Comment by jader201
1 day ago
A lot of people responding to this thread saying to buy a cheap ICE vehicle.
Saving money on gas is only one reason to own an EV.
Other reasons include:
- rarely having to take it in for service
- never having to stop for gas when commuting
- a much quieter ride
- a much smoother ride (no transmission)
- instant torque
- no emissions
There are probably others I’m forgetting. But I can’t wait for the day I’ll not need to own an ICE vehicle (still better for long trips).
Another thing is that an equivalent ICE version of the Roadster would most likely use premium gas. There is no such thing as premium electricity - an electron is an electron. So the cost savings are even higher.
But personally I would recommend people consider a used Model 3. They can be $25-30k which is new Prius territory. I don’t recommend other manufacturers because IMO the competition only started making good electric cards in the last year or two, so these tend to be higher-priced because they’re newer.
EVs are nice, and Im full EV on all my cars at this point. But I concede I would not own any EV if I could not charge at home. If I was still in an apartment, I'd be ICE all the way
100%. Yes, many of my points are mostly negated if you can’t charge at home.
Not only is charging away from home no less expensive — and sometimes more expensive — but the time it takes to charge on the road is a deal breaker.
That’s why I mentioned I own an ICE vehicle purely for long distance travel.
I’m hoping someday away-from-home charging drops (significantly) below gas prices, and also that charging speeds get closer to the time it takes to fill a tank of gas.
Or, more likely, that range will allow you to drive several hours without ever having to charge on the road, so that you can just use destination charging.
EV driver for 10 years, and that is absolutely the big difference maker. The economics and time savings disappear if you have to use public charging infrastructure. I feel like it is almost like a tax that is put on people who can only afford to rent an apartment.
I've had two EVs and have been driving EV only for about 10 years. I've been driving an ICE vehicle lately due to an issue with a wiring harness on my EV that it is getting service for. It's been so long since I regularly drove an ICE that it has been an unpleasantly shocking experience.
- The cost savings are as much as a car payment. >$100/week in gas when my entire household electric bill averages only $200/month. Up until this recent issue at 85k miles, I've had $0 in maintenance costs (excluding tires). Those same miles in an ICE would have cost me about $2000 in oil changes and brakes by now.
- Getting gas sucks. Sure, it is easier to get gas than charge an EV at a public charger. But it is far more convenient to charge at home every day. In 10 years, I've used a public charger maybe 10 times, but I have to get gas at least once a week. Would you rather have a phone with 6-7 days of energy but you had to drive to a dirty gas station to fill it, or just plug it in every night?
- ICE range anxiety when I have a quarter tank left. I know I can get gas all over the place, but it is pretty rare that my EV has as little range in it at the start of the day as this ICE vehicle with a quarter tank left. Either I go to the gas station more frequently, or I have to account for going to a gas station before driving 30-40 miles away.
- EV powertrains are so much better than gas powertrains. More powerful, smoother, quieter, drive better especially due to the better weight distribution (front to back, and height of the center of gravity).
I can't wait to get my EV back.
> still better for long trips
I own an ICE car and an EV. We use the EV for long trips and it is great. The only time we hesitate is when we are going out into the middle of nowhere.
EV advantages on trips:
- Smooth ride
- Always-ready A/C
- Pet mode
- Self-driving
You do have to plan a bit more. The Tesla route planner is excellent. Having a charger at your destination really seals the deal.
that's interesting. we have both ICE and EV and would never think of using the ICE over the EV for long trips, that's primarily the reason we keep the ICE vehicle.
So it sounds like you're solving for different problems here. If I'm taking a long trip, the primary problem I'm solving for is "time to location" and "difficulty planning" and ICE wins, period, if charging is required mid-trip.
Maybe people want to take leisurely strolls while charging up or will be stopping for lunch at that truck stop anyway, but that does not solve for my problems as well. I don't have a pet, my car's heating/cooling is perfectly cromulent, and I enjoy the act of driving a car.
Also, what is "smooth ride"? Are we talking suspension or accelleration/braking?
> If I'm taking a long trip, the primary problem I'm solving for is "time to location" and "difficulty planning" and ICE wins, period, if charging is required mid-trip.
You should be able to recharge at least 200 km of range in a 20 minute stop which is probably enough until your next break. An ICE lets you cut out those breaks but you really shouldn't because breaks are good for you (and your driving).
Either your car or whatever you use for GPS directions already handles the planning for you. It will automatically find and route you to chargers as needed.
Just go test drive a Tesla. No one can properly explain the driving experience.
You don't have to buy it and it costs you nothing. The sales people aren't sleazy either.
Just try it so you can speak from experience.
> - no emissions
This is particularly nice when you're warming the car up in the garage during cold snaps. Hard to do this with ICE vehicles without risking carbon monoxide buildup.
> never having to stop for gas when commuting
I think this reason is understated. A friend was attacked at a gas station years ago, and since then she's had a major fear of gas stations. Her husband would fill her car for her so she could commute to/from work. She bought an EV a few years ago, and this was a major reason for it - she can fuel-up on her own without being a pain to her husband.
not having much maintenance and charging at home are huge ones. i don’t understand why there is no creative advertising around that. such obviously huge wins
Because most car brands and especially the dealership network make a lot of money with maintenance. The maintenance frequency and cost of my electric Audi is not much cheaper than my previous Diesel. It is a rip off. Only Tesla is more aggressive with longer intervals and they kind of communicate the cost savings in their ownership cost calculator.
