I can give specific examples where your 3x minimum estimate is a gross overstatement.
Hi Ashful, I gave my specific examples - please provide your specific examples. I'm willing to debate facts, and all I ask is that you offer your own for debate. I never called my 1/3 fuel cost a minimum, I just gave my real example and my belief that is was typical of what could be had.
On a somewhat related tangent, I was recently looking at Volvo V60 wagons. Their R-design sport edition or luxury edition both ran $46k, but the plug in hybrid skips up 46% to $63k. That’s a lot better than the MSRP = $68k they had them at just a few weeks ago, but still... +46% for hybrid! You’re going to have to drive an awful lot of miles to earn back that $17,000 differential in the costs.
I made no statements about the relative financial merits of hybrid vs. non-hybrid vehicles, so I'll just assume that this just belongs in another thread. But in that thread, my view of hybrids is that they are the most soul-sucking driving experience available, offering none of the fun of a stick-shift gas car or the brutally raw low-speed torque or efficiency of an EV. The Prius, for example, has to be one of the most dispiriting drives available. I wonder why anyone would tolerate this experience.
Likewise, you can buy many cars that will outperform a Model 3 dual motor on most performance characteristics, with a nicer interior to boot, for $15,000 less than the Tesla.
I hadn't realized that I was defending a Tesla's performance characteristics, list price, or its interior merits relative to other cars in its class. I thought I was just challenging the math of a previous poster who said that EVs didn't cost less to run and were all just a marketing scam.
Even at your optimistic differential costs
I posted my math - why not post yours? Mine is based on my real-life experiences, not a hypothetical worst-case scenario.
A 12 cent/kWh electricity rate is pretty average for the US (see
https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-state/).
A 45 mpg achieved efficiency for an gasoline car is pretty far above the average - about 20 mpg above the average (see
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...my-rises-to-record-24-7-mpg-epa-idUSKBN1F02BX).
So it is hard to see how my real-life experience is an optimistic differential in terms of fuel costs. In my scenario, I pay 1/3 to fuel an EV to travel a mile versus a gas car.
Sure, we can equivocate about maintenance costs. I do know that I won't be paying $60 for a synthetic oil change every 5000 miles (that is $420/year at my rate of 35,000 miles per year), I won't be paying for brake pads, calipers, etc. probably ever. I'll never need a new muffler system ($300-400) or catalytic converter ($800-1000) or spark plugs. The list goes on. I'll need a new set of $600 tires every 50,000 miles or so, I'll need to rotate the tires every 8,000 miles or so - all things that a gas car needs as well. It's not hard to imagine a $1000 reduction in basic maintenance per year for an EV compared to a gas car, based on 35,000 miles of driving per year and based on a 5-6 year vehicle life (I've routinely put 200,000+ miles on my gas cars).
So, $1,400 a year in fuel costs plus $1,000 in maintenance costs per year = $14,400 in savings over a six year period. If I bought my Chevy Bolt with the same level of trim as my Sonic, I would have paid about $38k all-in (before incentives). Four years ago, I paid about $20k for my Sonic (on sale). I'm driving a nicer car with better performance and at near zero additional cost over the lifetime of the car. OK, I'm calling $3,600 "near zero", but it is not a massive amount of extra money considering the performance difference between the two cars.
higher-end EV’s have not yet reached the point of financial justification, based on their fuel savings costs alone
The debate in the original post was not about a higher-end EV having a lower total ownership cost based on fuel costs alone. Higher-end anything (cars, appliances, whatever) are as much about the vanity and brand-consciousness of those purchasing the higher-end thing and likely not about any real tangible or intangible benefit they provide. There are several lower-cost pure EVs on the market, and more are coming.
The debate was about whether an EV cost more per mile to fuel than an efficient electric car (the poster described a hybrid that got a respectable 43 mpg). It is clear - an EV never costs more to fuel compared to a gas car, probably typically costs 1/3 as much, and could cost even less than a 1/3 depending on what gas car you drove before. In the most extreme example I can think of (NY City northern suburbs) - 25 cents/kWh electricity (for generation and delivery, not including fixed monthly fees) with 4 miles/kWh (6.25 cents/mile) for an EV and a Prius driven gingerly (50 mpg) and $3.00 gas (6 cents/mile), the two are a wash. But if you charged overnight on an off-peak rate, your EV cost/mile would drop to 3 cents/mile.
So show me your real examples. I'm willing to listen to facts, but not to hypotheticals or incorrect math.
![[Hearth.com] Tesla Model 3 Parked in Our Garage](/talk/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Fuploads.tapatalk-cdn.com%2F20191013%2F81c9bea744f64f4bf41521b8f64fe875.jpg&hash=bcf65f63819e75c7c6491371ff06532e "[Hearth.com] Tesla Model 3 Parked in Our Garage")
I'd rather have an efficient heat pump for most heating with a simple resistance heat backup. That would be ideal for our climate.
