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I find "paying twice for things" a nice analogy. Over the years I have been unconciously paying more attention to the second price, and often ignore the first o
by mehdix 3y ago
I find "paying twice for things" a nice analogy. Over the years I have been unconciously paying more attention to the second price, and often ignore the first one (obviously I'm getting older and have less time to waste). "will this thing last long enough?", "will it break when I most need it?", and "is it worth my time?" are some questions I ask myself when purchasing or choosing something new. It has had a net positive outcome for me.
- throwaway22032 3y agoMe too. My friends find it weird when I buy a used car and I've already budgeted for the repairs, they find it a downer. I'm happy because then when it happens I've already mentally spent the money! The same is true of the time investment.
- gleenn 3y agoElectric is the way to gobif you care about longevity
- throwaway22032 3y agoPublic chargers in the UK cost 75p/kWh and up, which means even an efficient EV costs far more to run than my petrol car, unfortunately. In the past it's never really been the ICE parts that fail on my cars anyway. Rusted suspensions and frames, tyres, etc are the main service items.
- hef19898 3y agoOne of the main, negative, reliability drivers in modern cars is electronics anyway, mechanically new cars hardly ever fail outside of normal wear (e.g. brakes, suspession, gaskets) that is simply unavoidable. Now, the thing with EVs is, they have tons of electronics... Regardless, as soon as EVs hit a price range, accounting for size and so, that is within budget we are going to switch.
- ClumsyPilot 3y agoPublic charging is a bit of a rip-off. Some new apartment blocks have charging in the car park that is at-cost. And ofcourse if you own a house with a driveway, that allows you to access cheaper rates. Additionally, the current energy crisis should be temporary, normally electricity is 1/3 the price of petrol. At least if the tory government, that constantly harps on about growth, stops blocking construction of every windfarm and solar panel they can. In personal experience, in iur famioy BMW it was the engine that failed.
- throwaway22032 3y agoSure. By mileage my car is most often used for long distance trips across the country, for stuff under 10-20 miles I usually use public transport or cycle. I had an EV for a period and used on-street charging 90% of the time for that reason. It was a tremendous pain.
- ExoticPearTree 3y agoElon, is that you? :) What, electric don't ever break?
- systemtest 3y agoThe most recent maintenance on my car would have been the same on an EV. Tires, brakes, wheel bearing, blower, window motors, shocks, boot struts. And I repaired a couple of broken trim bits in the interior and replaced the speakers. Outside of around 30 euro per year of maintenance bits, the engine and gearbox don't need a lot of work. Simple combustion engines that are not put under stress can last a long time.
- ivanche 3y ago30 EUR per year? You can't even buy 2-3 liters of engine oil for that money, let alone brake oil, new tires (you change them every 50000km, right?), tire pressure sensors etc.
- throwaway22032 3y agoThey are referring to 30 euros of engine maintenance only, so from your list only the oil (and filter) are relevant.
- ivanche 3y agoThey mentioned engine and gearbox, so still you'd need at least gearbox oil change once in a while. Not to mention that they elegantly forgot clutch + flywheel which EVs don't have but are expensive as hell to change on ICEs (and you have to change them sooner or later).
- systemtest 3y agoClutchplate is a 25 to 40 euro part and a day of my time. Needs to be replaced once every 200k kilometers. I have transverse engine, I guess it means engine out but that is a 45 minute job.
- TheCapn 3y agoCan I ask what you drive? There's a 3rd cost that you're sorta glossing over. The work you're doing (and the speed you're capable of doing it in) means you've had a non-negligible amount of experience. Depending on how fickle we're going to get, there's 4th costs of the tools you own allowing you to do that work. Perhaps other costs for your living situation allowing you to have a place to do such tasks. I do my own maintenance work too. But I think it's foolish to gloss over those aspects of the work. They don't come for free.
- mehdix 3y ago> The same is true of the time investment. One person once told me "urgency has no price." i.e. time is priceless, as cliche as it looks like. For me in the long run, the cost of time I invest in the "consequence" of my decisions dwarfs all other costs.