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I have solar panels at home which generate way more than enough for my home and EV (and still costs less than my old electric bill before solar), so I count charging as free.
People here keep mentioning battery degradation and replacement costs. I got a Kia EV6 and I love it. I tried many other EVs at the time earlier in 2023 when I bought it and the EV6 blew them all out of the water on both features, quality, and (surprisingly) price. And they also have a 10 year warranty for the battery. They mentioned that it would also qualify for free replacement under the warranty based on degradation if it's past a certain amount. I need to pull out the paperwork and check the criteria.
As far as price comparison to ICE vehicles, I think a fully kitted Mazda CX5 is a good comparison. It's about 42k with 22-27 mpg, so would cost me around $150/mo in gas. Over 10 years that's $18k for gas. Compare to the EV6 that I got for around $65k. I'll definitely save that extra $5k in maintenance costs over 10 years.
Due to the fact that it doesn't have a bunch of moving parts wearing down constantly like an ICE vehicle would, it'll probably last longer than 10 years. Most ICE vehicles I've owned start to become a real hassle after 7 years. I also appreciate not having to constantly get maintenance too.
Helping reduce pollutants is nice, but that's a bit of a heated discussion due to what's required in lithium mining. Even so, it at least feels like I'm trying to do the right thing.
And lastly, EVs are just plain more fun to drive! The linear acceleration is a little weird to adjust to, but it means steady and fast acceleration from standstill since you don't have to change gears, jolting the passengers just to get up to speed. And I don't feel like accelerating a bit quickly is financially irresponsible either since I'm not burning extra gas to do it. When I'm in my gas car, I can practically see the dollars burning away.
I'm very curious about your experiences of having problems with ICE cars after 7 years ... I've never owned a car that's less than 10 years old, and have rarely had problems with them.
It's morbidly fascinating reading how rich people see the world ...
Fuel pumps, exhaust systems, injectors, tuneups, new radiators, belt replacement are all very common after 7 years. Thankfully less common now, but still occurring on many vehicles are head gaskets, transmissions, motor mounts. None of these issues should effect EVs.
I guess they wouldn't, but I wouldn't list most of that as being particularly arduous. I got my current car super cheap because it needed the head gasket, I changed it and it's yet to have any other real problem.
I guess I don't see cars as fungible, hell if I'd had my way I'd still be driving my first car which was 35 years old when I got it (and you can now get off-the-shelf electric conversions for them these days)
Uh... have you ever owned a car long enough to need new injectors, radiators, or exhaust systems?
I've owned three vehicles that surpassed 400,000 miles, with one approaching 600,000 now. I've replaced a radiator once, and it was because of a small boulder tossed by a semi. Belts are usually less than $60, and are only replaced after 120,000 or so. Your average driver won't have to worry about those but once every 5-10 years. I've never had to replace a injector system (and if your dealer tries to sell you a service to 'flush' or 'clean' the injectors, decline; most auto manufacturers recommend not doing anything but replacing, as the service of cleaning/flushing is more likely to cause damage than actually be beneficial).
Fuel pumps are going to be brand-dependent. Don't buy ford, because good lord they suck and the pumps do go out, but again, I've never had to replace a fuel pump (my three are toyota, honda, and volkswagen).
If you pay for a tuneup, you're either racing or are a fool. One of those use cases isn't relevant to a discussion about the average person owning a vehicle.
Where do you live? Anywhere that has winter you will be certainly replacing a radiator long before that. I have not owned a vehicle that has made it past 250,000km without needing a new radiator and at least some exhaust work.
You are describing statistically anomalies of automotive maintenance.
Almost none of those issues effect an ICE vehicle after 10 years. I've only replaced exhaust systems when they're damaged, and fuel injectors are almost never changed.
I've had all of these issues on my vehicles. Sure, some won't happen, but all can.
Have you had all of them happen on a car less than ten years old?
My last vehicle, a Buick, had the engine crap out around 4 years. Something happened with one of the cylinders, can't remember what. I had to get it towed to a shop and it cost $2k for them to rebuild the engine. I know a major repair like that early into the life of the vehicle is uncommon, but these sorts of things do happen and you just gamble on it every time you buy a vehicle.
And the warranty didn't cover it?!
Nope
Wow. Like, I can buy a cheap Chinese motorcycle and it'll come with 3 years warranty, yet Buick can't manage 4
It's because they're not telling you the whole story. A bad engine not covered by warranty? That means they probably ran it out of oil or something.
Quite possibly, along with another commenter who said ICE cars start to give problems at 70,000 miles.
Literally yesterday I was joking that my British friend's 2005 Seat Leon is just about broken in since it passed 250,000 miles. Still runs like clockwork apparently.
ICE cars probably DO give them trouble, because they're the kind of person who refuses to take care of it.
The statistical maintenance costs for cars just go up over time, with some pretty big bumps generally every 60k miles or so you put on the car. There are just a ton of straight up wear components on ICEVs from spark plugs to belts to fluids, clutches, seals... if you get unlucky, you end up with a good chance of a semi-major repair or maintenance item every year. If you get lucky, then I guess you post about it on the internet.
I'm in Europe, we usually expect ICE cars to last 200,000km at least. My Dad's Peugeot had over 500,000km on it when he sold it, his 1991 Toyota's mileage is unknown since the Speedo cable broke over 10 years ago when it had 250,000km on it.
I got my little Clio cheaply because it needed the head gasket, fixing that took me one day and cost under 100€ to fix, and it's still running smooth 3 years and 50,000km later.
To throw things away just because they need a little repair seems terribly wasteful to me.
Thanks for sharing your experience 🙏☺️