> The maintenance frequency and cost of my electric Audi is not much cheaper than my previous Diesel. It is a rip off.
Then don't take it in for servicing if it's not needed. DIY the few things an electric car actually needs, or take it to an independent mechanic if you can't be bothered or lack the skills.
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For one, renters are largely locked out of reliable home charging in most cases. No apartment complex I've lived at had any charging stations, never mind the quantity needed if most residents opted for EV.
In lots of places, including where I live (center of one of the largest European cities) charging at home is not an option, for now at least.
"Charging at home" feels elitist to a lot of folks and I imagine it would hurt your brand
Quieter maybe, but it sounds like a ghost at 3am driving through my neighborhood. Damn it neighbor stop scaring me.
I'll stick with my s2000. Thank you.
The S2000 is anything but cheap, practical and reliable. It's not 2006 anymore.
I think they are fairly reliable if nothing else. Certainly not cheap or practical.
> - no emissions
Can we just say it out loud? Because it's good for the environment and we don't want our children or their children to have an unlivable planet. This should probably be the number one reason, but yes EVs are better in many other ways too.
Driving cars is not good for the environment whether your fuel is electric or diesel. The billions acres of concrete and asphalt to support car commuting, the electricity that charges the cars, the rubber microplastic tire dust made 100x worse under hard acceleration of heavy vehicles .
Best I can say about EVs is they’re quiet and don’t wear out their brake pads, and the lack of other service is economically efficient, so in that sense they are progress towards a vehicle less likely to fail on you (software updates not withstanding!)
If you care about the environment you get an old VW or ideally a Mercedes that runs on used vegetable oil. A thousand pound lithium battery per household is not a tenable way out of destroying ecosystems.
> If you care about the environment you get an old VW or ideally a Mercedes that runs on used vegetable oil.
This is not realistic nor scalable. The reality is that the US and Canada were built around cars, and even if we had huge transit projects there would still be a need for roads and vehicles due to the size and rural/industrial areas.
Lithium batteries can be recycled. All the studies have shown that electric cars are a huge net win for the environment, and the cries about the environmental cost of building the cars in the first place don't actually match the reality. Especially when you consider that future ev ecosystems should and hopefully will have a strong battery recycling operation.
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Don’t let perfect get in the way of much better. The freedom from foreign oil is palpable.
In my experience electric cars aren’t significantly smoother or quieter. Most noise in a modern passenger car is generated by the tires and air drag, and for some reason I found these more pronounced in the electric cars I’ve tried (maybe for the lack of engine noise).
My wife and I share a plugin hybrid and an EV. You'd think the EV is as loud, because you notice the air and tire noises in the absence of the engine noise.
But in the plugin hybrid, the change in noise is very noticeable when the car goes from pure EV into hybrid and the engine kicks in. It's specially loud when the engine revs up as you're accelerating, but even when the car is cruising, I can still hear the engine noise.
That is true above 50 km/h right? In many european cities you drive below that. In many French cities the max speed is even 30 km/h. Then EVs are much quietee.
I'd say the majority of the reason is no engine noise, but also keep in mind EVs are heavier than ICE cars. More weight means more road noise. Regenerative braking means they have significantly less brake wear than ICE cars despite the weight, but the tyres take more stress.
No emissions is simply not true the majority of the time. The emissions are coming out of the gas/coal powerplant somewhere else.
As Hannah Ritchie (Our World In Data) has pointed out, even with the worst coal powerplant powering the grid, an EV is getting a much better CO2 per mile driven than an ICE. As the grid powerplants improve, that only gets better. An ICE car is always an ICE.
Of course, if you look at the energy mix for our grid. But the possibility (maybe even the inevitability) exists that the grid will be powered by cleaner sources over time. No such possibility exists for an ICE vehicle...
I generate 80% of the power I drive on (PHEV + 10kW of PV on the roof), though I mostly commute by bike so I don't drive a ton.
Grid electricity generation is more efficient than ICE. Fossil fuel extraction is a major emitter even before the fuel is burned. Decarbonising the grid is underway.
True, but that's not a limitation of EVs but rather the state of energy production in most countries. An economy that moves towards solar/nuclear/wind will see blanket decreases in emissions across the entire fleet of EVs it supports.
Not to mention that even in the current state of affairs in the US, the emissions are far lower on average. Even in states where production is 60% coal: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2023/ph240/stafford1/
The word is "less", not "no" and I think that's the magical thinking OP was trying to address. Electric cars create LESS emissions, not none.
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A glorious double example of Simpson's paradox.
Naively you might think this (eg here in Australia the majority of electricity is still generated by burning coal) but:
- this is not true during certain times of day, and,
- this is not true for a growing number of buildings that have PV solar
Wait till you learn when, and how, the typical Australian EV gets charged!
> - rarely having to take it in for service
ICE cars are pretty reliable, frequent service tends to be for luxury brands.
> - never having to stop for gas when commuting
This is achievable with ICE by just watching your tank. Also, it's not really a benefit because charging takes a lot longer than a gas fill up.
> - a much smoother ride (no transmission)
Unless it puts the motors in the wheels, they have transmissions and gearboxes.
> - no emissions
They have emissions base4d on the electricity generation method, but even so it's still a lot less than ICE and this is a huge benefit.
> it's not really a benefit because charging takes a lot longer than a gas fill up.
Plug in at home takes way less of your personal time than a gas station and costs significantly less than public charging.
I agree, but it still takes longer and there's never a need to gas up on your commute if you just watch your tank.
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