Nissan's Leaf S is now the cheapest EV in the US at $27,400
engadget.com
engadget.com
Then there's the Dacia Spring, much cheaper :)
It becomes a problem for the leaf if you use the fast-charge port too often, for example in a road trip, where the charge rate has to be limited due to the high temperature. (Fast-charging heats the battery.) It can also cause the battery to age faster than normal in hot climates.
This is the critical piece for me: ostensibly electric vehicles are cheaper to maintain due to less moving parts, but the inevitable battery pack repair or replacement is a potentially huge cost hanging over the head of the owner. If you're "lucky" the battery pack falls below five bars within the Leaf's 100k mile / 8 year warranty and you get a complete replacement, otherwise Nissan will repair or replace to get the owner to nine of twelve bars.
Please note I'm not making a case against electric vehicles, just against passively cooled battery packs. If you baby an ICE engine, keep it well maintained, change the oil regularly, moving parts in it will still eventually wear out. EV manufacturers need to work on closing that gap between ICE engine durability which can be decades and that of battery packs which is not there yet.
They need to get to Tesla's "million mile battery" eventually, but that doesn't seem like a fusion/AI/warp drive kinda thing. It'll be here before most existing batteries have worn out. At which time a lot of people will want a newer car (with newer features and comforts) anyway.
https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a30209598/2019-tesla-mo...
One of the pitches we hear often on the switch to EV ownership is that electric vehicles are cheaper to maintain. But, as we close in on 40,000 miles in a Tesla Model 3, the actual savings in service costs is turning out to be quite minimal.
Sure, the Model 3 needs no oil changes, which in theory should save us significant cost. However, the Model 3's requirement that we lubricate the brake calipers every year or 12,500 miles—something specified for areas that use road salt in the winter months—has cost nearly as much, totaling $432 for three such services thus far, which often also include a tire rotation. Although that's less than the $539 we spent on maintenance for our BMW M340i or the $728 for our Kia Telluride, that savings works out to between $6 and $15 a month over the course of our nearly two years of ownership, which would be barely noticeable in an owner's budget.
It's great that a new ICE car can legitimately be expected to break 250,000 miles. They're much, much less of a hassle than they used to be. My 1992 Honda was recommended for oil changes every 3,000 miles; the 2007 upped that to 5,000. These days I gather it's often 10,000.
I can't imagine why they're spending $150 apiece on brake caliper lubrication. It's a ten minute job, and it doesn't require a specialized Tesla mechanic.
They also seem to be getting some cheap service for their ICE vehicles. Most cars get recommended more serious service at 15k and 30k -- services that can easily run $500.
I'm especially impressed that they managed to spend so little on BMW service. Do they not recommend 15k and 30k service? Because they should have spent at least that much on oil changes, much less the air filters and brake service and whatever other stuff is recommended.
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/09/29/nissans-long-strange-tr...
You pretty much need a weird use case with really short trips, a little bit of regulatory favoritism and extra cheap charging in order to make these small EVs work out on a pure cost basis.
Don't get me wrong, these cars are fine cars and go from A to B just like the rest of them but the HN class of consumer who generally poo-poos anything that isn't Toyota Honda, Volvo or Tesla will find reasons to dislike them.
You're right that range for used EVs is a significant issue, but with EVs being cheaper, the "make back the difference in gas" argument no longer holds.
Here's an example of a used 2018 Nissan Leaf (https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/ctd/d/renton-2018-nissan-...) for $20k, which ends up being $5k cheaper than a similar 2019 honda civic hatchback (https://seattle.craigslist.org/kit/ctd/d/puyallup-2019-honda...). Hondas are better cars than Nissans, but it's clear that the price gap between EVs and ICE cars has narrowed considerably, to the point that it has basically disappeared.
As another example, you can buy a 2016 Chevy Spark EV for $6k, and the car will have under 50k miles. (Example: https://portland.craigslist.org/wsc/ctd/d/hillsboro-2016-che...). You'd be hard pressed to find a 2015 ICE hatchback with under 50,000 miles at that same $6k price.
If you are mucking about lower in the market ICE is still cheaper. A Mitsubishi Mirage MSRP's for less than the used Leaf costs. ~5-8yo Kia Rios and Souls (and plenty of sedans) are everywhere for a little more or less than the Spark (which is a unicorn) depending on age/miles.
The spark EV is a great deal if you need a stripped down urban runabout. It's an outlier and they aren't exactly readily available used since they were a compliance car with a set of attributes that make the high class consumers that typically buy EVs turn and run. Go sit in any spark. It will be clear why that one is $6k. There is a reason the dealer is advertising it as something that you buy for a teenager. There is a reason someone only put 50k on it in 6yr. If you need transportation and have that much money there are better ways to spend it unless you are very hung up on miles.
simple, and less overwhelming : technically and financially.