After 1 year ownership.
Zero maintenance costs this year, plus averaging around 3 to 5 cents per mile.My motorcycle costs more to drive and maintain.
It’s nice knowing that no matter how expensive gas gets, I’m unaffected by it. Power comes from solar.
My 1st EV paid its own note with the amount of gas I wasn’t buying to run it.
Not even a service?
2 recalls, no cost to me. Brakes were serviced during that time free of charge. All they did was clean and check them. Also rotated tires for free.
My biggest expense I would assume will be my tires. It does weigh like 5400 lbs
Yes, tires are the only consumable that is worse. Especially since it’s hard to turn off the lizard brain and /not/ use the extra torque. Brakes basically rust off them with disuse and then there’s wiper fluid. They really should have old-school drum brakes.
You are not stopping 5400lbs on drum brakes.
You are, eventually, and into a brick wall!
A) it’s the secondary braking system to ever better regen braking systems that are taking most of the energy, and b) my camper trailer weighs about that and can not only stop its self, but can drag the truck to a stop too.
Edit, to clarify, disk brakes were not invented for increased power but better heat dissipation - which isn’t an issue on an EV.
No, you stop it with the electric generator.
Maybe with 200lbs drums?
The engine has one moving part and doesn’t need re-lubrication every year. Makes shit a lot simpler.
Single ratio transmission that need an oil change every couple of years… And change the cabin air filters.
That is the official service schedule on mine. The dealer wants several hundred for that of course. So I use local independent mechanics.
I cannot wait until somebody comes out with a hub drive elec motorcycle with a range of 100 miles or greater. No oil changes, no valve lash adjustments, no chain cleaning and slack adjustments, no Teflon containing chain wax or degreasers, just tires brakes and ride. I personally cannot afford an EV car, but motorcycles have been a great way for me to reduce my carbon footprint, cut my commute cost and have fun while doing it. But if it could be electrified I’d go into debt for it! Over winter I have to drive my Subaru and I spend roughly 40-50 a week on fuel, I’m pressed to spend half that on the bike. Always a relief when summer comes and I can shut down the oil furnace and park the car unless I need the payload area to move a bunch of shit. More and more electric bikes are coming out by the minute we are almost there 🤞
No ear splitting noise either. I’d support that.
Hell yea 🤙 I will say 90+% of the ear splitting noise comes from 2 distinct riders that are NOT the norm, Harley bros and squids. Both those fuckers will take their mufflers clean off because “loud pipes save lives” despite the fact that when they blow by u, u won’t hear so much as a mouse fart u till they have already passed you because their blast pipes are pointing BEHIND the bike blowing noise out the back and away, and in turn offer no warning to drivers in front of them and only serve to annoy those behind. And no cutting the muffler off will not get u more power. These are the same nubs that refuse to use the horn and instead will rev bomb, then grab a fist full of front brake at the last second and cry about how the car is the reason they “haddalayerdown” when there’s never an excuse to lay a bike down because you will always be better off on it. I’m a biker of over a decade and hate seeing / hearing these twats, they give the rest of us a bad name lol. Some of us just wanna save gas and reduce our environmental impact while enjoying the weather!
There are some that have that range, they are just expensive
Have you looked at Verge? They are hub driven, electric and habe recently released (jury is still out on that one) the first bike with a solid state battery, offering a couple hundred kilometers of range
Ugh the verge are super cool, but alas 31k on a motorcycle is simply too much. I am on my 14th vehicle or something not counting stuff that can’t be registered, and my most expensive vehicle by far was 7500. All my other vehicles have cost under 3k, and most of my motorcycles were had for less than a grand. I don’t have much money but I have the skill to make a shitty vehicle nice so I try my best to buy stuff at the bottom of depreciation or broken so that I cannot loose LOL. Even accounting for fuel costs it’s hard to get a lower running cost on a EV than an ICE vehicle the way I operate! Hell my last Nissan I bought for 800 and sold for 2800 after beating on it for over a year and putting almost 20k miles on it.
Did you include the loan payment, assuming you have one?
What about the lease payment for the solar panels?
Did you include the loan payment, assuming you have one?
What about the lease payment for the solar panels?
I’m not the person you’re responding to, but I’m in the same situation of driving an EV and have solar panels.
I bought the solar panel system outright with no lease/loan. It is very much paying for itself and the full payback of the solar system continues to get shorter as electricity prices rise. When installed I had an 11 year payback. That has dropped to a 9 year payback now. I’m in a mostly red state that is is 20 years behind California in solar deployments. This means most of the rules that benefited early California solar buyers are still in place in my state. Full 1:1 net metering, option for discounted Time-of-use rates available only on EV charging.
