Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, regardless of what another account is doing.
I’m ready to trade in my electric car
301–310 of 339 posts
Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car
#302Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if electricity was free, it would take 10s (if not 100s) of thousands of miles to make up for the initial price difference. But the future isn't written yet. It's entirely possible that gasoline will be $10/gallon next year and electricity may be free. In which case, it will only take 175,000 miles to break even. Also, I think we're conflating two stories here. The first is about the SPECIFIC example of me and m…
It's silly to compare the cost of operation of two cars that aren't in competition to be purchased by the same person. You should compare the kinds of cars you'd be likely to buy against each other, or the kinds of cars your brother is likely to buy against each other. A model 3/Y purchase price is pretty much at the average new car price, so a person looking for a new sedan or mid sized SUV would look a step further…
Again. My original comment was in response to someone who asserted it was ALWAYS less expensive to operate an EV than to operate an ICE vehicle. Which is all manner of wrong.
I gave a specific example involving an expensive EV my brother bought and a remarkably inexpensive used ICE vehicle I purchased. I did not say that every comparison of EVs with ICEs would exhibit the same relative costs. I was talking about a SPECIFIC example.
We're I logician I might refer to this as an existential: there exists one. I am not arguing it is a universal.
But if someone says "all EVs are less expensive to operate than all ICEs," then to disprove that statement you only have to find a single counter-example, which I did.
Finding a single counter-example to the universal does not imply the obverse of the universal. In other words, saying "hey, I bought a cheap used ICE vehicle and it is considerably less expensive to operate than my brother's EV" does not mean I am arguing "All ICE vehicles are cheaper to operate than all EVs."
I am happy that you like the model 3/Y and wish you many years of happy driving. At least until you have to sell your children to afford the replacement battery.
Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Even if you are into the remote/outdoorsy stuff, an EV is a perfectly viable second car. This has been my conclusion - the main problem at that point being the sheer cost. My household’s current secondary car is one that cost $10k a decade ago. (Two years old at the time of purchase.) There’s no EV that’s even in the same ballpark for cost-per-km or cost-per-year. (And for a second city-only car, they almost all co…
A Used Nissan Leaf with ~70-80mi range can be had in the US in the $6-10k range. My family has two, they're amazing for everything within a ~30mi radius (which, it turns out, is 98%+ of driving we do)
Taking a look at online listings for used cars in my province, the cheapest Leafs are in the $14k range for models that are about as old as my existing secondary car.
I'd crunch the numbers more seriously if I had to replace my secondary car today.
For some napkin math, assuming I only charge at home and my cost of electricity doesn't go up for the next decade, I'd be looking at about $3500 in electricity costs for 10k km/year for the next decade. Say the $14k car depreciates to $4k over the decade, that's $10k in depreciation. To match my existing car costs that leaves me with an average of $1720 to spend per year on maintenance (which, in my spreadsheet, includes tire changes/replacements, yearly detailing, any other misc parts) on a car that will be close to 20 years old with 200k km by the end of the decade. Might be workable? My current ICE car has run about $800/yr in maintenance after subtracting oil/engine-related costs in years 2-12 of its life. Leaf also seems higher risk - with my current low-value car, there isn't much potential for catastrophic failure (like a battery failure would be), and if there were a catastrophic failure, I'm just out the cost of the car, which isn't much.
Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's silly to compare the cost of operation of two cars that aren't in competition to be purchased by the same person. You should compare the kinds of cars you'd be likely to buy against each other, or the kinds of cars your brother is likely to buy against each other. A model 3/Y purchase price is pretty much at the average new car price, so a person looking for a new sedan or mid sized SUV would look a step further…
Again. My original comment was in response to someone who asserted it was ALWAYS less expensive to operate an EV than to operate an ICE vehicle. Which is all manner of wrong. I gave a specific example involving an expensive EV my brother bought and a remarkably inexpensive used ICE vehicle I purchased. I did not say that every comparison of EVs with ICEs would exhibit the same relative costs. I was talking about a SP…
> For city driving, I charge at home for around 1/3 the cost per mile compared to filling a comparable ICE vehicle with a poisonous combustible liquid.
