[apparent]

How do they account for the cost of having to rent ICE vehicles for road trips that do not suit EVs (some do, and some do not)? Do they factor in the cost of insurance, which some say is much higher for their EVs?

I have owned PHEVs and like them quite a bit, but if I'd bought them new I still wouldn't have reached the payback period. It seems that a PHEV typically costs $12k more than the ICE version, so the payback period is quite long (I think I estimated it to be 50k miles, assuming you charge for free at work, and gas is $5/gallon).

EVs and PHEVs can be great for some people, and some may even save money with them (maintenance is blessedly low). But I find it unlikely that for "most" US drivers, they would save money (and of course they would save on emissions, this is kind of a useless thing to add to the headline).

[650REDHAIR]

What road trips are you taking frequently enough that an EV just won’t work?

[apparent]

There are lots of articles written by journalists where they tried road tripping in an EV. Sometimes it worked out great, especially when their vehicle had a lot of range and could charge quickly. Other times it was a disaster.

One does not need to take frequent vacations for the cost of renting a vehicle to really add up. If you went for a week, twice a year, that could be a thousand dollars right there.

[Faaak]

EVs and PHEVs are completely unrelated though: price, reliability, and mileage wise

[eckesicle]

The linked website carcompare.com was quite interesting in how clustered the data is.

Pretty much _any_ EV car is better both cost wise and emissions wise than _any_ PHEV.

The same holds comparing PHEV with ICE.

Not to mention that EVs are just so much more fun and satisfying to drive. Even a mediocre EV these days will do 0-60 in 5s.

At this point buying anything but an EV for the typical driver is just objectively the wrong choice.

[close04]

> EVs are just so much more fun and satisfying to drive. Even a mediocre EV these days will do 0-60 in 5s.

I always thought there’s a lot more to driving satisfaction and “fun” than slamming that pedal in a straight line. But most drivers will settle for 0-60 because it’s “accessible” fun, everyone can slam the pedal (and sadly this is so visible in daily traffic). There are very few EVs that manage to mask their weight in a corner.

[apparent]

This is demonstrably untrue. We have PHEVs and it absolutely would not have made sense to buy EVs instead. If you don't have a long commute and can stay within the EV-only range, but take regular trips that are beyond the range of any EV, then a PHEV absolutely makes more sense. We could not have bought an EV of the same size for the cost of our PHEVs, and being able to tank up on trips is extremely valuable.

[dzhiurgis]

Why would you rent ICE for road trip tho? It's so incredibly inconvenient, noisy, poor performing and constant headache of even making there due to poor reliability. With occasional chance of burning or poisoning your family with fumes.