(Revised March 2025)

Due to its scale, the used vehicle market can play an outsized role in propagating new technologies. In this paper, we study the propagation of battery electric vehicle (BEV) technology through this market. Utilizing vehicle registration microdata for all new and used vehicles registered in the U.S. for model years 2010-2022 we study the market for used BEVs and establish two key facts. First, they enter the used market at the slowest rate compared to any other powertrain technology. Second, BEVs enter the used market having been driven significantly less than similarly aged vehicles featuring other powertrain technologies. In seeking to understand why BEVs are not transacted more often in the used vehicle market, we build a model of registration counts. A decomposition exercise of vehicle suggests that lower usage can explain up to 45 percent of the differential rates of transition from new to used vehicle status between BEVs and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. This suggests a large role for other factors, potentially related to the newness the product and associated early adoption behavior.