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:

  • Costs relatively more to insure

  • Registration cost every year is higher

  • 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).

  • 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.

  • 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!!!

  • bmelancon@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I just bought a used Model Y a couple weeks ago. I’ll go through my experience with your points one by one.

    1. Insurance: My insurance actually went down about $15/mo. I suspect because of all the safety and security features

    2. Registration is based on vehicle value here. It’s higher, but only because the car is worth more.

    3. If you can get a guaranteed 10% interest on a investment, that’s amazing. As someone else mentioned take out a loan for a lower rate and invest the $10K in this amazing guaranteed investment.

    4. I haven’t used a supercharger yet. I will most likely do 99% of my charging at home, where the electricity is MUCH cheaper than gas. Not only that, it’s much more convenient.

    4a. Another note on charging. Before I bought the MY I actually timed how long it took to fill up at a gas station. Pulling off the interstate and stopping at the nearest station with no waiting in line, then getting back to where I was took 10 minutes. That was the quickest (and least out of the way) way for me to fill up. I was filling up at least once a week, often twice, and often taking longer. The number of hours I save on a regular basis more than offsets the few times I might use a supercharger. Time is money. There’s a time savings to consider also. Of course if you can’t charge at home this becomes a negative for an EV, but for most people it won’t be.

    1. Depreciation: As I said, I bought a used Model Y. I looked at lots of dealers. They hold their value pretty well. At least as well as ICE vehicles. I have no way of knowing for sure, but it feels like we are reaching a tipping point. I think in the next 5-10 years the resale of ICE vehicles is going to plummet. Again, just speculation on my part, but I think only highly sought after ICE vehicles will have much value at all in 10 years. I could absolutely be wrong, but predicting the future value of anything is speculation. ICE or EV? There is no crystal ball to tell you either way. There’s currently no good reason to think EVs will not hold their value, but there is at least some reason to speculate that ICE vehicles will be less desirable (i.e. https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/no-more-nj-gas-powered-new-car-sales-by-2035-will-gov-murphys-ban-be-practical/ar-AA1kj0Dn).