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> Diesel motors can be significantly less expensive to maintain and operate, even more so as the reliability of emissions-reducing technology is improved. Sour

> Diesel motors can be significantly less expensive to maintain and operate, even more so as the reliability of emissions-reducing technology is improved. Source? As someone who owns two diesels(1.1L 2cyl and 3.0L 6cyl) and an EV the oil changes alone make your argument invalid. You know what my highest per-mile operating cost is(including electricity)? Tires. Look, I love the simplicity of the diesel as much as anyone else but EVs have a very strong position on operation costs.

chrissnell 9y ago
When were your diesels built? The new (last five years or so) engines are amazing--they've really come a long way with the emissions systems. I own two diesels: a 1987 Land Rover Defender 110 with a 300Tdi (no emissions controls, ridiculously smokey) and a 2017 Ram 2500 with the 6.7L Cummins turbo diesel (cleaner than I'd ever imagined).
- vvanders 9y ago
  I think you may have mis-read my reply. I was talking about operating costs, not emissions. The 3.0L ecodiesel was built last year and yeah, it's much cleaner than our '81 1.2L which is pre-emissions. The thing is the new engine is full synthetic(only approved oil) so combined with the ~$30 Wix filter an oil change runs ~$110 every 4k. The only maintenance item on our EV was a coolant change at 50k, something you'd have to do on a diesel as well.
  - chrissnell 9y ago
    That's a different story than my Cummins, which gets an oil change every 15K miles and uses regular 15W40 dino oil. Other than fuel[1], I've only spent about $115 in the first year of ownership and only because I took it to the dealer for an oil change instead of doing it in my garage like I do my other diesel truck. [1] 15-17mpg...not bad for a 10,500 pound truck
    - vvanders 9y ago
      Even ignoring the oil change(15k seems like a huge interval, 5x what I did on traditional oil) you're still spending ~$0.17 per mile @ $2.80/gal. For our 5k lb EV right now I'm paying $0.07KWh at about .3KW/ mi for a total of $0.023/mi(hence why tires cost me more than electricity, they're about $1k/35k mi or 0.028/mi). Even our Ecodiesel that gets 28MPG still costs almost 10x to run per mile compared to our EV(which has similar weight) before you even factor oil changes.

chrissnell 9y ago

When were your diesels built? The new (last five years or so) engines are amazing--they've really come a long way with the emissions systems. I own two diesels: a 1987 Land Rover Defender 110 with a 300Tdi (no emissions controls, ridiculously smokey) and a 2017 Ram 2500 with the 6.7L Cummins turbo diesel (cleaner than I'd ever imagined).

vvanders 9y ago
I think you may have mis-read my reply. I was talking about operating costs, not emissions. The 3.0L ecodiesel was built last year and yeah, it's much cleaner than our '81 1.2L which is pre-emissions. The thing is the new engine is full synthetic(only approved oil) so combined with the ~$30 Wix filter an oil change runs ~$110 every 4k. The only maintenance item on our EV was a coolant change at 50k, something you'd have to do on a diesel as well.
- chrissnell 9y ago
  That's a different story than my Cummins, which gets an oil change every 15K miles and uses regular 15W40 dino oil. Other than fuel[1], I've only spent about $115 in the first year of ownership and only because I took it to the dealer for an oil change instead of doing it in my garage like I do my other diesel truck. [1] 15-17mpg...not bad for a 10,500 pound truck
  - vvanders 9y ago
    Even ignoring the oil change(15k seems like a huge interval, 5x what I did on traditional oil) you're still spending ~$0.17 per mile @ $2.80/gal. For our 5k lb EV right now I'm paying $0.07KWh at about .3KW/ mi for a total of $0.023/mi(hence why tires cost me more than electricity, they're about $1k/35k mi or 0.028/mi). Even our Ecodiesel that gets 28MPG still costs almost 10x to run per mile compared to our EV(which has similar weight) before you even factor oil changes.