7 ms·

Should You Buy an EV? A calculator to figure it out

21 points by davidd8 4y ago

adhesive_wombat 4y ago
The "best" figures for a petrol car is 39mpg, which seems a bit low. My (diesel) car will do over 50, and it's over 10 years old and isn't famously economical.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Petrol is not diesel, so not sure how your datapoint relates. Which petrol cars get more than 39mpg? Also, were diesel cars only getting those high mpg due to cheating the emissions limits? I never saw them in the US.
  - ghusto 4y ago
    > Also, were diesel cars only getting those high mpg due to cheating the emissions limits? I never saw them in the US. I don't believe so. Diesel is more efficient partially because diesel engines have been around longer (so have more improvements).
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      They have a much higher compression ratio and also aren’t pumping across a partially closed throttle plate virtually all of the time.
  - adhesive_wombat 4y ago
    My car gets over 50 mpg and that's from odometer and fuel volume, not from a spec sheet. Diesel goes a bit further than petrol on a volume basis but not that much. Maybe it's just due to smaller US gallons and a cruisy commute. A colleague of mine gets 65 mpg, fwiw, and it's not a hybrid. Also the emissions thing wasn't about fuel economy, but about NOx emissions.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    > Also, were diesel cars only getting those high mpg due to cheating the emissions limits? I never saw them in the US. Because you guys like huge heavy cars full of unnecessary toys inside.
  - Rebelgecko 4y ago
    Lots of hybrid sedans, eg Prius, Corolla, Ioniq, Insight Granted I think the only non-hybrid ICE getting 39mpg or better is the Mitsubishi Mirage.
- 62951413 4y ago
  It's not unusual for my 2-year old Elantra on my 48-mile commute to San Jose down 680 to reach 50 MPG. 47 for going back. I do drive earlier/later in the day to avoid the rush hour.
- saltcured 4y ago
  Your use of the word "petrol" makes me wonder if you are aware of the difference between US gallons and UK/imperial gallons. UK gallons are larger volume and so give a higher MPG metric for the same vehicle. There also are not many sub-compact cars marketed in the US, and the range of engine options is usually limited compared to similar vehicles marketed in Europe and the UK. Compacts like a Civic or Corolla would be considered efficient commuter vehicles by most people here, and might get around 40 MPG (US) in highway cruising and somewhere in the 30s as a combined figure (for non-hybrids).
Faaak 4y ago
This doesn't take into account maintenance, which makes a huge difference ! My EV car (hyundai ioniq 2016) has now 100'000 km (62'000 mi) and I never once went to the garage for a service (except for tyres of course). Brake pads are still new, no oil change needed, etc.. Can't imagine how much it would've cost on a gas car
- jchonphoenix 4y ago
  How does this work? Brake pads don't seem like they should be different on an EV. It's really just the engine components that should have less wear and tear and those only come into play at the 30k and 60k mark
  - baq 4y ago
    In an EV you don't actually use the brakes if you don't brake hard, engine does energy recovery instead.
  - albertopv 4y ago
    EV with KERS use brake pads much much less, my mechanic can confirm, he always complains how much less work he has to do on an electric car.
  - neilalexander 4y ago
    I imagine the wear on the pads is reduced by the regenerative braking from the motors.
    - serpix 4y ago
      Eliminated almost entirely, they should revert to drums on EVs as discs get rust on them.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        Why are discs more susceptible to rust than drums?
Yizahi 4y ago
Should you buy an EV? 1. You live in a private house where you can charge the car? - Yes 2. You don't have a charger at home? - No Simple, really :) . I always wanted to buy an EV but that's a deal breaker criteria. Also the secondary problem - author makes assumption about electricity price, but it almost doesn't matter at all if you are changing at the commercial stations only. They will charge you for as much as they want, and it would be a far far more than bare electricity price at home. I have once calculated a price to kilometers value at the nearest commercial charger in my city (not USA and not EU), it was about equal to the running a benzin car on a 95 octane fuel. At the same time my colleague was spending on charging his Leaf about 1/4 of the fuel price of his previous city car (using commercial electricity prices, not the home one, home electricity price would have been 1/8 to fuel). So the commercial markup of a charging station was 300%. Not very enticing.
- wffurr 4y ago
  I see a good variety of EVs parked on the street here in Cambridge, MA, USA. There’s a decent local network of level 2 and 3 chargers that are regularly used to charge the cars, in the neighborhood and at various area workplaces. Some are owned by the city and only charge enough to break even on installation and electricity cost. Workplace ones are often subsidized by the employers as a side benefit. Clearly it doesn’t work in all locations; yours being a prime example, but there are parts of the world where it’s feasible to own an EV without home charging.
  - Yizahi 4y ago
    I'm currently in the eastern EU, and while there a lot of EVs on the roads, the infrastructure is not usable for my personal use there too. No chargers at homes or near homes, not even in the new apartment blocks. No chargers at work parkings. Honestly, I wonder how can EU ban selling ICE cars even in 10 years, if the infrastructure in so much lagging behind.
    - badpun 4y ago
      > Honestly, I wonder how can EU ban selling ICE cars even in 10 years, if the infrastructure in so much lagging behind. They won't. I believe it's purely fiction.
