Quote:
Originally Posted by dfox
EV does bring things to the table for a commuter. A few things that come to my mind at the moment:
no need to stop at the gas station because you fuel up at home or your destination. No more needing to stop for gas when you're already late for a meeting, because you charged up while you were sleeping. Proactive refueling vs reactive.
Zero serviceability isn't a detractor for EV's, the service needs are basically non-existent. Brakes go substantially longer because of regen. No oil changes, etc. Just rotate the tires and check fluids. Substantially less work here, or time to go to a shop if you're not doing your own maintenance.
Basically instant heating/cooling. No need to wait for an engine to come up to temp.
No issues with frequent short trips. ICE cars don't like the 1 mile trips that we frequently take living in a suburban area. EV doesn't care.
One pedal driving really does make driving in stop and go traffic a lot less of a pain.
Higher cost, I'd argue not, as long as you are open minded about the situation. EV's are currently selling at about the same price as their ICE counterparts. That said, keeping what you already have is always cheaper. So if your ICE commuter doesn't need to be replaced, don't replace it.
I still occasionally commute in one of our ICE vehicles and have a clear vision of the pros/cons of each system. EV is definitely a more convenient commuter. It comes with limits, but they're very easy to manage.
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Just quick and dirty math...
Camry LE with heated seats is $29,310. Cheapest Tesla Model 3 with tax incentives is $34,990, $5,680 more. At $3.29/gal. and using the EPA average of 51 MPG for the Camry, that's 88,000 miles before the Model 3 hits the payback point. At 15,000 miles a year, that's 6 years before any savings are realized. That's a hard sell for a parent with two kids renting a house where they are not going to drop $3,500 to get a L2 EVSE installed so they can have the magic of home refueling. Add in the home charger and the miles to payback are 140,000 and 9 years breakeven. Add the PITA to charge an EV using the public network and people dont see the advantage of adopting. That's why Americans are not buying EV in quantities to flip the market to EV.
