7 ms·

Nail on the head. When your concern is cost, electric vehicles just don't make sense. I drive 5-10 thousands miles a year, and at $2/gallon gas, I'm looking a

Nail on the head. When your concern is cost, electric vehicles just don't make sense. I drive 5-10 thousands miles a year, and at $2/gallon gas, I'm looking at a total expense of 4-500 dollars per year. To illustrate, I recently spec'd out a honda civic, with the base model costing $19k USD, and looking at even hybrids like the chevy volt and prius, I'm basically paying a premium of $4k to $15k for what amounts to a nominal gain in mileage. It just doesn't make sense when the civic is cheaper and more fun to drive (huge consideration when you spend more than 10 minutes commuting every day.) Drop the honda to a fit, and the straight IC is even more of a hands-down winner. Mileage standards are probably the most effective tool at reducing automobile emissions, and I wish more people costed that out and understood the economic impact, especially on poor people, before coming to any debate on the subject. Edit: I realize this is more of an american perspective on an article about a european problem. I wish I could bike safely where I live, but the infrastructure costs would probably be tremendous given how spread out everything is here.

gambiting 9y ago
>> I drive 5-10 thousands miles a year, and at $2/gallon gas I assure you that even at nearly $8/gallon over here, an electric vehicle still didn't make much sense when we were buying a new car last year. Even the cheapest Leaf was so much more expensive than a well specced VW Polo that it made no sense to go electric, we did the calculation and the difference in price would not be returned in the savings over the time we are likely to keep the car for.
dpark 9y ago
> Nail on the head. When your concern is cost, electric vehicles just don't make sense. I agree with this. Electric cars are still affordable only to the affluent. Even a Nissan Leaf costs over $30k. > I drive 5-10 thousands miles a year, and at $2/gallon gas, I'm looking at a total expense of 4-500 dollars per year. This, however, seems really optimistic. 10k miles for $500 in gas assumes $2/gallon and 40 mpg, which is the EPA rating for highway miles in a Civic. Most people are driving >10k miles/year. Most people don't spend 100% of their miles on open highway at optimal speed, nor do most people drive a new car with max efficiency. And most people don't have $2/gallon gas even in the US (the average is closer to $2.50 currently). Driving 12-15k/year, getting 25mpg, paying $2.50/gallon, you'd be looking at $1200-$1500/year for gas. That's still not enough to offset the difference in an electric car unless you assume long ownership and no major costs to, say, replace the battery pack at 5 years.
- mark242 9y ago
  > Electric cars are still affordable only to the affluent. I just now ran a Carfax report and found no fewer than 7 electric Ford Focus cars within 50 miles of my zipcode for less than $15k used. Two of them are less than $10k. Not sure what "affluent" means to you.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - dpark 9y ago
    Set the goalposts and we can discuss it. If we're talking new cars, I think >$30k is for the affluent. If you want to consider used cars, maybe they become more attainable, but the supply is tiny (literally 50x as many used IC focuses as used electric focuses near me) and there's still a premium for the equivalent car (~20% from what I see). I can buy a 2013 electric Focus for $13k. I can buy a 2012 BMW 328i for $14k. Are BMWs also affordable now?
    - Retric 9y ago
      Older BMW's have relatively high maintenance costs which is a real issue. Not sure about that Focus, but electric cars have vastly fewer moving parts which should help quite a bit.
      - dpark 9y ago
        Older electric cars eventually need a complete battery pack replacement which is not a trivial cost. I don't know what the lifespan of the battery pack in a Focus is, though.
        Retric 9y ago
        On an older focus that's not nearly the issue vs longer range electrics it's ~23 kWh * $150/kwh ~= 3,450$ and dropping. I know people that spent that much just replacing a BMW's transmission. Yea, not free but everything else should be cheap so maintenance costs are likely to be far less over the next 5 - 10 years.
aetherson 9y ago
