I am a California resident.
I am going into analysis paralysis and it’s making me crazy when I sit down to decide if I should go with an ICE car or an EV. HELPPPPPP!!!
Sure ICE vehicles cost more in fuel and maintenance, but EVs have some other costs as well:
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Costs relatively more to insure
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Registration cost every year is higher
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Opportunity cost: a $40k EV is generally compared to a $30k ICE car in terms of break even in 5-6 years. But people rarely mention the opportunity cost of spending the extra $10000. That $10k can make you around $1k each year if invested (subject to market risk ofcourse).
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Supercharging is still not cheap: while still being 50% cheaper than gas, its not cheap. I see 50c/kwh near my area. And not everyone has a home to charge.
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Rate of depreciation: All cars depreciate. But some loose value faster than others. My personal feeling is EVs depreciate faster than ICE. Simply because the tech is growing so fast. The argument for ICE is that there will be less demand for ICE in future due to increasing EV market share. So, little conflicted on the right answer here
I don’t know if am the only one who is unable to see the savings in EV (long term). Am I missing something?? Can eV owners share their perspective?? HELP ME come out of this shit and just book a carrr!!!
The main benefit for us is charging at home every night. Every morning I have 200+ miles of range (ok, less in the winter but still plenty) and never have to go to a gas station.
Second, in the winter I can get heat out of my car almost instantaneously because there’s no engine to warm up. That’s nice when I’m leaving work and it’s 11 degrees out.
Third, we lease a Kia. It’s not impressing the neighbors, but it’s only $350 a month and I save probably $125 a month on energy costs and probably $30 on maintenance costs. Insurance costs are no different for me compared to an ICE car.
If you can’t charge at home and insist on buying an expensive EV vs leasing a less expensive one, then your experience will be different.