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!!!

  • reddituser111317@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    You’d need to look at the costs on a case by case basis.

    For me, no, an EV would not save money but my use case doesn’t fit very closely to the average car owner. I don’t drive all that many miles in a year, live in a cheap gasoline area and my current vehicle is averaging 43.7 mpg over its life.

    By the time I add up the cost of trading/selling my current vehicle for an EV, plus the substantial insurance increase, plus the loss of income from selling my excess power back the electric company through net metering it’s a money losing proposition. And this isn’t even looking at depreciation, increased tire costs or registration fees.

    But if you drive the average distance people drive, live in a higher gasoline price area and can charge at home most of the time