reportgunner 4y ago
Can we stop calling a google sheet "something you made" ? There aren't even any intricate formulas in this one, it's just fuel usage per mile * money cost per fuel unit.
xlii 4y ago
One thing that is keeping me from getting EV is infrastructure cost. Sure, maintenance is going to be cheaper and cost per km/mile lower, but there is simply not enough infrastructure where I live to charge the car. Friend of mine got EV. He lives in modern apartment where there are 2 charging stations for like 200 cars/garage. He was ecstatic year ago where he would charge whenever he want and it was free (due to subsidies) but now has to queue in own garage in order to charge it at all. Based on anecdotes from colleagues it takes them ~10-20h every month to charge their cars. It also creates a mental load of "oh, where and when I'll charge my car next". To a ludicrous degree that some even can't plan life activities because they plan for their car to charge. If I put even like half of my hourly rate on the time spent maintaining car's charge calculations aren't attractive as they might seem. On top of it sales of EVs grow much faster than infrastructure. With energy crisis looming I have my doubts. That being said, had I had a house, I wouldn't care and take one.
- turtlebits 4y ago
  Yeah, it’s not smart to rely on public chargers, especially when L2 charging still takes a while and L3 is so expensive. (Almost 4x residential) I have 8 EV chargers in my work building, and they all fill up.
croon 4y ago
I opened up the google sheet early, and seeing as it's open to public editing, the numbers have already been edited by people, because of course it will. Just FYI. Edit an hour later: Well, let's just say more than numbers were altered on that sheet.
- cptcobalt 4y ago
  honestly, it was an unexpected delight.
- davidd8 4y ago
  I underestimated the delightful power of HN public editing, but rest assured the calculation cells are protected in the sheet :)
MobileVet 4y ago
I have been waffling over the purchase of an EV for the better part of 2 years. Despite being cheap AF, the cost of ownership isn’t really at the top of my list of concerns. Mostly that is because the cars I like are far more expensive up front and make the math rough. That said, if you live in the US, the Chevy Bolt actually makes the math pretty fantastic. If they don’t raise the price at the end of the year, it will be an incredible value. Right now, at 29k or 32k, the math including gas and maintenance turns positive very quickly.
- remir 4y ago
  The Bolt is indeed a good deal. Only negative (IMO) is the charging speed compared to other new EVs.
  - WorldMaker 4y ago
    The other negative is that the Bolt's battery tech is now a generation (or at least a half-generation depending on how you figure dividing lines) behind compared to GM's massive investment into the multi-vehicle "Ultium" platform. That may matter for the expected service life of the Bolt (compare to GM's recent cut of service on the Spark EV, a half-generation of battery tech just prior to the Bolt; though to be fair there were a lot fewer Spark EVs on the road compared to Bolts). I'm still confused why the recent model changes to the Bolt didn't include an "Ultium upgrade" other than to keep costs down and not associate the Bolt with the R&D depreciation of Ultium just yet. But given GM's larger commitment to the Ultium platform and number of vehicle models they are now building on it, that's one of my remaining pieces of hesitancy against current models of the Bolt and its already "legacy" platform. (Though the other big hesitancy was the "recent" recall and how that made Bolts impossible to find in dealerships for just long enough that it passed my "impulse buy" window the past couple of years.) I hope GM realigns the Bolt to the present platform and/or starts adding smaller vehicles to the Ultium platform. (Smallest currently announced is the new Blazer which is still much larger than I want as a car.) (I'm an "ancient" Volt owner and have been watching GM's EV projects with great interest as I'm at about the point where I'd like to replace the Volt with a proper EV, but so far GM's EV strategy still seems a bit hit-and-miss and like "next year's models" might be the ones to watch for. From my perspective, at least.)
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
This is a poor TCO calculation and there's many better ones available that include more variables, e.g. random pick: https://afdc.energy.gov/calc/ https://afdc.energy.gov/calc/ The answer is almost certainly yes if you would otherwise buy an ICE car and the only factor you care about is cost. There's some corner cases, but this doesn't cover them.
byhemechi 4y ago
There's another option which in my case is much cheaper (and subjectively easier): buy a mazda2 for dirt cheap and only use it when you can't use public transport. Not only does it work out to be cheaper, it's also (in my opinion) much more convenient not having to find parking than not having to wait 10 minutes for a bus/tram/train. Obviously, your mileage may vary (ha) based on where you live, but for someone who lives in Sydney it works pretty well.
kkfx 4y ago
