Electric cars are already cheaper to own and run, says study | Hacker News Reader

Electric cars are already cheaper to own and run, says study

theguardian.com

14 pointsDomreiRoam13 comments

I've been very disappointed in the lack of aftermarket battery and bms replacements for older electric and hybrid vehicles. It seems like I should be able to jump on Alibaba and get a giant li-ion battery bank + bms and drop it in a 2005 prius and have a cheap, relatively high-range vehicle.

I ran the numbers for here in CA. Even just comparing Gasoline pump cost vs Electric charging costs, the electrics are roughly equivalent to a car that gets 45mpg. Maintentance is of course cheaper for electrics because they don't need oil changes or timing belts or spark plugs but that doesn't mean electrics don't have expensive maintenance plans attached if sold as Teslas.

Right now Electrics still cost about 10K more than their gasoline counterparts.

Overrall, I still think a Toyota Prius with 55mpg will be cheaper to run overrall than an Electric, taking into account total cost of ownership.

Yeah when the Leaf first came out I was checking against CA power rates. CA electricity is so prohibitively expensive I would have had to get a solar installation just to afford charging my car. Ended up sticking with my old 90' Honda Civic that got 35 mpg

The key thing to remember is that EV's are going to keep getting cheaper due to decreases in the battery costs, while ICE's are going to stay the same. From what I have read, the experts think that around 2022-25 EV's are going to equal ICE's for purchase price, and at that point the whole market is going to tip. The only thing slowing down EV sales will be how fast the auto manufacturers can switch over what they produce.

This seems to assume that everyone is buying new cars.

Are people who buy new cars generally concerned about which option is "cheapest"?

Whatever is cheapest today will likely result in the cheapest car in 5 years.

Electric cars are new, there aren't many electrics in the used market. In 2024, these electric vehicles will be 5-years old, and their used prices will start propagating towards the general public (who in my view, doesn't typically buy new cars).

This is what I’m really excited for. To buy an electric car for under 10k with a good battery included in that price is just barely doable if you’re looking in the right places for early Nissan leafs, bmw i3s, etc right now. Imagine in a 4-5 years when you can be out the door with one for 7k, 6k. It could actually become the intelligent decision to buy a used electric over a used gas car due to the lack of moving (and breakable) parts.

If the maintenance costs are low enough. Replacing battery packs is not going to be cheap. It costs about $3000 USD to replace the battery pack in a Prius (I assume all electric cars will cost more). Generally the pack has to be replaced between 5 and 10 years depending on use.

Not sure why you were downvoted here. This is my exact concern. Batteries don't last forever, and they're expensive to refurbish or (more common, I assume) replace at the sizes necessary for an electric car.

>Whatever is cheapest today will likely result in the cheapest car in 5 years.

Maybe but I could also see electric vehicles not being the cheapest option with used cars do to the cost of battery replacement. I am not an expert in cars sales or electric vehicles but my understanding is that currently batteries make up a huge cost of an electric vehicle. We also know how battery performance degrades over time. If your in the used car market and your choice is between an electric car with 1/2 the range it had new so 120 miles or so, and $10,000 to replace the batteries or an ice vehicle with an engine with 150,000 miles on it but still full range and if the engine fails a $2000-$3000 engine rebuild price some day. If I am strapped for cash and trying to feed my family I know what I would do.

The difference in cost between a battery replacement and an engine rebuild is partly market dynamics (our good old friends supply and demand). As more used electric cars enter the market, presumably the supply of replacement battery options increases and with it prices should theoretically drop.

Similarly, there's a possible inflection point where ICE engine rebuild demand drops low enough that some of the very specialized ICE engine parts start to jump in price.

> an electric car with 1/2 the range it had new

This seems a particularly pessimistic assumption given current information. (It's generally fair for the small batteries in a laptop or phone, but cars seem to be trending much better than "half".) The used market seems to be seeing 70% as the "low" figure and actively temperature managed batteries (such as GM's, recent Tesla's, very recent Nissan's) as much as 90%+ range entering the used market. Admittedly, sample sizes are still relatively low because overall electric vehicles seem to have longer than ICE average "first owner" lives (which makes comparing the EV and ICE used markets right now a bit more apples and oranges than people realize).

We're there today. You can already buy used Nissan Leafs for under $10k in the US. BMW i3s can be had for under $20k.

You can get Leafs here in CA, now for under $8K, but the problem is their reduced range witch can be as low as 50 miles, making it a bit risky for commuting, since getting stuck means at least 110$ to get towed.

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