That's all the person you originally replied to says about cost. You emphasize ALWAYS and use the keyword operate, but you've self inserted the extreme always condition and ignore what operate means.
Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an early adopter, the benefit of less maintenance, home "refueling", and the fact that an EV is more fun to drive offsets the hassle. We've done a few road trips in it, and while road trip charging is annoying (we have a VW ID4, so the CCS network) its still worth dealing with because we enjoy the EV. Personally I think right now EVs are a great second car for almost everyone because you get the benefits of an EV…
> the benefit of less maintenance Toyota/Honda ICE cars my extended family owns usually go many years without more than an oil change every 8-10k miles. Maintenance costs are absolutely trivial if you go Japanese. Heck even the Chevys made it to 200k when we sold them with no major mechanical issues. The costs of ICE maintenance seem to be the most overblown electric selling point. FWIW I dream about ways to rational…
It's not so much cost as in I only bring the car in annually for a cabin air filter, tire rotation, wipers, inspection sticker, etc. Since most of the braking is regenerative the brake pads are essentially unused.
Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car
#307At the moment, ONLY Tesla has decent supercharging (i.e., fast-charging) infrastructure in the US: https://www.tesla.com/findus I regularly go on ~300-mile drives that need only a single charging stop, lasting 15-20 minutes, on my Tesla EV. By the time I've gone to the bathroom and gotten a drink, the supercharger has added 100-150+ miles of range and the EV is ready to go. All the stalls always work. No other EV bra…
It's hard to explain how much better the Tesla charging experience is to someone that hasn't tried both. As frustrating as the company (and the leadership) can be, the car is great and the charger network is outstanding. There are superchargers everywhere. You can get anywhere in the US without having to worry about it. You type your destination into the car and it plans a route for you. It picks stops strategically…
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Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Range anxiety is non-existent. The supercharger network is glorious. Yes, that's my experience too. I never worry about range.
I was trying to make a trip work from Seattle to John day Oregon. It still isn’t very viable, well, it might work now but the range anxiety is there, even for a Tesla.
Yeah me too. I wish I never swapped my old car for a Tesla gimmick.
Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
A Used Nissan Leaf with ~70-80mi range can be had in the US in the $6-10k range. My family has two, they're amazing for everything within a ~30mi radius (which, it turns out, is 98%+ of driving we do)
Taking a look at online listings for used cars in my province, the cheapest Leafs are in the $14k range for models that are about as old as my existing secondary car. I'd crunch the numbers more seriously if I had to replace my secondary car today. For some napkin math, assuming I only charge at home and my cost of electricity doesn't go up for the next decade, I'd be looking at about $3500 in electricity costs for 1…
Personally, I went from a fully-owned 1997 near-mint Honda Civic to a 2014 Leaf. It handles all my driving needs (and the family still has a gas car for the _very_ rare long trip).
I ran all the numbers in a big spreadsheet and determined that with fairly pessimistic numbers on the Leaf for depreciation/maintenance, and very optimistic numbers on the Civic for the same, total-cost-of-ownership worked out to approximately the same per mile. Insane.
So I bought the Leaf for $8k about three years ago. In that time it's roughly held its value or maybe appreciated due to the crazy market we're in, and I'm saving roughly $750/year (6k mi/yr, about) in fuel. More than offset the depreciation in my case, so far.
And, more importantly because all these costs are super tiny in the grand scheme of my finances, I'm driving a 2014 car instead of a 1997. More comfortable and probably much safer.
Re: I’m ready to trade in my electric car
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the benefit of less maintenance Toyota/Honda ICE cars my extended family owns usually go many years without more than an oil change every 8-10k miles. Maintenance costs are absolutely trivial if you go Japanese. Heck even the Chevys made it to 200k when we sold them with no major mechanical issues. The costs of ICE maintenance seem to be the most overblown electric selling point. FWIW I dream about ways to rational…
It's not so much cost as in I only bring the car in annually for a cabin air filter, tire rotation, wipers, inspection sticker, etc. Since most of the braking is regenerative the brake pads are essentially unused.
Reducing brake pad wear seems like premature optimization to me. Good pads can last well north of 50k miles, with some claiming 100k. They're also dirt cheap. I haven't changed pads in almost 5 years and my brakes don't squeak yet.