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Comment by Am4TIfIsER0ppos | Hacker News Reader

The car was free and you only pay running costs? Who is giving them away please tell me!

Who said anything about a free car?

In the UK there are lots of deals on second hand EVs. You can get a second hand 3y/o TM3 for £24k-ish. Kia Niros etc are a bit cheaper.

You implied it by saying yours costs a mere 3 pence per mile. Nothing about spending 5 figures at 0 miles when that is what your parent said with "buy 3 or 4 good ICE vehicles for the cost of an EV". Even your second hand ones are 5 figures! 24k + 0.03*miles and 6k + 0.12*miles tie at 200k miles, assuming no other costs such as maintenance which there will be over that distance. The running costs are for someone who isn't me to worry about.

I implied nothing. I’m on a lease, I didn’t spend 5 figures at 0 miles. Comparative ICE vehicles were around the same price to lease.

5 figures seems to shock you but in the UK it isn’t a lot for cars. Here a Ford Focus starts at £28k.

As for maintenance I sold my last diesel for £7k because it was costing me £1,200/year to keep it running.

Being on a lease is even more reason not to generalize from your situation. Leases only make sense for people with the disposable income to get a new car every few years. People who are strapped for cash either buy older cars or get a newer one that they keep for many years.

I’m not generalising, I’m giving some specific non-ideological reasons an EV is actually better for me to challenge the original comment.

It always amazes me that people revert to “EV Bingo” so quickly. They aren’t suitable for everyone, but there is so much FUD being spread that some will genuinely miss out on something that’s better for them in their situation.

> In the UK there are lots of deals on second hand EVs

This is sort-of true, it's still a very small market. AA.com are currently listing 159,000 used cars in the UK, only 6,000 are EVs.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

I think they were referring to the TCO. The total cost of ownership, or TCO, represents the net cost of an item based on all aspects of its use and ownership (gas, insurance, maintenance). Whether or not the math checks out is a whole other can of worms but TCO is an important concept that YSK, friend

> > TCO is an important concept that YSK, friend

Maybe more important, but it's not real, it's aleatory and involves predicting unknown unknowns such as the future state of technology, roads and even simpler if you end up with a lemon of a car or not.

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