The Nissan Leaf is a shockingly good deal right now if you can deal with the limited range. We got it as a second car, and the deal was $2,500 down, $200 per month for three years. And California has a $2,500 subsidy that effectively drops the price to $0 down if you income-qualify. And PG&E has a $500 subsidy, and they'll also lower your rates. If you get all the subsidies, you're looking at less than $2,500 per year. I think that most people will save $500+ on gas and oil changes and PG&E rates, so for the three years, let's say that you pay $6,000 all in. Essentially any new car will lose $6,000 in value over three years. You could lower your TCO by buying used, for sure, but if you care about worn finishes, little QOL things like bluetooth audio and reasonably good climate control, and lower risk of inconvenient maintenance, then I think the Leaf is pretty amazingly good. IF you can deal with a 90 mile range. That's the big killer. But as a second car or for some people, it's kind of amazing.
- mercutio2 9y ago
  Are you saying that PG&E's EV-A rate is "lowering" your rates? I think that's only true from 11pm-7AM, which obviously is good if you're charging an EV, but it compensates by raising your daytime rates, which isn't a good deal for most people with more traditional domestic electric workloads. So I wouldn't exactly interpret this as a straightforward "lower your rates". Or am I missing something?
  - secabeen 9y ago
    It depends entirely on your schedule. There are a lot of people who are at work/commuting from 8-6 every weekday. IF no one is home during those hours, your power usage drops to just maintenance power for fridges and the like. The hours from 6pm-10pm are a bit of a challenge, but with some minor load shifting (start the dishwasher and clothes dryer at 10pm before bed), you can get some savings on TOU. A few years back SCE had a EV-TOU plan that was peak hours only from 10am-6pm, and it was very easy to save money on that plan.
  - aetherson 9y ago
    My attempts to be terse were misleading. We have very little daytime electricity use, as our house is empty during the day. I apologize if I misled anyone.
mywittyname 9y ago
> what amounts to a nominal gain in mileage. A Prius is 46 combined, the Civic is only 32 combined (as per fuelly). The base Civic uses 50% more fuel than a Prius, I'd hardly consider that "nominal", that's the difference between a 6.2L V8 powered Corvette (22 combined on fuelly) and a Civic. Another way to look at it is, $2/gallon gas in a Prius is $3/gallon in a Civic.
- sib 9y ago
  Sure, but, as (s)he said, (s)he drives 5-10K miles / year. For 10K miles, that's a difference of less than 100 gallons of gas per year, meaning less than $400 / year in gas for the Civic vs the Prius. ~$1 / day probably isn't going to drive behavior change or a willingness to spend more for an otherwise-inferior car.
secabeen 9y ago
> When your concern is cost Not everyone's concern is solely cost, of course. Some of us are happy to pay a little more for a car that eliminates our families largest contribution to global warming. Yes, new Tesla's and other EVs are not cheaper than ICE vehicles today. The Model S has only been available for 5 years. You can't expect EVs to beat ICE vehicles with over 100 years of engineering from minute 1. Give it some time.
- R_haterade 9y ago
  Absolutely agreed that not everyone's concern is cost. I don't live an affluent area, however. I'm lucky to have a job with benefits, if that tells you anything. I can't imagine my neighbors caring too much.
bsder 9y ago
At 5K-10K miles per year, you'd almost be better off with delivery, Lyft and rental cars ...
- ghaff 9y ago
  Depends on your circumstances. I'm something under 10K but I have basically no delivery and very limited Uber/Lyft available. When I do weekend activities, I often want an SUV outfitted for my needs. If I did rent a car, I'd have to get a cab or something. This isn't even back of beyond but it's exurban and there's no way I could do without my own car in my driveway even though my mileage is modest.
- R_haterade 9y ago
  Why do you assume I live in an urban area where those are options?
  - bsder 9y ago
    5-10K miles per year and quoting highway mileage numbers? Even elderly drivers that I know in rural areas in the US have a difficult time staying in 5K-10K miles per year. Someone living in a rural or suburban area in the US has a 30 mile round trip for just about anything. Even 3 trips a week would put you above 5K miles. And you won't be getting 40mpg on those roads. So, either you really don't do much (possible) at which point delivery probably suffices as you have minimal needs. Or, you don't have to drive very far, which would tend to place you in a dense suburb or urban setting. Or, you could, of course, simply be one of the lucky people who live in a rural/sparse suburban setting that just happens to have everything you need within a walk or very short drive. Those places do exist--the number of people who have the opportunity to live in them is very small, however.

