Electric Cars Are Suddenly Becoming Affordable
nytimes.com
More efficient manufacturing, falling battery costs and intense competition are lowering sticker prices for battery-powered models to within striking distance of gasoline cars.
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I paid too much for my EV, but am glad to see the prices come down for future buyers. When the price is competitive with ICE vehicles, I think we’ll see rapid adoption.
I got my EV used, and in three years I've already saved more on gas than I paid for it.
EVs are so much cheaper to maintain and operate; no gas, no oil changes, no transmission, no sparkplugs or timing belts. If the sale prices are close, the total cost of ownership will be massively in favor of the EV.
Modern cars in general are cheaper to operate. Have had a hybrid for 7 or 8 years. Other than annual oil changes and one change of tires, it has been zero maintenance. Still on the original brake pads thanks to regen braking (which EVs also benefit from, but the extra weight forces more frequent use of friction brakes.)
A Nissan Leaf weighs about the same as a Prius Prime. Many EVs are way heavier though.
Wait WHAT? EVs don’t require regular maintenance like a normal car does? That’s SICK (if true)
It does require maintenance, but you don't have to worry about the engine, transmission, turbos and other related moving parts. Your maintenance is basically brakes, tyres and other simple and cheap wear and tear parts.
So no oil changes and shit like that? That’s is the biggest pro I’ve ever heard for EVs lmao
Drawback is EVs tend to run through tires faster, and you should be careful selecting tires because they can have a drastic effect on range (the better ones obviously being far more expensive). Also, road noise from cheap tires is much more noticeable without several thousand controlled explosions per minute happening three feet from your face.
That's a myth. EVs have EV specific tyres. Just like trucks have truck specific tyres. No one would drive trucks if you were forced to use small car tyres on them.
Anyone who's owned an EV and a comparable ICE vehicle knows this isn't a myth at all lmao. They weigh more, and all that instant torque at 0 RPM means that you're almost guaranteed to go through tires faster.
Again, that's NOT how it works.
Yes, it very much is. I've owned 2 EVs for 6 years at this point, they absolutely go through tires faster than my ICE vehicles, even on the factory tires. Go to any EV owner forum, and you're almost guaranteed to see complaints about tire wear. It's very, very much a thing.
Now, it's not necessarily inherent to EVs, because it's down to weight and torque output, so a big heavy truck with lots of torque can also burn through tires plenty quick. But still, EVs are much heavier than an equivalent ICE.
Take a look at 2 vehicles from Kia that are dimensionally almost identical, the Telluride and EV9. The Telluride weighs 4,522lbs in its maxed out AWD trim, while the base FWD trim of the EV9 weighs 5093lbs, and the AWD version is over 1200lbs heavier than the equivalent Telluride at 5,732lbs.
If you've got a pretty typical midsized modern vehicle around 3000lbs, go ahead and drive the next set of tires with 700-800lbs of sandbags in your car and see how your tires hold up.
Not to mention there are already a number of studies showing that total PM emissions from EVs are only marginally better than ICE cars, if at all, despite having zero tailpipe and reduced PM from braking due to regen. Now, try and guess where all that additional particulate is coming from...
Get yourself proper tyres, mate.
Is this specific to cars¿? I have an EV scooter (more powerful than a moped and without pedals) and I have not observed higher tyre wear. But then again my scooter isnt much much heavier than its petrol counterpart. Cars on the other hand do see a drastic increase in weight when going from ICE to EV
I would assume it’s because EVs may be heavier than there ICE counterparts.
Edit:thanks for the downvote. But…
There's no combustion engine and gearbox, so no oil :)
Nope. I mean I've replaced the tires once and windshield wipers a couple times, refilled the wiper fluid, but that's about it. The thing that powers the car is a sealed electric motor, not too unlike the kind you'd find in a washing machine; it works for decades and hundreds of thousands of miles without service. It's just magnets and wires inside, no explosions or soot to gum up the works.
Since the motor also works as a regenerative brake, you need to service the brake pads much less often. And since the 12v cabin battery is kept constantly tended and never used for cranking, it also lasts many years longer.
So yes, still some maintenance, but you save a ton of time and money long term.
Ehh, this isn't necessarily true for most EVs at this point, at least from my experience. Since they don't have to put up with cranking loads, they tend to be far smaller than one in an ICE. This means that all the "idle" stuff that's running when the HV contactors aren't closed and the DC-DC charging circuit isn't active drains the battery much more quickly, and draining them below ~70% is what starts to degrade them rapidly.
I've personally never had an 12v battery in an EV last more than about 5 years, while I've had batteries in my ICE cars do double that before they showed any signs of trouble.
One other slight issue I've noticed is that a marginal 12v battery makes the car absolutely lose its shit. I can't even tell you the number of people I've seen on forums who think their car completely shit the bed due to the number of faults and such it'll report, even though it's still driving somewhat normally.
My 12v has a 10 year warranty, so if it did die after five years at least it would be free to replace.
I always turn the car on to use the accessories since 'idling' doesn't really use any extra power, keeps the battery tended, and lets me use the AC/heater.
Most of the complexity in a combustion vehicle is in the engine and transmission, both things that an EV hasn't got. A lot of mechanical compromises are made to allow converting gasoline explosions into forward momentum.
An EV will still require brakes and tires, and eventually it'll need replacement suspension components and probably wheel bearings just the same as any other car. And at some point it will surely need a coolant flush if the battery pack is liquid cooled, which it probably is.
But it will not require engine oil changes, air filter replacements, spark plugs, transmission flushes, a replacement clutch, or transmission rebuild; nor will it ever need a belt replacement, pulleys, tensioners, or idlers; nor a timing belt replacement, emissions system repairs, and thieves will never steal its catalytic converter.
An EV will, however, eventually require a battery pack replacement. Which is guaranteed not to be cheap.
Rotate/change the tires about as often as you normally would. That's just about it. They have far less moving parts that get far less hot and don't have tiny explosions in them almost ever.
Are you not including the cost of electricity into your estimate? It is cheaper then gas manly because it is not taxed out the wazoo yet.
I happen to live next to a free charger provided by the state, and not far from a free fast charger provided by the dealership, so it's essentially free for me.
Electricity here usually costs about $0.12 per kwh, which can charge the car for 4-5 miles of range. That's $0.84 to go 28 miles.
Most people charge at home just by plugging the car into an outlet, so I have no idea how that would be taxed. With EVs we pay the road tax during vehicle registration, which is an extra $100 each year.
My utility company alleges that they charge a different -- and higher, no surprise -- rate for EV charging. I concur that I have absolutely no idea how they would know, unless you were dumb enough to volunteer to them that's what you were doing and allowed them to install the charger themselves with its own attached meter. Especially if you're using an L1 charger, plugging in your car would be indistinguishable from any other constant load like a heater.
Which is why automakers and big oil have fought so hard against bringing down the cost of EVs.
Same