| Should I buy an EV? Hmmmm...let me think about that. I'm currently driving a 2015 Honda Civic that I paid $12,500 for when it was three years old and it gets 35 MPG. I have a Suzuki motorcycle I paid $2500 for (also bought used) that gets 70 MPG. The combined cost for both vehicles is $15,000. I drive my car about twice as often as I ride my bike I'll put my combined MPG at 47 MPG. I drive/ride about 10,000 miles per year, it's actually been less since I've been WFH and now permanently WFH, but we'll go with 10,000 miles. At 47 MPG I'm consuming 213 gallons of fuel per year. I know the gas price spike is subsiding, but for argument's sake let's suppose $5/gallon is going to be the reality within 5 years. That's $1,065 in fuel cost per year - and again that's calculating at $5/gallon for gas. Cost-wise then I have $15,000 to purchase my car and bike and I have $1,065 in worst-case annual fuel costs. I do my own maintenance on my bike and my car has been costing $250/year so far in annual maintenance costs. Since I haven't had any serious maintenance yet I'll be happy to put my annual operating costs at $1,500. That gives me roughly $1,000 in fuel and roughly $500 in annual maintenance. How do the EVs stack up? The cheapest used EV I can find in my area is $43,000. Off the bat I would have to spend $28,000 more in up-front costs just to purchase the EV. I can't buy that in cash so there are going to be loan costs too, but we'll ignore that for now. How long does it take for the operating costs of car and motorcycle to exceed the difference in purchasing cost of an EV? 18.6 years! Since I've been ignoring the loan costs of the EV and I've been ignoring some maintenance you have to do on an EV then I'm going to go with roughly 20 years for the EV to start saving me money. Remember, this was a used EV and it already had 60,000 miles on it. At 10,000 miles per year the EV would only have 260,000 miles on it - so it should still be in good shape for another 4-9 years afterward, but - I'm not putting 20 years in for a payback, especially when over the next 5-10 years we should be seeing some significantly cheaper EVs hitting the market that completely changes this payback calculation. Bottom line - for me an EV still makes no sense. |