this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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American here. So this is speaking from an American viewpoint.
EV cars are just big golf carts IMO. If you never leave like a 40 mile radius of your home, and you don't live in a location that sees extreme temperatures, and you don't live in a hilly or rural area, they're probably fine. But beyond that, they will be very inconvenient. Maybe for Europe since theyre so dense over there its easier to adopt, but here in the States you can sometimes go miles and miles inbetween homes.
The cost will most likely even out with ICE, if not a little more for the EV. Some will say "I cut my gas expenses by going electric," like yeah, of course you did. But your electric bill went up, and you have to spend higher initial cost on the vehicle, plus installing home chargers and wait times of like, an hour, for the vehicle to charge. Add all that up is it really a big savings?
Meanwhile, I daily my 1968 Ford Galaxie, which has a carbureted V8 that I bought running and driving for $1500 USD. Thankfully I am California Emissions Exempt, but California gas is expensive and I have to cry at the pump from my 27 gallon tank and $6/gallon prices every other week, but California electric bills are just as expensive. Ran the AC last month (California is literally a desert and Edison won't catch us a break on AC) and the bill was like $1100 USD for the month, and thats with the thermostat set to 80F which is like 26.6C for those that use that system. Can't convince me to go electric even if you gave me one for free.
Good for people that don't care about cars and don't travel much, but impractical for most people, IMO.
I don't normally bite but so much of this is wrong.
I work in agriculture and drive 120+ miles most days for work in very rural parts of the Southeast USA in my EV, and this summer the temperatures have been around to 100F with high humidity almost every day. I exclusively charge at home with the free level 2 charger that came with my car.
CA seems to be an anomaly, but here gas was $3.44/gal this morning, electricity is ~$0.10/kwh. For my normal operations in my Honda accord, my weekly gas cost for work is ~$60. That same travel comes out to ~$15 in electricity, for a yearly saving of $2000+ in the EV. My electric bills have largely born this out. Additionally, in my area a new Chevy Bolt was the second cheapest vehicle with a warranty--a used mazda 3 with ~5k miles left on the warranty was $400 cheaper. The home charger came free with the purchase, so if you're looking at cars with warranties (which many people without the time/skill/space to work on their own vehicles are) there are EVs that are hands-down cheaper to buy and run, and it's not close.
Road trips aren't as good (except in a Tesla imo), but there's very few advantages irl of modern gas cars over comparable modern EVs. Hell, my bolt, currently the cheapest EV on market (well, now discontinued), has most of the same performance specs as my '01 3-series BMW: same 0-60, same turn radius, same stopping distance, lighter with a similar center of gravity. The BMW is more fun out in the country (can't beat the feel of a perfect manual shift), but the bolt easily beats the Honda which is the actual market-class comparison, and on crowded roads with merging the instant acceleration is a huge bonus.