Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkyMark
Isn't that the point, that EV's are more expensive than their budget ICE comparisons? You'll be spending 50k on a base Hyundai Kona EV or 30k on the base gas model. Why do I have to compare maintenance costs from a 50k EV Kona to a 50k ICE BMW what is apples to apples about that?
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I hear what you're saying but the math only works out if you do a lot of driving with the cheap cars. If you are just puttering around town, an expensive EV simply doesn't make sense compared to a 30k Corolla. Corolla's are great cars for what they are: low barrier of entry, reliable, good on gas, well built vehicles. They aren't much to look at and definitely aren't very exciting though.
I drive roughly 25k km per year and had a 2015 hyundai sonata before my first model 3. Because of the amount of driving I did, it made fiscal sense to move over to an EV as at $1.50/l gas back then + my car payment, I could justify the EV.
On the other side, I was speaking to my mom about this over the weekend. She does roughly 12k km per year, has no car payment and drives a ford focus harchback. Even if she had a car payment, the numbers just don't make sense for her.
Where the real payoff comes into play is with the more expensive cars like the BMW 3 series as these are what Tesla is targeting with the Model 3. A BMW 3 series with no options comes in at $58949.30 + tax vs a base model 3 with no options comes in at $55990.00 + tax. Based on these numbers, any amount of driving is a net gain in the EV's favour.
One day, EV manufacturers will come out with cars that directly compete with the base model corollas of the world but we aren't there yet.