Mh, beside the issue of a spreadsheet itself [1] and the fact it's shared to the world [2] the real computation must be another: since crystal balls are out of service but luck is blind and bad luck sees very well... The right computation, witch happen to be pure logic NOT reducible to math, a thing soo many people forget is IMVHO "how likely is a diesel/gasoline shortage in the subsequent 1-8 years future?", "can I eventually charge LOCALLY on my own energy (p.v. typically) a BEV?", "can I sustain to buy a new BEV at current prices every 5-8-10 years?". The answer to this three questions is not numeric, but it's the key. Having an EV to protect themselves against fuel shortage is meaningless if you can't charge it autonomously, being able to buy one but unable to sustain it's CapEx is a desperate action, that tend to have equally desperate consequences, otherwise if you are not living in a country who produce LOCALLY enough oil and have a population enough ready to fight if needed to get it an EV is not economically convenient, but it's a guarantee to being able to travel. The importance of such expensive guarantee it's very personal, depending on so many parameters that's more easy to estimate in person instead of trying summarize all of them for a generic solution. Really of topic but IMVHO more HN-ish is the means the author choose to share: if in 2022 someone willing to do something AND SHARE IT to the community, a technically sound one, resort to such tech... Well... That means we are really in a sorry state. It's NOT a critic to the author, nor an indirect encouragement against sharing, is instead a sore consideration of the actual state of computing and widespread tech knowledge. [1] spreadsheets should NOT EXISTS at all, they are a tentative from another era to provide a flexible calculator for tabular data to the masses and such tentative was and is a FAILURE: instead of simplify it complicate things and instead of empower users if force them toward very bad paradigms. [2] witch prove the very limited scale of such collaborative model, perhaps to be confronted with the SCM model(s) AND the idea of sharing "active" documents (formatting + code) like org-mode files in Emacs or Jupyter notebooks etc where any user get the doc (so the logic) and instantiate it alone on in a small cohort witch is the sole example of live collaboration limited effectiveness behind the WOW effect.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Spreadsheets are one of the most popular and widespread computing platforms out there. Excel is almost surely the single largest no-code/low-code install and monthly-active-users base. I don’t see spreadsheets as a failure nor evidence of poor state of computing or technical knowledge. If anything, I think they’re useful, practical, extensively used, and evidence that computing is working for people.
rpmw 4y ago
Cost of battery maintenance seems to be a huge thing I never see mentioned here. I imagine EVs will depreciate much faster in that arena. My 15 year old Ford Focus still gets 30 mpg and still goes just as far on a full tank.
- pornel 4y ago
  Teslas are now old enough that there's large-scale long-term battery degradation data available. They lose roughly 1%-2% of capacity per year (that's a linear approximation, actual degradation is steeper in the early years, tapers off later). So after 15 years you'd expect 70%-85% of the range left. Modern EVs have battery management systems that keep their temperature and other factors within the range that's gentle for the battery. EVs also have some spare "inaccessible" battery capacity that prevents them being (dis)charged to extremes that would shorten their life. 15-year-old EVs will be fine. EV batteries aren't your cellphone batteries.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Even my LEAF (which has one of the worst battery management systems in terms of having passive cooling only) is 7.5 years old and has around 85% of its original capacity.
    - rpmw 4y ago
      I guess I don’t understand why that’s acceptable. 15% degradation takes you from what 350 miles from full to just shy of 300. How much worse is it in the winter? None of those things happen in ICE vehicles that are much cheaper than even the cheapest BEV.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        It's way worse than that. Mine is a 2015, so has only a 24kWh battery. I'm down from around 90 miles to around 75 miles. Winter is less, but not catastrophically less. When I was in an office, it was 8 miles away. Our grocery is 1 mile away. The farthest kids' friends house is 2.7 miles away. As proof that there's utility there: the LEAF does more miles per year than our ICE car, so it gets plenty of use, even with the severely limited range compared to higher-end EVs. As for why it's acceptable: the car was $22K new after incentives. In 7.5 years, I've just now changed the wiper blades and cabin air filter for the second time. I turn all the wrenches on our family cars and I have literally only put a wrench or socket to the LEAF once in that time: to remove and charge the battery after we parked it for almost 8 weeks when COVID first hit and my little OBD2 Bluetooth dongle ran it down. (Wipers and cabin air are changeable without tools, as is filling the washer fluid tank.)
Hackbraten 4y ago
> This calculation excludes considerations for emissions, environmental impact When are calculations going to start not excluding those?
- Hackbraten 4y ago
  To downvoters: just keep on not accounting for emissions and environmental impact when you’re planning your next car purchase. Your children and grandchildren are going to _love_ having to face the consequences of your actions.
taylodl 4y ago
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.
bdcravens 4y ago
I'm not buying an EV to save money. Right now the economics are a bit skewed, but I'd buy an EV even if gas was $1/gallon. Emissions are the reason why I want to buy an EV. Ditto for going solar, etc.
- dinom 4y ago
  This sounds like burning the candle at both ends and I can't help but think the attitude is counter-productive. That is, if a gasoline powered engine is actually less expensive, why not drive the gas engine and invest or donate the savings towards alternative energy initiatives? That way EVs (and alternative energy in general) can flourish and become unequivocally better.
  - bdcravens 4y ago
    My opinion is that emissions cause enough harm that we need to not donate our way out the problem. To me that's like letting your pets have unwanted offspring and just donating to a local shelter to make up for it.
TurkishPoptart 4y ago
You guys are having way too much fun in this spreadsheet, lawl.
Proven 4y ago

