You’re right. You should be upvoted, not downvoted. And then there is the cost of accidents. I’ve had two people hit me (their fault in both cases) and both clearly expressed to me their intention to lie about the details of accident to avoid responsibility. They then followed through and lied to the insurance company, just as they said they would.

You might think I must live in a sketchy area to encounter such people. Well no. One was a specialist doctor at Stanford hospital and the other worked at Apple. But they both lied. My car defended me from severe financial costs these people could have inflicted on me. Thousands of dollars if you add up the two cases. And that’s in just a couple years of ownership. Both were caught on video and were held responsible despite their lies.

Of course it might seem that having cameras has nothing to do with being an EV. But some EVs do have a lot of cameras, and that’s part of the cost people complain about, but it’s also part of how the car has much lower total cost of ownership. It should be factored in when making cost comparisons, just like the lower maintenance costs you point out.

The way it does have to do with the car being an EV is that these cameras are backed by a massive battery, so they can be always on. ICE cars can’t come even close to doing that.