gambiting 9y ago

>> I drive 5-10 thousands miles a year, and at $2/gallon gas I assure you that even at nearly $8/gallon over here, an electric vehicle still didn't make much sense when we were buying a new car last year. Even the cheapest Leaf was so much more expensive than a well specced VW Polo that it made no sense to go electric, we did the calculation and the difference in price would not be returned in the savings over the time we are likely to keep the car for.

dpark 9y ago

> Nail on the head. When your concern is cost, electric vehicles just don't make sense. I agree with this. Electric cars are still affordable only to the affluent. Even a Nissan Leaf costs over $30k. > I drive 5-10 thousands miles a year, and at $2/gallon gas, I'm looking at a total expense of 4-500 dollars per year. This, however, seems really optimistic. 10k miles for $500 in gas assumes $2/gallon and 40 mpg, which is the EPA rating for highway miles in a Civic. Most people are driving >10k miles/year. Most people don't spend 100% of their miles on open highway at optimal speed, nor do most people drive a new car with max efficiency. And most people don't have $2/gallon gas even in the US (the average is closer to $2.50 currently). Driving 12-15k/year, getting 25mpg, paying $2.50/gallon, you'd be looking at $1200-$1500/year for gas. That's still not enough to offset the difference in an electric car unless you assume long ownership and no major costs to, say, replace the battery pack at 5 years.

mark242 9y ago
> Electric cars are still affordable only to the affluent. I just now ran a Carfax report and found no fewer than 7 electric Ford Focus cars within 50 miles of my zipcode for less than $15k used. Two of them are less than $10k. Not sure what "affluent" means to you.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dpark 9y ago
  Set the goalposts and we can discuss it. If we're talking new cars, I think >$30k is for the affluent. If you want to consider used cars, maybe they become more attainable, but the supply is tiny (literally 50x as many used IC focuses as used electric focuses near me) and there's still a premium for the equivalent car (~20% from what I see). I can buy a 2013 electric Focus for $13k. I can buy a 2012 BMW 328i for $14k. Are BMWs also affordable now?
  - Retric 9y ago
    Older BMW's have relatively high maintenance costs which is a real issue. Not sure about that Focus, but electric cars have vastly fewer moving parts which should help quite a bit.
    - dpark 9y ago
      Older electric cars eventually need a complete battery pack replacement which is not a trivial cost. I don't know what the lifespan of the battery pack in a Focus is, though.
      - Retric 9y ago
        On an older focus that's not nearly the issue vs longer range electrics it's ~23 kWh * $150/kwh ~= 3,450$ and dropping. I know people that spent that much just replacing a BMW's transmission. Yea, not free but everything else should be cheap so maintenance costs are likely to be far less over the next 5 - 10 years.

aetherson 9y ago

The Nissan Leaf is a shockingly good deal right now if you can deal with the limited range. We got it as a second car, and the deal was $2,500 down, $200 per month for three years. And California has a $2,500 subsidy that effectively drops the price to $0 down if you income-qualify. And PG&E has a $500 subsidy, and they'll also lower your rates. If you get all the subsidies, you're looking at less than $2,500 per year. I think that most people will save $500+ on gas and oil changes and PG&E rates, so for the three years, let's say that you pay $6,000 all in. Essentially any new car will lose $6,000 in value over three years. You could lower your TCO by buying used, for sure, but if you care about worn finishes, little QOL things like bluetooth audio and reasonably good climate control, and lower risk of inconvenient maintenance, then I think the Leaf is pretty amazingly good. IF you can deal with a 90 mile range. That's the big killer. But as a second car or for some people, it's kind of amazing.

