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Comment by chaostheory | Hacker News Reader

EVs have lower maintenance costs than traditional cars. Over the 6 years I've owned a Volt, I've only had to take it into the shop a total of 3 times for oil changes, and another 6 times for general tire maintenance. The Model 3 should be the same.

I'm pretty sure the Model 3 car charger is tax deductible as well.

The only real caveat is that you need to own a house and most likely a garage, though I know there are many EV owners who have outdoor consumer chargers.

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I recently bought a used Volt, and man do I think it's such a shame this car gets so much less press than Tesla.

I think it's a great car, and when you think about it, it's a much better fit for the majority of people's lifestyles. My commute is short enough so that I rarely need to use gas. One tank has lasted me 3 months so far and I haven't even used half the tank yet. However, it's great knowing that I can use it when needed, and thus I never get "range anxiety".

Also, since the electric range on my Volt is 40 miles, I didn't need to install any special electrical equipment. I just charge it on a normal 110 volt outlet (I set the charging to 12 amps which is fine on this outlet because it's the only thing on it) and it easily charges overnight.

I really do think the Volt merges the best of both worlds, and while I do think that all-electric is the future, for the time-being a plug-in hybrid is really a better option for most people IMO.

Is there any concern around having a tank full of gas so old? Do you add a stabilizer to keep it from going stale?

If it does run often enough to burn the fuel, the generator will actually turn on solely for that reason.

His point is that gas spoils. It polymerizes creating a bunch of hunk that clogs the fuel lines

would be a good idea to run a good fuel preserver in the gas

https://www.goldeagle.com/product/sta-bil-fuel-stabilizer/ (no affiliation, I just have old cars in storage)

This mostly happens in the presence of air. As long as the gas tank is tightly sealed, this isn’t an issue. I drive a BMW i3, I regularly have a tank of gas sloshing around for months with no issues.

All of the plug-in hybrids run maintenance cycles every month or so to ensure that the motor turns over and some fuel goes through the injectors.

His point is that gas spoils. It polymerizes creating a bunch of hunk that clogs the fuel lines

This is something that post-apocalypse fiction usually gets wrong. After a year you would probably not be able to grab any random abandoned car and drive it (even if the battery held charge)

Yeah, and the old jeeps in Jurassic World have 20 year old batteries and 20 year old fuel, and a couple of kids got one of them working again.

If you find non-oxygenated gas, that shouldn't be a problem. Ethanol based gas will go bad faster, and have issues starting in cold weather.

This x1000. I’m in my 2nd used Volt and I’ll probably be driving one for the rest of my life. Such a fun car.

I finally got a 40 watt charger installed in my garage and will sometimes fully recharge 3 times in a day.

> 40 watt charger

Didn’t realize there was a Volt RC car — I’m sure the kids love playing with it!

Whoops :)

I was just talking to someone last week who installed a Tesla charger in the common garage of their condo complex, in front of their assigned spot. The condo hooked it up to the unit's electric meter so that they could get billed for the energy.

In most climates, you really do need a garage. I'm in southern Ontario, and we have neighbours with an electric Soul. They really like it, but they do have to do all kinds of goofy hacks to deal with the charger getting iced into the car on winter nights— stuff like wrapping a towel around the handle and then pouring a warm kettle over it.

> The only real caveat is that you need to own a house and most likely a garage

Not necessarily. I own a Leaf and can make it to and from work (50 miles) with range to spare. I usually charge up at work, at cost, just to have that extra mileage for incidental need after work since I don't have L2 at home. It costs about $30 a month for me to do that which is less than 1/4 what I use to pay in gas.

I work in downtown Atlanta and many work places offer free charging stations. There are plenty of DC Fast Chargers around the metro area in convenient places like grocery stores where you spent 15+ minutes or more shopping.

With a higher range EV, like a Tesla, I think it would be pretty easy to get by without ever charging at home.

I've owned my Volt for about a year now, it's frankly been the best car i've ever owned. I'm -shocked- that these things aren't selling better, on the used market it's probably one of the best values on the vehicle market today next to the leaf. I have the new gen with ~ 65 mile range in Florida. I visit a gas station -maybe- once every 3 months, and it's only when i'm doing a drive over to Orlando or the east coast.

Interesting. I've always been attracted to the idea of the Volt, but having both an ICE and EV components struck me as worst of all worlds when it comes to maintenance. I take it you haven't found that to be the case? Do you have to go to the dealership or can a typical auto shop handle routine maintenance on it?

The Volt's ICE is only used as a generator. That's much better from a maintenance standpoint, if you compare connecting two engines to the drivetrain (like a Prius).

This isn't correct. Both the older gen 1 Volts and the newer Volts with the "Voltec" powertrain can directly drive the wheels from the engine, and in fact this is actually much more common with the Voltec powertrain. This article gives a great summary: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1096942_2016-chevrolet-... .

Most people who own a Volt buy it with the plan of using the ICE as little as possible. Thus, if you use it, say, 20% of the time, you'd only have 40k miles of ICE driving after 200k miles of total driving. An ICE with 40k miles on should need very little in terms of maintenance.

Camry Hybrid engine gets an oil change and other maintenance every 10k miles.

They have a 5k mile checkup between the 10k, but that's mostly to straighten your floor mats and make sure they're locked in place. (Toyota had an unintended acceleration lawsuit years ago, partly due to the floor mat blocking the brake pedal.)

Just the dealership. I don't feel there's enough demand for technicians who know how to deal with a Volt outside of a dealership. Even dealers don't have a lot of techs who can deal with a Volt, which is why you always need an appointment for one. Of course, given that it rarely needs maintenance I don't have any issues with going to a dealer. I could be wrong but the real maintenance costs for EVs start around years 7 or 8.

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