• Em Adespoton
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    91 year ago

    Much harder sell? They’d probably be paying close to $80 for gas for the same range.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      More like $60. 375 miles of range is ~12.5 gallons @ 30mpg, or ~$62 @ $5/gallon (current average in CA). If you have a hybrid getting 50mpg, it’s <$40 for that range.

      An EV will cost you double or more vs an ICE, and hybrids aren’t that much more than ICE if you go on the cheaper end (e.g. a sedan instead of an SUV). Even if gas is expensive and electricity is cheap, the breakeven point is still quite a few years, which may exceed the expected lifetime of the vehicle.

      Imo, you don’t get an EV because of fuel prices, you get it for other reasons, such as:

      • eco-consciousness
      • performance - EVs are pretty much universally faster
      • tech features like self-driving - ICE can do it too, so this is mostly product segmentation
      • convenience - charge at home instead of going to the gas station
      • status

      I’m interested because of convenience, as in I’d love to never have to fill up my commuter. But there just isn’t an economical choice, so I stick with my Prius. I need about 150 miles of range because my work is ~25 miles away and we have cold winters (I’m assuming 50% range in winter), and 150 miles should give me enough to not worry about range for 10+ years. However, my choices right now are $30k for a Chevy (battery fire concerns), $50k for pretty much anything else, or <150 miles of range. I don’t need much, I just need a way to get from A -> B with enough range for a 50 mile round trip commute in the winter, with capacity for degradation over 10 years. And I want to spend <$20k. I can get that with used hybrids, I can’t get it with an EV.

      And as far as I’m concerned, EVs won’t work for our family vehicle because we do long road trips to places with really poor charging infrastructure. 500+ miles of range would probably be enough, but 250 definitely isn’t. So we’ll be replacing out crappy ICE (~20 mpg) with a hybrid (~35 mph) for our family car, and I’ll be looking for an EV to replace my commuter (45-50 mpg) once prices start coming down on used.