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Road trips make up more than half of my travels. I WFH so daily driving is not really a concern. I also need a truck and the least expensive option available MSRPs for $56k and it only has 240 miles range, or about 60% of what normally see on my Frontier. ROI is just not there.
My wife would benefit from an EV for daily driving, but she also travels home (about 400 miles) once every 5-6 weeks, usually over a limited time. She doesn't want to stop for refueling during the trip or look for charging stations after she arrives since her daughter does not have one installed. She is also cheap. She will likely replace her car with a four-banger Camry for less than $30k.
We also currently rent. We don't have home charging available and even if permitted, I would not spend 1k - 2k to install one in a home that I won't be living in less than a year from now. That offsets the greatest advantage of an EV - home charging.
Yea, that part of not having charging at home especially means it'll likely be several years before an EV might make sense. That's totally reasonable.
If you did have charging at home, you and your wife's needs *might* still work with EVs right now, but would have some heavy caveats and dependent on context. For you, it'd be what your road trip habits and distances are like and where they're taking place and if you have access where you park to a standard wall outlet or access to a 240V outlet like one would have for an electric dryer. If you do have access to such, then you might still be able to take some advantage of home charging and in which case EV. A wall socket won't add much in miles per hour, but if you're not driving every day, then it might still cut it. Yours is the longer shot, and maybe a flat out no right now just based on price.
Your wife's situation *might* work if the daughter does install an EV charger at some point or has a 240V outlet in her garage like for an electric dryer and the like in which case an adapter is cheap and you'd recoup the cost of the adapter real quick compared to fuel. Your wife would likely need to one or two quick charging sessions each way, but since her ICE vehicle almost certainly would need to refuel at some point for this trip as it's pretty unlikely she's driving a vehicle that gets over 500 miles of range and you're talking about 400 miles in that direction and would not necessarily be starting on a full tank and then 400 miles back, then this could end up comparable. She does not need to charge all the way to 100% or even to 80%--she'd instead want to be charging when her vehicle is at lower states of charge, and she will want to charge enough to make it to either the daughter's home or your own home where you ostensibly would have a charger in this scenario. This would be somewhat comparable to what she does now since she almost certainly in her ICE vehicle also
I think if we bring this back to weighing the pros and cons and whether the trip every 5 to 6 weeks and the comparative disadvantages on that trip would yield versus the convenience and cost savings of charging at home for her commutes in the dozens of commute days in between, there's a question of how much is she driving for her commute and do you have access to charging with even a standard wall outlet, or as said before about the daughter's home, access to a 240V outlet like one would have for an electric dryer, at home. If you do have access to such, then she might still be able to take some advantage of home charging and in which case EVs might work out and if she's going for a budget vehicle, then by the time she's in the market again, there might be used longer range EVs that work for her and qualify for this used EV tax credit further dropping the price.
It may very well still not work out for you currently and for good reason. I'm laying out possible conditions where it *might* work right now in your situation, but it's probable that this still doesn't fit either of your needs given what you've said so far.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 05-14-2023 at 10:18 PM..
I am acknowledging the latter though. That doesn't change that road trips are not the majority of any real person's driving. Everyone seems to want to pretend they are though.
And that choice is fine, I'm just trying to understand it. Why a person would choose a car based on the minority of their driving needs instead of the majority.
Nobody is denying the benefits electric cars bring.
Why a person would choose a car based on the minority of their driving needs instead of the majority.
You’re going to have to explain how these links refute my point.
Fyi, “range anxiety†is a gasser’s fear. I’ll go further into detail depending how you answer the question above. I’m tired of talking for no reason so I need to see that’s not the case before I go into more detail.
So now excellent reseal value is a bad thing. I see. BTW, that particular base Jetta has half the power and double the miles. So yeah, a direct comparison... Oh and the Bolt, even used, has a 8 year 100k mile battery warranty (as that one will have a new battery in it due to the recall) while the Jetta will have no warranty. There is demand for the Bolt and no one wants an out of warranty old turbo Jetta, so that also influences price, as does the fact that the Jetta is at a wholesaler, while the Bolt is at a mains dealer.
The current Bolt EV starts at $26k, about the same as a MINI Cooper S or VW GTI. All three are ~200 hp hatchbacks that are fun to drive and practical to own, but the Bolt will cost LESS to own and drive than the GTI or MINI. If you want to compare that 2017 Bolt, you need to compare it to it's ICE competition, which is this:
If you compare the Bolt to the cheapest Mitsubishi Mirage or Nissan Versa on the market you are doing it wrong, and might as well say that GTIs and MINI Coopers are dumb because THEY cost more than Mirages and Versas, too. Gemdiver, do you ever think about these things before posting or do you just enjoy spewing BS?
Last edited by cvetters63; 05-17-2023 at 07:04 AM..
Cost differences are not "based on the minority of their driving needs instead of the majority" as was stated in the post you're replying to. They matter, but that's not what was mentioned or being discussed. Purchase price parity for some of the premium segments in the US are there already, but it'll take a bit longer for general purchase price parity in the US. It's already there for most segments in China and a lot of that is attributable to the growth and improvements in vehicles with lithium iron-phosphate traction batteries for which Chinese battery makers were able to negotiate a deal to not pay per unit royalties on the key patents for LFP batteries. Those key patents expired last year and so LFP batteries are probably going to grow rapidly in the US, but there's also a different factor in play in the US where automakers have been eliminating their lowest cost models over the last decade and a half which is irrespective of what type of powertrain is being used. For example, the Toyota Yaris and the Honda Fit both went into a new generation a couple of years ago and they both would have been fine under US emission regulations, but both Toyota and Honda opted not to homologate these vehicles and bring them over to the US since these vehicles had fairly low profit margins and were selling in very low volumes in the US.
I'm surprised the Bolt kept its resale value so well given that the person who originally bought it also likely got a federal tax credit from it. I'm also surprised that site didn't mention anything about the $4,000 used vehicle federal tax credit which this one would presumably be eligible for given it's sold by a dealership and is under the $25K amount.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 05-17-2023 at 03:44 PM..
I have an old EV, a 2015, and I frequently do 4-5 hour drives in the winter for ski trips. I just plan my dinner around the 1 charge stop each way and it's literally no lost time (since I would still eat dinner if I drove a gas car). People who have never tried it are terrified of it, but once you actually do it you'll see that it's a nothingburger.
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