I just purchased my first all-electric car. My first two scheduled service appoints were included in the purchase price. The first appointment is TWO YEARS from now, and the second scheduled maintenance will follow in four years. The only thing I have to add as an owner-driver is windshield-washer fluid.
One of the profit centers for car dealers has historically been their service departments. In the car business, it’s referred to as the “back-door” or “the shop.” According to folks who work in the business the “back door” often brings in more than the profit made in selling new cars.
This has to have an impact on the car business as we know it today. What will car dealerships look like in ten years?
My 2022 Volvo XC40 Recharge cost me just under $61K out the door. A similar gas model trimmed out just under it would run about $50K. But I would easily pay the extra bucks just for the smooth silent 4.5-sec 0-60 performance.
I had a 220V 30A outlet installed when I built my current house. I just upgraded it to 50A breaker and 18" of #6 wire. The EV charger cost me $795. All up the price was less than $850. I never have to go to the gas station to fuel the Volvo. I plan on going on a off-peak plan for my power to drop the KWH charge to 7.3 from the current 11 cents.
It cost me 3.7 cents a mile to charge it. My 2017 Santa Fe is a similar vehicle and at $4/gal costs me 20 cents a mile for gas.
Yes a Santa Fe is about 18 cents a mile ($4/22mpg)
I like the efficiency of the electric car and what it seems to be on the global environment but you have the mining of the batteries, the manufacturing, the transportation, the storage, the charging, and the imminent disposal of the battery. It’s the charging that costs 3.7 cents a mile to use your local power source such as coal or natural gas
To me it’s not only about fuel output or carbon footprint but also the toxicity of both the internal combustion engine and the electric vehicle
From a developmental view, EV technology is in it’s infancy. It’s comparable to where internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles were in 1910’s and 20’s. Even at their current state of development, EV’s provide some huge advantages over ICE vehicles. Most of the daily driving done by Americans is less than 200 miles. And most EV’s do that with an overnight charge at home.
The current projected EV battery life cycle includes their additional 10-year use as an electrical supply time-shift mechanism after their 100,000-mile life cycle in an EV. That means that electricity generated in the daytime can be used overnight for industry or for recharging EV’s for use the following day.
The burning of fossil fuels by your electrical supplier varies by region. Over 50% of the electricity produced by Idaho Power, my power company produces, is generated by 100% clean sources. Only 16.7% is coal-fired and just 15.5% is natural gas. 17% is purchased from the NW US market over the grid. They have set a goal of being 100% carbon-free by 2045.
In terms of energy efficiency, EV’s are 90% efficient while the average ICE cars are only 30-35%. Coal-fired electrical plants average 37%… BUT… they are not shut down at night. The potential coal-produced electricity used to charge an EV would otherwise just not be put to use between 9PM and 7AM.
Today the average cost of EV battery replacement is $132 per KWH. My Volvo has a 78KWH battery pack. So today it would cost around $10,296 to replace it. That would not include any trade-in allowance for the old batteries which should be useful for power storage in fixed-base energy time-shifting facilities like fast-charging DC stations.
In 2010 the cost of replacement was over $1000/KWH. As the chart from Bloomberg NEF below shows, there’s been a pretty steady decline in battery prices in recent history. IBM and Mercedes are working on batteries built from materials obtained from seawater and will recharge in minutes as well as being much less subject to fires, explosions, etc. than today’s batteries.
There are upfront costs with manufacturing electric vehicles, but using fossil fuels to power all of our energy intensive vehicles is silly. The FF just go up in smoke and a lot of wasted energy in the form of heat and our limited supply of oil that is used for so many other things is forever depleted. Lithium and rare metals that go into EVs can be extracted and recycled; there are a couple of profitable companies that are doing that now. One is Redwood Materials owned by a former Tesla employee, JB Straubel. EVs are way more efficient in delivering power to the wheels; ICE cars at about 25% and electrics about 75%. Twenty-nine % of green house gas emissions result from the use of fossil fuels for transportation of all stripes. Yes there is an upfront premium for EVs, but over their lifecycle, they are much cheaper and cleaner than ICE cars. Build out of a green electric grid will mean even cleaner operation of EVs. My electric service utility provides 100% renewable energy at 10.5c per KWH.
I think it’s a good idea to get as clear a picture of the facts as possible when it comes to evaluating the practicality of buying a EV. It takes a little work to sift through all the information out there.
Five undisputed facts: 1. Most people drive less than 200 miles a day. 2. Gas cars cost a lot more to fuel and maintain than an EV. 3. The CO2 in our earth’s atmosphere has doubled in the last 100 years. 4. People invested in the fossil fuel industry will fight the efforts to slow production and use of fossil fuels. 5. It is human nature to resist change.
That’s a ripoff. Why would anyone want to pay that?
It would be hard enough to pay 3-4k for a battery that got 150,000 miles. Someone may be able to replace the engine or transmission but you add a battery on top of it and it makes the repair unaffordable
With an ICE, someone may have to pay for gas but that is only at $50-80 a pop depending on the size of their automobile
It would be expensive if I had to replace my batteries today, but… I don’t have to because:
#1. They are under full replacement warranty for 100,000 miles or eight years. #2. When it comes time to replace them the cost will be less than half that amount.
And this car has no transmission, no differentials, and no engine. It does not require lubricating oils, coolant or transmission fluids. There’s nothing to add but windshield washer fluid.
The only reason for scheduled service appointments (every two years) is to replace the windshield wipers (at no cost) and check the brakes. In around-town driving the brakes are seldom used because it’s done using a one-pedal mode in which most of the required braking action is handled by the drive system. Deceleration actually recharges the batteries resulting in better city-driving mileage than highway mileage. It has radar and automatic emergency braking.
So far it’s cost me $12 to drive 332 miles. My comparable ICE car, a 2017 Santa Fe, just cost me $33.81 to put 7.9 gallons in it, that 7.9 gals will take me about 158 miles. That’s less than one-half the distance for four and a half times the money and anemic clunky acceleration performance compared to the Volvo.
Like I said… EV’s will change things, it’s a different animal.
I think it would be a game changer when the cost differential between an electric car is less than 20% more and the battery is less than half the amount
Maybe we will be able to have cars for hire that are subsidized for welfare recipients
I also think it is a game changer when we can automate solar panels here and use nuclear power as a primary power source. We spend just 7 cents a KWH for nuclear power
I’m pretty sure that within five to eight years the cost of EV’s will be equal or less than ICE vehicles. Range will be over 500 miles within that time.
Provided that is true and the EV materials can be mined and manufactured safely and it doesn’t cause us to be dependent on geopolitical enemies like China than I’m all in on electric cars if the pricing mechanism makes sense
