But unfortunately when you look at the total cost of ownership the price premium you pay for an EV over it’s ICE equivalent here in the UK and the typical ownership period of 3-4 years due to the majority being “purchased” using PCP (personal contract purchase) that has a balloon payment at the end very few pay means most people will never actually make a saving.
Meanwhile here in California we have inflated electricity prices so much that fueling costs are almost equal. EVs edge out gas cars a little, but not by that much.
Damn if that’s the case, solar installations there should pay itself a lot faster huh?
Yeah. System prices are getting more reasonable (since the end the Investment Tax Credit and the sunsetting of our sorta-favorable NEM2 net energy metering program), but new systems need a battery to be practical, so while the PV system costs are coming down a bit, the shit’s still pretty expensive.
Just by googling the electricity prices in California, I’d venture a guess and say yes. Unless it’s particularly expensive to install there.
Here where I live, in Estonia, electricity is about a third to a half of the price of California if you get a fixed plan, or it gets super expensive in the winter when solar is useless, and super cheap (sometimes free energy, but grid fee still applies) in the summer when solar output is awesome thanks to the super long days, if you don’t have a fixed plan. Installing solar panels without hefty batteries wouldn’t pay off in 2026 (the only real benefit is on a fixed plan in the summer so you don’t have to use grid power at all). In comparison, California has way less seasonal variability in production and as I understand it, less seasonal variability in demand too (our heating systems haul ASS in the winter, our record peak power consumption happened Feb 5th of this year).
Unless it’s particularly expensive to install there.
It is famously expensive here.
In comparison, California has way less seasonal variability in production
It depends on where in California the installation is. We have regions that get significant sun year round, and others that are under a coastal marine/stratus cloud layer for long periods of time. We also have alpine areas that have seasonal weather like you’re describing, but relatively fewer people live in those areas.
Upside… the surfing is still good when its cloudy. :-)
Tbf our electricity is expensive enough to scare away industry from the uk. And yet this fact appears true because diesel has shat its pants.
It’s ironic that Trump’s oil war is driving decarbonisation by pushing up oil prices. But I guess him and his friends are making lots of money on US oil.
Trump’s stock trades included a LOT of oil company stock the past few months. He’s been raking in billions from this.
By “nine times cheaper,” they mean the fuel for the EV can cost as little as 1/9th as much as the fuel for a gasoline / petrol car.
That’s great, as far as it goes, but depreciation per mile is usually a bigger cost than fuel. Other costs like registration taxes, insurance, and maintenance shouldn’t be expected to follow this 1/9th pattern either, of course. You’re not going to switch to an EV and find your total expense drops to 1/9th.
It feels to me like they’re telling an incomplete story on purpose.
What’s there to maintain? Even the brakes barely get used.
Where did you get this idea? EV’s go through brakes and tires faster than their ICE equivalents because of the extra vehicle weight.
The depreciation of a car is less than the fuel costs. If a car depreciates by $20,000 over 10 years, that is less than $38/week in fuel. If it depreciates by $30,000, that is still only $58/week.
Even at today’s ridiculous fuel prices, 100 km won’t cost me more than about 15€ and that’s because I have an early 3.0 tdi, the ones made just one year after mine would do more like 12€ and smaller engines might be able to stretch 10€. Just talking highway kilometers right now, city kilometers are WAY too variable.
You can get a 60k€ EV with under 100k km on it for 25k€, roughly speaking. That’s over 35€ per 100 km in depreciation if you bought it new and sold after 4-5 years.
Even the currently ~25-30k ones might still have a few more years of rapid depreciation roughly in line with fuel costs I’d wager.
Where the market really gets interesting for the budget-constrained buyer is when actually good EVs are out of battery warranty for good. They should have reached most of their depreciation at that point, people still have a hard time trusting batteries because they’re more expensive to replace than the cars cost (yes, I know you don’t usually have to replace the entire battery and that failures are increasingly uncommon, but the average joe does not). Since actually good EVs outside of Tesla mostly started arriving around 2020-2021, that’s about 2-3 more years at 8 years of battery warranty.