As I’m posting this I’m pushing a KWh back to the grid and getting the full value of that KWh. I can draw back that KWh later tonight after the sun goes down. Even better, with the EV TOU I charge my EV not on sunlight, but instead after midnight and pay 75% only the cost of the KWh. All this banked money/energy I end up using later in the year when the home heating costs go up.
I know this won’t last forever. As my state catches up to the rest of the advanced blue states and we have a solar surplus during the sunlight hours I’ll be in the same situation as California solar users. However that still looks to be potentially 10 years out.
You can even buy solar panels at Harbor Freight these days. At the moment, nominal 100 watt panels for $95 each. If you can drive the screws and find somewhere to stick them, there’s no need to sign up for a predatory lease. To level one charge (i.e. 120v at 15 amps, 1800 watts) you’d only need 18 of the things, maybe call it 20 to have some fudge factor built in, that’s $1880 plus probably some bits and bobs for a frame and wiring, inverters, and so on.
That’d only be 151 square feet of panels. Your local code authority will probably have less to say about it if you have a solar carport plugged directly into your car and nothing else versus nailing them to your house’s roof, as well.
No you misunderstood. My power comes from the electric company. Their power comes from solar.
Loan is based on cost not type of vehicle.
Don’t get debt for a depreciating asset!
Take those loan payments and put them in a savings account. Then buy the car.
Yeah… Too bad that all EVs are spyware on the wheels. When car makers will be forced to stop or significantly reduce the amount of data they are collecting, I may consider buying one. Probably not going to happen in my lifetime.
This is not exclusive to EVs. Every single new car sold in the US is the same.
Lol if you’re in North America look for an older ev with 3g. The network is shut down so there’s no way it can communicate as long as you don’t give it your Wi-Fi password.
I am. And I didn’t realize that’s a thing! But there is not many models… WV e-golf maybe a decent option
Yeah, leafs are cheap AF, if you can make due with the small range. They have passive cooling for the batteries like the egolf, but I’d be wary of an egolf since I don’t know how well they’re supported by 3rd parties like the leaf is.
I-miev didn’t sell well, and I’ve seen lots of problems with them, so I’d stay away from them. bmw i3 would be the most expensive of the older, 3g options both to buy and maintain.
The other option to consider if you don’t mind an even shorter electric range would be a phev like Chevy volt or Ford fusion. But your commute would need to be less than 10 miles for that to work.
Yeah, I didn’t consider Leaf because of these issues… Thanks for sharing about e-golf. And I’m wary about quality of early Chevy and Ford EVs. Even newer models are crappy. I actually own a Ford Escape PHEV, and cannot charge it at all because of a recall after recall that come with a warning “not to charge due to the risk of fire” and take many months to be fixed. Edit: corrected my car’s model
Oh man, after reading that I’m so glad I held off on getting an escape phev. Couldn’t afford the Rav4, so I started looking at the Ford but didn’t pull the trigger due to the shorter electric range.
Leaf has had active temperature management since Gen 2. They are now at Gen 3.
But the gen 2 leafs also have 4g, and that’s a deal breaker.
Unless you plan on driving antique cars or living a short time, you are going to need to figure out how to rip out a cellular modem at some point to achieve that. There’s no difference between EVs and modern ICE cars on the surveillance tech.
Antique cars! Sounds good, actually!
You can probably pull out the sim card that calls home. Plenty of guides out there too
I’d think most of the modern cars use eSim, not a physical card
Maybe could disconnect the entire module, I know that I was looking at a guide for Chevy Onstar and possible Tesla
Chrysler products use a hub to control RF. It’s a whole module that cannot be removed as it will throw the rest of the computers in the car network haywire. If u unplug it the vehicle will no longer start (ask how I know) They really don’t want u to hide your location!
Wrap the antenna with copper mesh.
That actually might work… It won’t recognize they key fob commands (lock and panic buttons etc), the tpms will no longer read, and you would have to treat the key like it has a dead battery touching it to the push button, but short of those 3 features not working in theory this is a sound solution!
The only one I can think of is the Slate. But they aren’t quite ready to open the doors to buyers just yet. They do claim manufacturing to start late this year. Though you can reserve a build for $50. They claim base price in the mid US$20K. Though I would think most will sell out the door for $30K to $35K when you start adding all the customizations most will go for.
I have hopes for Slate.
Slate looks interesting, but I wonder how that mid $20k price is possible with US based manufacturer… Also, not clear if they will collect data just like everyone else or not.
