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Comment by outoftheabyss | Hacker News Reader

Still a huge markup on their petrol equivalents, roughly £14k more expensive. Yes you get a few extra bells and whistles and a small grant to help but that difference still has a ways to go

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Battery prices are falling 10-15% a year. Add economies of sale for other parts of an electric car and competition as new electric cars keep coming out in 2 years the difference will be less than 8k when the op plans to buy. My prediction is in less than 5 years electric car sticker prices will be cheaper than petrol cars with the bans on new ice cars coming in the few years after that new model ice cars might actually stop coming out as car manufacturers would not want to spend money on what they wont be allowed to sell.

According to Consumer Reports, electric cars are now cheaper on a Total Cost of Ownership basis than gas cars.

Your mileage may vary depending on what you select as a comparable and some of your assumptions, but you save a lot of money on fuel and maintenance and need to factor that in. The resale value of your vehicle is also a huge factor.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/owning-an-electric-car-...

For those that are at the bottom end of the market and rely on second hand cars this won’t be the case for a long time.

I lease my car and when looking recently it’s not the case for me either, even when factoring in associated costs. It’s an extra 150 quid a month on sticker price for a roughly equivalent car. Take fuel, tax, servicing reductions out and you are still no where near parity

Surely the fuel cost savings would wipe out the price difference within a couple of years? Not sure what the average price of petrol is where you are though.

[Edit[ https://myelectriccar.com.au/calculator/ confirms this at least for a Nissan Leaf running in Australia.

I wondered about that - using this site:

https://www.goultralow.com/journey-cost-savings-calculator/

I reckon we'd save less than £1000 a year changing my wifes Karoq for an electric Enyaq. Possibly more as I suspect she could charge at work.

So not really worth it purely financially.

Surely the fuel cost savings would wipe out the price difference within a couple of years?

Only if you drive a lot. Based on my driving patterns I calculated it would take me a good 10-12 years to make up the difference. Which is a shame because in every other way an electric car would fit my usage pattern perfectly.

I worked out that based on energy prices and my 12,000 miles per year, I would save about £500-700 per year in fuel in an average EV. Important to remember the 14k difference is based on entry level range and there’s still the issues that charging presents

No phone-as-key? I'd pay $14k just for that. It's life changing.

I definitely would not want to have my phone as a key. I can keep my car key safely attached inside by backpack but I use my phone all the time when walking (taking pictures, OS maps, audiobooks) so its much more likely that I would damage/lose my phone than lose my car key.

I hope you have phones worth of $14k in your pocket in case you break one. I always keep my Tesla's "CC key" with me as a backup for the phone. Also, the phone is horrible key when you have stuff in the hands or using gloves in the winter.

It's a gimmick.

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