Your 20k over 10 years only applies to cars that are already cheap. Which for EVs means I’d be stuck with an early Tesla model S or a Dacia Spring (actually that one can’t depreciate 20k over 10 years, it doesn’t even cost 20k). My love for turning wrenches and ability to usually repair even the most annoying problems, means that I can comfortably buy super depreciated luxury cars and keep them on the road for cheap. Equivalent comfort in an EV can’t be had in a cheap EV other than, again, a used Tesla S. I test drove an Audi E-tron and I found it lacking compared to what I can buy for just 2k lol
But a few more years and some EVs I like will have depreciated to under 20k, at which point I might as well go for it.
It says “cheaper to drive” not “cheaper to own.”
Regardless, taxes and insurance are roughly the same. Maintenance on an EV is FAR less than an ICE car (no oil changes, fewer brake changes, fewer moving parts to replace over time). So if “fuel” is 1/9, and maintenance is just replacing the tires and putting in new wiper fluid, then driving is going to be much cheaper.
Tire changes would be more expensive and more frequent since EV heavier
In the UK the sorry state of the roads will be more of a problem for tyres than extra weight.
At the same time, EVs tend to use harder tires (for better efficiency) that don’t wear out as often as softer tires that ICE cars use.
Don’t teslas ship with perelli’s? Those are super soft tires…they grip really well but with the torque those things throw I think they’d last half as long…
I don’t think they’re actually harder. Stiffer construction perhaps. If the rubber compound itself was harder, you’d be sacrificing grip, which I don’t think you’d want with a heavier vehicle with instant torque up the wazoo.
Quick googling session tells me that, on average, EV tires are a little bit more expensive (~10-20%) due to more exotic compounds used and last a little bit less (also about 10-20%) due to the weight, but they still have fairly soft compounds to retain good grip, which is good news because safety is the last thing you should sacrifice.
At the end of the day, each tire is a compromise, and you simply can’t get similar grip AND better wear AND better efficiency as an existing high-end tire unless you find some truly super exotic compounds, in which case it would have to go up in cost quite a bit.
There are also different compounds for different applications, I very much doubt a Nissan Leaf’s tire is comparable to a Model S P100D so the Leaf may very well have harder tires for better wear and efficiency, but unlike the P100D, you won’t be comparing it to a super soft sporty driving focused ICE tire either, you’d be comparing it with economy tires in an ICE vehicle that will also be somewhat hard.
A large portion of depreciation and insurance is fixed, not based on actually driving. And maintenance is lower with EVs as well.
Still though, you are right, 1/9 is specific to fuel, and it’s deceiving. If it.were truly 1/9 we wouldn’t be having this conversation because all vehicles would be EVs.
Oh and don’t worry, if ICE vehicles go away, the politicians will find some way to levy an 8/9ths tax on something else to make up for not having those fuel sales.
Toll roads for everyone?
If you think fuel tax is the majority cost of owning a car, you are going to be disappointed. And why shouldn’t car owners pay to maintain the roads? And how do you think that happens? If it isn’t taxes it will likely be tolls.
We need to figure out how to pay for road upkeep somehow.
That’s not to say the way gas taxes are allocated to road maintenance now is perfect. Far from it. But on paper (at least where I’m from) that’s how roads are maintained.
Yeah, fuel taxes are supposed to pay for that. Given the state of the roads at least here in California, it sure doesn’t look like it happens.
I’m also in California and would agree. The word “supposed” is doing a lot of work there.
On the other hand, with so many EVs in California we have to at least consider a part of that is because of the loss of gas tax income.
Depending on the jurisdiction… Gas taxes go towards externalities largely. Roads are funded through general revenue. Perversely, those who don’t drive subsidize drivers.
If I could wave a wand that I dont have:
Gas tax to cover externalities
Tire tax to cover externalities
Toll fees to cover usage.
