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You’re valuing your own time at $0/hr that is spent at gas stations, doing oil changes and other ICE maintenance, unless you have a personal assistant to do tha

You’re valuing your own time at $0/hr that is spent at gas stations, doing oil changes and other ICE maintenance, unless you have a personal assistant to do that stuff for you. My calculation was 15 minutes/week for gas, 1 hour every 3 months for oil changes, and 1 hour a month on average dealing with other ICE problems (for instance I had a water pump failure cause my engine to overheat on a busy highway, had to wait 2 hours for a tow truck waiting in a dangerous location, then took another 2 hours to finally get home). So that’s ~30 hours of my time per year. I value my own free time at $300/hr so even at a much higher initial cost an EV still made sense to me.

GiorgioG 3y ago
Where in the world does it take 15 minutes to fill up a tank of gas? You change your oil every 3 months? Are you driving 20,000+ miles per year? 1 hour per month on ICE problems? What are you driving, a 1985 Pontiac Skylark? My parents' 2003 Camry has never had a single mechanical problem. Sometimes you just want something and that's OK...but your calculations are not based in reality.
- foobarian 3y ago
  The 2014 Ford Escape I had before my current EV was actually worse than his calculations. I'm glad your parents' Camry was reliable but my experience was not good. 1 hour per month is amortized. My last car ended up in the shop for several days. It's not several days of my time but dealing with renting a replacement and coordinating the drop-off took me half a day, and this happened more than once. I ended up burning a vacation day on it which was pretty frustrating.
  - GiorgioG 3y ago
    https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/2023/11/electric-vehicles-are-improving-but-charging-and-battery-issues-persist-in-consumer-reports-2023-annual-auto-reliability-survey/ https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/20... I guess I'm just not buying that current EVs are more reliable than ICEs.
    - foobarian 3y ago
      It's hard to decide based on any kind of published data because so much chance is involved. And it's hard to decide based on first-hand experience because you can't compare a new and 10-year old car. In my case I figured the unexpected maintenance is unlikely to be worse, and I know the expected maintenance will be better.
      - GiorgioG 3y ago
        Well, either we believe the data, or we believe stories (true or not) that people tell us (EVs are more reliable). EVs compared to ICEs are still in the early adopter phase in terms of ironing the kinks out. We've been doing ICE vehicles for what, 100 years?
        foobarian 3y ago
        I don’t doubt the data, but the question is how to use it. When it comes to long tail events like breakdowns there is a big difference between an individual purchasing one car and a large fleet owner purchasing in bulk where the law of large numbers helps remove the variance. In my anecdotal case, I traded a potentially larger but still small probability of a major breakdown for a guaranteed better maintenance schedule (no oil changes, less brake/rotor work) and no gas station visits. We’ll see how it goes!
    - gamepsys 3y ago
      I also have experienced much lower maintenance numbers with ICEs than what are being quoted. I think it's a combination of the models I pick (only those manufactured in Japan) and the fact that I buy new and drive for 8-10 years so I'm the single owner.
      - avgDev 3y ago
        My 2019 Santa Fe has needed oil changes and 0 other maintenance in 5 years/50k miles. I do the oil changes myself in about 30 minutes and they cost me about $30 using synthetic oil(costco) and OEM filter. So, I have spent $300 in 5 years on maintenance. Still original tires. The people claiming expensive maintenance on ICE cars DID NOT follow what manufacturer recommends but the dealer, who have an incentive to offer extra services.
- jliptzin 3y ago
  It’s a few min out of my way each direction to get to a gas station, then another few min to fill it up, sometimes longer if I have to wait. For some reason you assume that the typical fill up is what happens every time, for an accurate average you have to consider worst case scenarios too. I’ve had too many experiences traveling late at night looking for a gas station in a rural area only to be driving 30+ min out of my way to find stations that were either out of gas or closed. I’ve also had plenty of instances where there was a long line at the station for whatever reason. So overall it roughly rounds to 15. Yes I was told to change oil every 3 months, I drive a lot. I had a ton of mechanical problems with my Lexus RX.
staringback 3y ago
> I value my own free time at $300/hr Sounds like posting on HN is an expensive endeavour for you
- jliptzin 3y ago
  I figured $300/hr was on the cheaper side around here