There is no real way to know about telemetry until they really get out in the wild. But, I wouldn’t think it will have much because of the minimalist design and approach to marketing. It also helps there is just one model that can be either a 2 door pickup or an SUV with some extra bolt on parts and only one paint color-- body wraps extra. And I think they have hit the sweet spot in battery options. You can get the standard 150-mile pack or the 240-mile pack. Most urban dwellers would be just fine with the standard 150 range. While still giving those of us that live in rural areas the ability to have just enough extra range to make those longer round trips we often need to drive.
I think the biggest thing they have done is to re-imagine just what customers want and how to actually manufacture it. It’s a throw-back idea about not selling expensive packages for multiple models, but one model that comes just one color. But you can choose to add things, or not, as you want them. And they, so far, want the customer to have the power to repair or add items and do the work themselves.
As I said, I do suspect the majority of Slates sold will be $30,000+US due to the pretty clever old school marketing method of letting customers choose what to factory install when ordering. A very good way to get people to over spend on wants and not real needs. The profit margins on installing radios is a lot less than letting the customer upsell themselves on those fancy rims and aggressive tires.
It’s a bold experiment in the automotive industry in the US. I think it can work and work well. There is a huge gap in the automotive market at the low end price range that simply isn’t being exploited. Slate can be the one to stake a claim to it.
Bold of them to assume the people concerned about money are the ones buying new cars.
The cost savings, even at $5\gallon don’t make up for the payments, much less taxes and insurance. But the old truck needed $10000 in repairs to stay on the road and so I’m stuck anyway no matter what.
Trucks are still tricky, but new EVs cars are about the same cost as new ICE cars. Used EVs are basically entirely reasonable and in some cases cheaper than used ICE.
Nothing new is going to beat a paid off car for affordability, but that’s a pretty apple to oranges comparison no matter how you slice it.
well yeah, you also have to factor in maintenance and repairs.
Honestly, an old truck is irreplaceable. Find somewhere to keep it and also get a small EV commuter (someday). Depending on where you are, you might even be able to get ultra cheap “classic car” insurance at 25 years for a truck that isn’t driven regularily.
I was doing that for years. Despite $3000 per year in maintenance it still needed 10k to be road worthy, with who knows what next. Since repairing trucks is not my hobby I gave up. I want a truck because sometimes you need one and can’t find one but I don’t have one anyway.
My salvage title 2006 Honda Accord cost me $3200 in cash over 3 years ago.
Since then, I’ve spent maybe another $2000 total on ALL service and maintenance. Including a full set of tires, an alignment, oil changes, brake pads and rotors. A pair of wheel bearings, a new radiator, and a pair of tie rod ends.
All of which I did myself.
Oh, and my monthly insurance premium for this car?
$32 a month. No car note. “But electric cars don’t buy gas either” No. They use electricity. And my average monthly power bill is already over $400 a month. You think I want that to be even higher? No way.
Yea, I get that EVs are better.
But I don’t do car notes. I can’t AFFORD to do car notes.
So until I can buy a 17 year old EV for $3200 cash and only need another couple thousand to keep it running for an additional 3 years, I will stick to the used ICE market.
Using an old car until it finally breaks down beyond repair is considered climate friendly. Less resources wasted on building a new car that way.
That said, I fucking love driving EVs. They’re just so much more fun.
They use electricity. And my average monthly power bill is already over $400 a month. You think I want that to be even higher?
Some of your concerns may be valid, but I pay relatively high prices for electricity, 35¢/kWH, and even at that price, the hit to my electric bill is half what I used to spend on gasoline. Current gas price make that even better
It’s less about the gas and electricity than it is about adding a car note and higher insurance.
What’s car note?
Note = loan in this context. OP is saying he doesn’t want the burden of a monthly payment on a new car, and would rather buy a cheaper car that he doesn’t need to borrow for. (Although these are becoming harder to find, at least in the US…)
Exactly.
Come to Quebec, where electricity is about USD $0.05/kWh. And over 99% of that is renewable (hydroelectric)!
Actually lack of that is one of the reasons we have high electricity prices. There was an expectation to buy cheap and clean electricity from Quebec, that kept getting blocked for reasons outside our control. I suppose at the moment with the political BS it’s just as well we were never able to get connected.
…. But our planned wind farms have also been blocked for many years. We finally got one open despite the federal government. It’s not even directly for us but is expected to cut 1.5¢/kWH off our overall cost of electricity
Yeah, your electric bill would be higher but the increase in electricity you’d pay will be less than what you currently pay for gas, saving money overall. Only issue is the up front cost to buy one in the first place. And all the spying shit recent cars come with.