Reduce income tax and increase social assistance proportionally.
Obviously that would be impossible to sell, but it would be more fair, and incentive better outcomes.
Sales tax makes sense to cover roads because a lot of the wear and tear on the roads is caused by the trucks that deliver goods. Even if you bike to the store, you are using the roads in that way.
Cars sitting in the garage have less impact than cars on the road though.
With tolls you can be more targeted. A road in a city has more cost (land and maintenance) and greater externalities (negatively impacts more people)
Where im at registration is a factor of 2/4x to make up for the fuel tax. Fun times.
I mean yeah?
Roads are not free. Fuel was a reasonable proxy for usage previously. Without that it just leaves non drivers to subsidise driving.
Im not disagreeing, it just kinda sucks that im in a VERY low paying with VERY high taxes for our area. In theory that means we should be getting better services. But its quite the opposite.
True. However as has prices rise the ‘savings’ should increase further such that the tax feels smaller compared to the fuel ‘savings’.
The other thing to consider is that high weight vehicles, think tractor trailers, but also EVs to an extent, do significantly more damage to the roads they operate on. I wonder if the proliferation of EVs will increase road wear.
Cost of motor oil almost doubled. If you can even find it.
depreciation per mile is usually a bigger cost than fuel.
OK, this might be something that a fleet manager would care about, but the average driver wouldn’t consider in a hundred years. You don’t have to swipe your card and pay for depreciation every four days. Not to mention that depreciation has no bearing on vehicle type and little connection to physical reality at all.
And if anything, EVs maintenance is lower than expectations. There is no robust recycling of EV batteries for instance because it turns out that the batteries last reliably for 30 years and most of the ones produced are still in service. Also EVs are by nature simpler, with many components being solid state. ICE are rube goldberg masterpieces, the result of decades of continuous development.
Depreciation is irrelevant and only brought up by combustion promoters. A car is a tool, not an investment in itself. The only relevant metric is overall yearly cost until the car dies.
Changing cars every few years, which is where depreciation matters, is an expensive luxury no one actually has to play.
“to drive”
It’s literally correct.
It’s not 1/9th to own or registre. But it certinly is cheaper in reperations and service.
Yes, strictly “to drive” (by which I assume they mean fuel only) makes sense. Medium term expenses are a mixed bag, like increased tire wear but no oil changes. Long term is a mixed bag as well, with an eventual battery replacement and depreciation, offset by the long term costs of a ICE drivetrain.
It’s clearly cheaper day to day, and overall cheaper in the long run. But it’s not all roses.
Maintenance is also much lower cost. I’m looking at upgrading the battery on my 2013 leaf. Its at about 90% capacity and it didn’t start with a lot of range. Upgrade is still under 10k.
Nope.
i would have already switched to ev in finland, but looking around for charging station and generally not being able to afford one holds me back. getting one used might be even more expensive if i have to replace the batterys.
That’s all fine, but I’m still not gonna drive one. Nothing connected to the internet will make it to my driveway.
Just get a stellantis EV. Their connectivity is so utterly shit you don’t have to worry.
Looks like you aren’t driving any car made after 2018, so why say you aren’t driving an EV?
My wife’s 2019 Acura isn’t internet ready…
I drive a 2014 and probably will until the end. This need to buy a new car every few years baffles me.
I love my V8, manual transmission mustang and will drive it until the end.
Aren’t those two separate issues?
Sadly, they’re not. Every single EV is a privacy nightmare.
I’d love a dumb EV, but there is none.
I believe with Chevy evs at least there are guides to remove the modem/OnStar and even guides out there for Teslas
All you guys worried about privacy in your car pull out the batteries on your phones while driving? It’s all the same data.
Slate is still going to be constantly connected to the internet, feeding data back to Slate…
And it’s backed by Jeff fucking Bezos lol. Yes, it will be a nice little bare bones vehicle, but that’s irrelevant to the brain and network of the thing.
