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I've owned an electric car for about two years now. The article missed a few points: 1. The regenerative braking means you do not need to replace your brakes n
by beau 14y ago
I've owned an electric car for about two years now. The article missed a few points:
1. The regenerative braking means you do not need to replace your brakes nearly as often. (Tires are a different story.)
2. There are far fewer moving parts than a normal car. This decreases the amount of maintenance you need to do.
3. Since there are no moving parts, it's less damaging to the car when drive it hard. Accelerating quickly with non-electric sports cars wears out very expensive components very quickly. With an electric car, you can get that 0-60 performance every single time you accelerate without wearing anything out. (Except the tires.)
When you're comparing the annual fuel bill to the extra cost of the Tesla, don't forget that you are buying a premium sports car. Something like a BMW M5 gets 14/20 MPG, and expects that you feed it premium fuel.
- CrankyPants 14y agoInteresting observation, though I think you're missing a few points in your analysis: 1. Engine braking + looking ahead to see when I need to lift = I seldom need to replace brakes. And my driving is quite spirited. (I go through brakes far slower than does my wife, who doesn't drive with as much zest, but accelerates towards red lights, etc.) 2. Yeah. It'd be nice to not have to worry about oil changes. But besides that, good modern drivetrains are incredibly reliable. 3. Not if it's engineered well. There are sports cars that can be driven hard for the better part of a decade with nothing but oil, filter, and tire changes. (This is from experience.) Sure, there are plenty of lousy sports cars out there, but the causes of their poor reliability are more rooted in lousy engineering than in their having internal combustion engines.