this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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It's already past the point where only rich people have them. It's currently one of those things where it's actually more expensive to be poor.
I bought an EV because it's cheaper over a few years than getting the cheapest gasoline beater car. It's a bigger cost up front, but the total cost is smaller over few years.
If anything, only rich people will be able to afford keeping the gasoline cars. Similarly to todays vintage lead fueled classics.
I don't know where you are, but in Europe it's much cheaper to buy a used Gasoline car. I just got a 1L petrol car for the equivalent of $10k, I can't find a good electric car for anywhere close to that.
Hello, fellow European. The starting price of electric cars is definitely the biggest issue (and there isn't a sizable second-hand market yet).
If you want to spend even less find out if you can convert your car to LPG. I have been driving with LPG for about 2 years and I couldn't be more satisfied.
According to the german Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, there is not much difference in operating costs between an electric vehicle and a CNG/LPG vehicle. Source: PDF from June 2023
But this does not take into account the price of the vehicle as such. In this case, lpg is much cheaper.
I am in Europe. You have to look past the purchase price.
What I did was to compare the price of buying โฌ3k beater cars throughout the next ten years versus getting an only slightly used EV for โฌ21k that I expect to drive for the same period.
The purchase price is 7 times higher, yes, but the savings on fuel, taxes and financing makes up for it it less than 6 years in my case.
So in short, I had a pretty easy choice in getting an almost new EV instead of continuing buying and repairing scrap cars as I'd previously done for the same reasons.
My car tax (VED) is ยฃ20 a year, Vs ยฃ0 on electric. Fuel and the extra ยฃ20 tax a year doesn't equate to the cost of an EV just yet.
EVs are definitely still a luxury, poor people aren't going round with EVs.
Yeah well, I'm absolutely not saying that EVs are always the cheapest option. In my case it was.
There are many variables to account for when making the decision. I'd just advise people to do the calculations whenever they need a new car. Generally, It's still not that much cheaper that it pays off to get an EV if you already have a functional car, but whenever you need a new one.
I've been thinking about making a webpage to compare car purchases with all kinds of variables, but it's quite a big project to do.
Well that's also what they said, electric cars have expensive upfront cost, but in the long run it's cheaper (gas vs electric cost