There might be less data to collect, but they’re still going to be collecting and sharing data.
Slate is still going to be constantly connected to the internet
No, it’s not. It doesn’t even have a cell radio.
It’s bluetooth only, no modem.
Every single car in the last five years is a privacy nightmare, not just EVs. My next car will likely be an economical ICE not because it’s ICE, but because it’ll be old enough to not be a privacy nightmare.
What dumb ICE cars are there?
Retrofitting classic cars is a thing. Have you looked into that? I agree it seems you are letting a different problem lock you into inaction.
It’s very expensive and you get a car no one can service.
Well yeah getting things tailor made to meet your needs is expensive. It sounds like your going to have a really bad time paying extra for dirty gas options going forward. I hope you can keep finding someone to service your car until you can’t drive anymore.
Every single EV is a privacy nightmare.
I’d love a dumb EV, but there is none.
Slate Truck. I mean, the base model is also stripped of basically every luxury that’s been on a vehicle since the 1980s to bring the base price down. It does have airbags. There are no privacy issues because there is no entertainment computer, no GPS radio, no cell radio. Just a mount point for you to provide your own computer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slate_(vehicle)
Designed around a starting price of US$24,950, the vehicle uses a simplified design with fewer parts and omits features such as an infotainment system, speakers, and power windows. All vehicles are to be produced with an unpainted gray plastic exterior and support customization through accessories and vinyl wraps.
The Slate’s base configuration, called the “Blank Slate”, will not include an infotainment system, speakers, or power windows. All units will be produced with the same unpainted gray polypropylene exterior, with vinyl wraps as the only offered way to change the exterior color.[13] A smartphone mount will be standard, and a tablet mount optional. The Blank Slate configuration will have fabric armrests and physical climate control knobs. The company plans to offer a large number of accessories for professional or DIY installation.[14]
There isn’t much there to have privacy implications. I haven’t looked at the (now government-mandated on new cars) tire flat detection system, whether it uses radio to talk to the wheels. Some people are concerned that vehicles that use radio TPSes broadcast a unique ID, and that that facilities ALPR-like logging of vehicles, though I’d guess that for most, that’s a pretty secondary concern to things like manufacturers harvesting data via phone-home.
That being said, it’s got a shorter range than, say, a Tesla Model 3, which could be an issue for some users.
EDIT: And just to be clear, since OP’s article is talking about the UK, I have no idea whether it’s available in the UK. Serial production should be starting in the US shortly, late this year.
EDIT2: NACS-based charging reports a vehicle’s VIN to the charging station when charging, which may be an issue from a privacy standpoint; the Slate can do NACS charging. 240V and 120V charging is a lot slower. It might be possible to do something like an NACS charger linked to a NACS->J1772 adapter linked to a J1772->NACS adapter to isolate the vehicle from the charger at the tradeoff of being limited to J1772 charging rates; I haven’t investigated this. I don’t know if someone makes an NACS->NACS device that doesn’t relay the VIN; again, haven’t investigated.
NACS charging is why no one steals EVs.
considers
My vague understanding from past reading is that often cars that are stolen are broken down for parts, and the parts sold, which generally makes it easier to fence the stolen goods. I’d think that that’d defeat that.
There is a relatively simple solution to that problem, you can disconnect the system from the Internet by replacing its antenna connection with SMA terminators. Here’s an example with lots of details about it:
Some cars you just need to pull a specific fuse too.
My Nissan leaf doesn’t have an internet connection
The rare exception. Keep it as long as you can.
Agreed. Even without internet connection, there still remains a ton of other stuff I don’t like about modern cars. I find them quite frustrating to drive honestly.
I’m perfectly happy with my -07 Nissan pickup and willing to drive it the next 20 years too if I have to. Just gotta try and stay ahead of all the rust.
Pretty soon insurance will require black boxes
How does that matter now?
Because it is pointless to try to buy an offline car.
Especially when everyone is online through their phones.
Honestly aside from Lemmy, this is not an issue to most.