And all the spying shit recent cars come with.
Yeah this and all the infotainment bullshit they’re putting in new cars is a huge incentive to just stick with my 15 year old ICE. If nothing changes I’m planning to drive this thing till it rusts to pieces. I don’t need or want all that extra crap. Just give me A/C, power locks and windows and a stereo and that’s it.
I live on the southern US coast. Unless I drive it straight into the Gulf, it isn’t likely to rust away. It’s a Honda, not a Dodge. 🤣
Honestly we aren’t that far off from that. We don’t have many 15 year old EVs but you can get a 8 year old used EV for 8K. I think you got incredibly lucky to get a 15 year old car that doesn’t need it’s transmission or engine or some other significant part replaced. Like others said you doing it yourself is what made your repairs much cheaper and to be honest you would be able to do the same thing on EVs for everything other than the battery and motors but depending on the brand you could fix broken batteries as well.
Most people can’t repair a car themselves, especially true if it’s something more complicated than brake pads and rotors. If you adjust your numbers to reflect what it would have cost if you had to pay someone for repairs I’m guessing it might seem a little crazy to invest that much in such an old car. If one were in a wreck and the car was totalled, insurance pay out wouldn’t get close to the amount invested.
Me… I’m still driving a 20 yr old car. Low mileage since I’ve worked from home most the time I’ve owned it, but it’s definitely showing its age. I can afford a new one but why would I want to right now? It still runs well and I have no desire to drop $50k on something to replace it. Happy now to keep my money saved.
If you’re poor, you learn how to do these things.
Oh I get it. But not everyone has the aptitude, the tools and/or someone to teach them. Brakes and rotors aren’t too tough, and I taught my son and helped both my SILs but not everyone has that. I did ball joints a long time ago, starters, an alternator… but my dad helped and that gave me the confidence to attempt other stuff. But one expensive mistake can really cost you too and can discourage people from trying again.
No. They use electricity. And my average monthly power bill is already over $400 a month. You think I want that to be even higher? No way.
Fueling costs per mile (using the term “fuel” rather loosely for EVs) are significantly lower for electric vehicles than combustion, even taking into account plugging the thing in at home with an extension cord. It’s going to be a rather long break even period when comparing to a salvage title clunker, but for someone shopping for a new car to begin with it makes sense.
It’s not costing anyone “less” to be paying at the pump. It’s just an easily forgotten regular expense that everyone is used to. Meanwhile, people have been conditioned to have a cow over seeing any increased number on their electricity bill even if it’s only a couple of bucks. Right now with local gasoline prices it costs something like $60 to fill up my Subaru from empty and nearly $150 for my truck (it has a 35 gallon tank!) and the former I could easily do twice a month if I weren’t riding so many motorcycles this time of year instead. In the Scoob, that’s around 784 miles of driving for $120 in fuel. That’s only be $47.04 if I had a reasonably recent EV and charged it at home.
I went through the same rigmarole replacing my house’s oil heat with mini splits. Yes, my electricity bill went up… On average something like $40 a month. Meanwhile I stopped paying $300 to $400 a month to my former oil company for five or six months out of the year. $2000 - $480 = a $1520 or so net yearly savings I proceeded to blow on camera lenses and more motorcycle parts.
A hundred or two a month won’t help me afford a $300 car note and a much higher insurance premium.
That would be why I included the caveat about someone already shopping for a new car.
You have to understand that the majority of buyers will not countenance buying a salvage titled vehicle and restoring it, let alone doing the work on it themselves. You’re in a rather unique situation there which is not going to be applicable to most people.
The OP’s position is reasonable given their circumstances, and several people, including you, have clearly said as much. Even industry and financial experts acknowledge that if someone already owns a functioning vehicle, the most economical and environmentally responsible choice is often to continue driving it until replacement becomes necessary, regardless of whether it is ICE or EV.
OP seems less interested in discussing practicality than repeated reaffirmation of “I do not want an EV.”
Yes. The problem with that is of course that this is tacit FUD which reads, whether intentionally or not, “I don’t want an EV therefore it won’t make sense for anyone else to drive one, either.”
There’s more than enough misinformation floating around about electric cars already. I specifically want to address the “your electric [sic] will go up real high!!!” argument I hear on a seemingly weekly basis these days, which is something that seems to make people particularly antsy.
Obligatory Technology Connections video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NG4hycq8n0
Man, I would absolutely love an EV. As long as it’s paid off, and I can keep minimum liability insurance on it.
You completely missed my entire point.
