[thebluehawk]

It's annoying that they don't make it more clear that's what they are doing, but the gas saving is a real thing. I used to spent $120 a month on gas, that went to $45 a month of electricity, then I got on a Time of Use plan where electricity is cheaper at night and now my monthly "fuel" cost is $15.

[vvanders]

Yup, I was spending $400/mo on gas which is now close to $50/mo before you figure in oil change costs.

Quite a few cars/trucks run synthetic these days which can really start adding up.

[eMSF]

Not really. Oil changes (in a car comparable in size to Model 3) cost me about 50 USD per 25000 km, or 15000 mi, indeed because the oil is synthetic and fulfills certain criteria. In any case it's a rather insignificant amount compared to fuel costs, especially with fuel taxes as they are. If oil change costs start to add up, there's a significant possibility of you doing something wrong (including the choice of vehicle).

[vvanders]

Well first off I'd probably never run a 15k interval. Pretty sure that's beyond mfgr spec. We run 7k in our diesel on full synthetic. Stretching a maintenance interval seems pennywise and pound foolish.

You also have to consider how much your time is worth of you're changing it yourself to get that cost.

Either way it's an added cost(along with transmission, differentials, etc) that you just don't incur on EVs. Right now my maintenance schedule is brake fluid @40k and coolant @100k and tires, that's it.

[jaggederest]

You want to do oil analysis like the professional diesel mechanics do.

Most people don't need to change their oil anywhere near as often as the manufacturer specifies. Especially for large diesel engines, it's often fine to run them 3x-5x the interval, but you should do oil analysis and find out, instead of just using the rule of thumb ones the manufacturer gives you.

[sunstone]

On my 2017 Prius oil changes are every 16000 km at the dealership.

[ollie87]

Heh, my car is on a 18,000 mile interval for the oil changes. It will also adjust based on how you drive it, it only asked for it's first service at 19,000 miles.

[cerberusss]

But isn't it weird to just compare it to fuel costs and declare it's an insignificant amount? It's still 50 bucks.

[mrfusion]

But how much are you going to pay to replace the battery?

[toomuchtodo]

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/04/16/tesla-batteries-have-90...

"Actual Tesla owners report about a 5% drop in battery capacity by the 50,000 mile mark but after than, the rate of degradation drops considerably. On average, cars with 160,000 miles on them still have 90% of their battery capacity remaining. Projecting forward from the real world data available, a Tesla battery should still have 80% battery capacity after 500,000 miles of driving, the group claims. The vast majority of internal combustion engines would have stopped functioning long before then."

Assuming a conservative usage of 20k miles/year, it will take you 25 years to reach 500k miles.

[steelframe]

There's tons of data on EV batteries from the past 5+ years. At least for Tesla, battery degradation is not a problem.

[vvanders]

I'm at 85k miles and still going strong so I'm not worried.

[CydeWeys]

The point is that's amortized over the lifetime of the car though, and isn't an up front savings like a lower cost would be. If you're taking out a 6 year auto loan then it's the same effect, but if you're taking out a shorter loan or paying cash it's not.