person’s little EVs, unpretentiously stylish and with a genuinely useful 161 miles of range following the 2020 update, which was the only form the Skoda and Seat were available in. We’d get either of them over the VW just to avoid the endless and tiresome ‘made in Yorkshire, was it?’ quips.

You know the Vauxhall Corsa, right?. The car that’s consistently been a favourite of new drivers, downsizing pensioners and lots of people in between for over 30 years now?. Yeah, this is one of those, but electric. That means there are very few surprises to be found here. In fact, unless you’ve been following Vauxhall’s progress over the last few years, the biggest surprise might be that it’s actually a pretty good car.

Besides supercars, we can think of few other cars than the Honda e where the amount of pre-release hype was so wildly disproportionate to the amount you actually see on the road. That of course, was largely down to its pathetic 137-mile range and eye-watering price, which at one point was knocking on the door of £40k. Now they’ve dropped down to under £15k, though, it’s far easier to appreciate what a genuinely lovely car it was. Thanks, depreciation!.

Before it started wowing us with the Ioniq range, Hyundai was quite content visually easing us into its electric offerings with the Kona EV. But those looks undersold what a gamechanger it was: back when 200-plus mile ranges were the preserve of £70k SUVs with posh badges, here was a car that would do 300 for less than half that. Even now, it represents one of the most usable EV packages for this sort of money on the used market.

Why It Matters

Since renamed the EX40, this was Volvo’s first electric car, but there were very few teething troubles, because the fact is that the calm Scandi ambience of modern Volvos and the smooth, effortless whoosh of electricity go together like a sauna and an ice bath.

CarMotion Daily’s Take

Will the i3 name being repurposed as the electric equivalent of the 3 Series erase the quirky original’s place in BMW history?. Watch this space over the coming weeks. Electric momentum is uneven across the industry, and moves like this reshape how buyers compare EV lineups. Range, charging speed, and price still dominate EV shopping — every new entry forces competitors to either match or reposition. Watch for EPA range certifications and DC fast-charge benchmarks once independent tests land. Pricing tiers, software updates, and any regional trim adjustments will tell us how serious the launch intent is.