They haven’t existed long enough for those of us struggling, and anyone who can afford one isn’t really struggling, they just think they are.
I get you. Thanks for the call out and clarifying. Decades of being on the internet has turned me into a grumpy pessimist🫥
EDIT: one of my best friends has a ~15 year old Toyota Yaris. He just replaced the clutch in it last year, and that was the first major work that it’s needed. That thing is going to outlive his kids. I think it’s great he (and you) are driving old cars that still work; it really is the most economical and ecologically sound thing to do.
You can buy a cheap used Nissan Leaf for less than 5000 bucks, that seems doable for most people
I’ve looked at the leaf. The local container shipping port uses them inside the port.
The biggest issue I have with it is going to make me sound like I’m just making excuses. But I live 25ish miles, in each direction, from my job.
The “official” range is, if I recall right, about 70 miles. And I need about 50ish a day. that makes me extremely nervous, especially since the used market is very much “buyer beware”.
Is the 10+ year old battery going to have enough life in it for that to still be accurate?
Can’t plug in at work.
I would probably be happier if I could actually find a PHEV for about that, rather than a true hybrid.
Another issue is, those may exist in your market, but they don’t in mine. Out of curiosity, I looked. The only used EV I could find within 100 miles of me was a Ford C Max. For 7k.
I live in an area where the used market is full of used trucks that get worse mileage than even my V6 Honda, for 3 to 4x what I paid for it. And the occasional clapped out Nissan that looks like it was ran over by a train. And I won’t touch a Nissan made after 2004. POS CVT.
“Most US drivers”? Show me one US driver who needs to breath fossil emissions to survive.
There are some types of vehicles that don’t work currently for pure EVs. Long distance hauling vehicles, for example. Mostly because most EV charging stations are not pull through, so hauling a trailer while charging is a PITA. A plug-in hybrid would be perfect for this application, though.
There are also many people who live in places where charging at home isn’t practical. That’s thankfully changing, though.
Most people, though, should be able to drive an EV in America. I drive a 2023 Bolt and it’s fucking awesome.
Their point was that the cars need fossil fuels, not the drivers.
If you don’t drive, you cease being a driver.
If you drive a typical distance per year, the purchase price of a new vehicle is almost always more than the cost of all the fuel or electricity you will use in the lifespan of the car, so for some people the lower initial purchase price of an ICE vehicle could produce durable savings.
Some US drivers would not save money by switching to an EV.
Oh wow, who would have thought? It’s almost like demon oil companies were trying to hide this or something.
I’d consider getting one because 90% of my trips are just around a 15 mile radius. I’m going to get a hybrid for my longer road trips to more remote places.
While that is what plugin hybrids are good for, remember that you don’t see the advantage unless you actually plug in for those local trips
You may also take a look into trip charger options for where you take road trips. So far I’ve found there are always multiple choices wherever I want to go, so there’s no reason for range anxiety. For me. And even without trip chargers, is there a chance to charge at your destination? Even the most rural places have electricity
That’s exactly what plug-Ins hybrids (PHEVs) are built for. You only need one of them. Mine starts in EV mode and switches on the fly from EV to hybrid and back with the touch of a button.
For some ppl it makes sense to rent a car for long travel/holiday trips and own an EV as a daily workhorse
Now that the used ICE market is ruined due to COVID and trump, the only hope we have is cheap Chinese EV’s to save the working class any money on vehicle purchases.
It’s clear the domestic manufacturers have given up on Americans and only want to please the rich and their shareholders.
I have not been happy with most Chinese purchases I have made in the past. Are the EVs going to fall apart in 6-8 months also?
You typed this on a device made in china… You might want to update your talking points for the 21st century.
I just want a 70 mph enclosed golf cart that can go 150M, charge at home in a few hours, has a tablet size screen that does CarPlay and some speakers, and won’t kill me in a fender bender. I don’t need giant screens, self driving, door latches that won’t work without power, butt warming seats, integrated entertainment system, etc. Oh and maybe have it cost less than my first house (I had a cheap house)
I’m with you on most of that, but I get much better winter range using heated seats instead of heating the whole cabin. And if they’re not doing an entertainment system it would be nice to have an aux input.
What golf cart does 70 mph 😂 On a more serious note, 70ph sounds very high for city driving
Yeah that does sound scary. I guess by golf cart I mean a very small simple car. I have some interstate driving to get to work so doing only 45 would likely get me killed.
Pscht. The idiot president can’t ruin things he doesn’t know.
Sure he can. Just like a bull in a China shop can ruin things he doesn’t understand.