mercutio2 9y ago
Are you saying that PG&E's EV-A rate is "lowering" your rates? I think that's only true from 11pm-7AM, which obviously is good if you're charging an EV, but it compensates by raising your daytime rates, which isn't a good deal for most people with more traditional domestic electric workloads. So I wouldn't exactly interpret this as a straightforward "lower your rates". Or am I missing something?
- secabeen 9y ago
  It depends entirely on your schedule. There are a lot of people who are at work/commuting from 8-6 every weekday. IF no one is home during those hours, your power usage drops to just maintenance power for fridges and the like. The hours from 6pm-10pm are a bit of a challenge, but with some minor load shifting (start the dishwasher and clothes dryer at 10pm before bed), you can get some savings on TOU. A few years back SCE had a EV-TOU plan that was peak hours only from 10am-6pm, and it was very easy to save money on that plan.
- aetherson 9y ago
  My attempts to be terse were misleading. We have very little daytime electricity use, as our house is empty during the day. I apologize if I misled anyone.

mywittyname 9y ago

> what amounts to a nominal gain in mileage. A Prius is 46 combined, the Civic is only 32 combined (as per fuelly). The base Civic uses 50% more fuel than a Prius, I'd hardly consider that "nominal", that's the difference between a 6.2L V8 powered Corvette (22 combined on fuelly) and a Civic. Another way to look at it is, $2/gallon gas in a Prius is $3/gallon in a Civic.

sib 9y ago
Sure, but, as (s)he said, (s)he drives 5-10K miles / year. For 10K miles, that's a difference of less than 100 gallons of gas per year, meaning less than $400 / year in gas for the Civic vs the Prius. ~$1 / day probably isn't going to drive behavior change or a willingness to spend more for an otherwise-inferior car.

secabeen 9y ago

> When your concern is cost Not everyone's concern is solely cost, of course. Some of us are happy to pay a little more for a car that eliminates our families largest contribution to global warming. Yes, new Tesla's and other EVs are not cheaper than ICE vehicles today. The Model S has only been available for 5 years. You can't expect EVs to beat ICE vehicles with over 100 years of engineering from minute 1. Give it some time.

R_haterade 9y ago
Absolutely agreed that not everyone's concern is cost. I don't live an affluent area, however. I'm lucky to have a job with benefits, if that tells you anything. I can't imagine my neighbors caring too much.

bsder 9y ago

At 5K-10K miles per year, you'd almost be better off with delivery, Lyft and rental cars ...

ghaff 9y ago
Depends on your circumstances. I'm something under 10K but I have basically no delivery and very limited Uber/Lyft available. When I do weekend activities, I often want an SUV outfitted for my needs. If I did rent a car, I'd have to get a cab or something. This isn't even back of beyond but it's exurban and there's no way I could do without my own car in my driveway even though my mileage is modest.
R_haterade 9y ago
Why do you assume I live in an urban area where those are options?
- bsder 9y ago
  5-10K miles per year and quoting highway mileage numbers? Even elderly drivers that I know in rural areas in the US have a difficult time staying in 5K-10K miles per year. Someone living in a rural or suburban area in the US has a 30 mile round trip for just about anything. Even 3 trips a week would put you above 5K miles. And you won't be getting 40mpg on those roads. So, either you really don't do much (possible) at which point delivery probably suffices as you have minimal needs. Or, you don't have to drive very far, which would tend to place you in a dense suburb or urban setting. Or, you could, of course, simply be one of the lucky people who live in a rural/sparse suburban setting that just happens to have everything you need within a walk or very short drive. Those places do exist--the number of people who have the opportunity to live in them is very small, however.