GiorgioG 3y ago

Where in the world does it take 15 minutes to fill up a tank of gas? You change your oil every 3 months? Are you driving 20,000+ miles per year? 1 hour per month on ICE problems? What are you driving, a 1985 Pontiac Skylark? My parents' 2003 Camry has never had a single mechanical problem. Sometimes you just want something and that's OK...but your calculations are not based in reality.

foobarian 3y ago
The 2014 Ford Escape I had before my current EV was actually worse than his calculations. I'm glad your parents' Camry was reliable but my experience was not good. 1 hour per month is amortized. My last car ended up in the shop for several days. It's not several days of my time but dealing with renting a replacement and coordinating the drop-off took me half a day, and this happened more than once. I ended up burning a vacation day on it which was pretty frustrating.
- GiorgioG 3y ago
  https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/2023/11/electric-vehicles-are-improving-but-charging-and-battery-issues-persist-in-consumer-reports-2023-annual-auto-reliability-survey/ https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/20... I guess I'm just not buying that current EVs are more reliable than ICEs.
  - foobarian 3y ago
    It's hard to decide based on any kind of published data because so much chance is involved. And it's hard to decide based on first-hand experience because you can't compare a new and 10-year old car. In my case I figured the unexpected maintenance is unlikely to be worse, and I know the expected maintenance will be better.
    - GiorgioG 3y ago
      Well, either we believe the data, or we believe stories (true or not) that people tell us (EVs are more reliable). EVs compared to ICEs are still in the early adopter phase in terms of ironing the kinks out. We've been doing ICE vehicles for what, 100 years?
      - foobarian 3y ago
        I don’t doubt the data, but the question is how to use it. When it comes to long tail events like breakdowns there is a big difference between an individual purchasing one car and a large fleet owner purchasing in bulk where the law of large numbers helps remove the variance. In my anecdotal case, I traded a potentially larger but still small probability of a major breakdown for a guaranteed better maintenance schedule (no oil changes, less brake/rotor work) and no gas station visits. We’ll see how it goes!
  - gamepsys 3y ago
    I also have experienced much lower maintenance numbers with ICEs than what are being quoted. I think it's a combination of the models I pick (only those manufactured in Japan) and the fact that I buy new and drive for 8-10 years so I'm the single owner.
    - avgDev 3y ago
      My 2019 Santa Fe has needed oil changes and 0 other maintenance in 5 years/50k miles. I do the oil changes myself in about 30 minutes and they cost me about $30 using synthetic oil(costco) and OEM filter. So, I have spent $300 in 5 years on maintenance. Still original tires. The people claiming expensive maintenance on ICE cars DID NOT follow what manufacturer recommends but the dealer, who have an incentive to offer extra services.
jliptzin 3y ago
It’s a few min out of my way each direction to get to a gas station, then another few min to fill it up, sometimes longer if I have to wait. For some reason you assume that the typical fill up is what happens every time, for an accurate average you have to consider worst case scenarios too. I’ve had too many experiences traveling late at night looking for a gas station in a rural area only to be driving 30+ min out of my way to find stations that were either out of gas or closed. I’ve also had plenty of instances where there was a long line at the station for whatever reason. So overall it roughly rounds to 15. Yes I was told to change oil every 3 months, I drive a lot. I had a ton of mechanical problems with my Lexus RX.

staringback 3y ago

> I value my own free time at $300/hr Sounds like posting on HN is an expensive endeavour for you

jliptzin 3y ago
I figured $300/hr was on the cheaper side around here