21 points by davidd8 4y ago

The "best" figures for a petrol car is 39mpg, which seems a bit low. My (diesel) car will do over 50, and it's over 10 years old and isn't famously economical.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Petrol is not diesel, so not sure how your datapoint relates. Which petrol cars get more than 39mpg? Also, were diesel cars only getting those high mpg due to cheating the emissions limits? I never saw them in the US.
- ghusto 4y ago
  > Also, were diesel cars only getting those high mpg due to cheating the emissions limits? I never saw them in the US. I don't believe so. Diesel is more efficient partially because diesel engines have been around longer (so have more improvements).
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    They have a much higher compression ratio and also aren’t pumping across a partially closed throttle plate virtually all of the time.
- adhesive_wombat 4y ago
  My car gets over 50 mpg and that's from odometer and fuel volume, not from a spec sheet. Diesel goes a bit further than petrol on a volume basis but not that much. Maybe it's just due to smaller US gallons and a cruisy commute. A colleague of mine gets 65 mpg, fwiw, and it's not a hybrid. Also the emissions thing wasn't about fuel economy, but about NOx emissions.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  > Also, were diesel cars only getting those high mpg due to cheating the emissions limits? I never saw them in the US. Because you guys like huge heavy cars full of unnecessary toys inside.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  Lots of hybrid sedans, eg Prius, Corolla, Ioniq, Insight Granted I think the only non-hybrid ICE getting 39mpg or better is the Mitsubishi Mirage.
62951413 4y ago
It's not unusual for my 2-year old Elantra on my 48-mile commute to San Jose down 680 to reach 50 MPG. 47 for going back. I do drive earlier/later in the day to avoid the rush hour.
saltcured 4y ago
Your use of the word "petrol" makes me wonder if you are aware of the difference between US gallons and UK/imperial gallons. UK gallons are larger volume and so give a higher MPG metric for the same vehicle. There also are not many sub-compact cars marketed in the US, and the range of engine options is usually limited compared to similar vehicles marketed in Europe and the UK. Compacts like a Civic or Corolla would be considered efficient commuter vehicles by most people here, and might get around 40 MPG (US) in highway cruising and somewhere in the 30s as a combined figure (for non-hybrids).

Faaak 4y ago

This doesn't take into account maintenance, which makes a huge difference ! My EV car (hyundai ioniq 2016) has now 100'000 km (62'000 mi) and I never once went to the garage for a service (except for tyres of course). Brake pads are still new, no oil change needed, etc.. Can't imagine how much it would've cost on a gas car

jchonphoenix 4y ago
How does this work? Brake pads don't seem like they should be different on an EV. It's really just the engine components that should have less wear and tear and those only come into play at the 30k and 60k mark
- baq 4y ago
  In an EV you don't actually use the brakes if you don't brake hard, engine does energy recovery instead.
- albertopv 4y ago
  EV with KERS use brake pads much much less, my mechanic can confirm, he always complains how much less work he has to do on an electric car.
- neilalexander 4y ago
  I imagine the wear on the pads is reduced by the regenerative braking from the motors.
  - serpix 4y ago
    Eliminated almost entirely, they should revert to drums on EVs as discs get rust on them.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Why are discs more susceptible to rust than drums?

Yizahi 4y ago

Should you buy an EV? 1. You live in a private house where you can charge the car? - Yes 2. You don't have a charger at home? - No Simple, really :) . I always wanted to buy an EV but that's a deal breaker criteria. Also the secondary problem - author makes assumption about electricity price, but it almost doesn't matter at all if you are changing at the commercial stations only. They will charge you for as much as they want, and it would be a far far more than bare electricity price at home. I have once calculated a price to kilometers value at the nearest commercial charger in my city (not USA and not EU), it was about equal to the running a benzin car on a 95 octane fuel. At the same time my colleague was spending on charging his Leaf about 1/4 of the fuel price of his previous city car (using commercial electricity prices, not the home one, home electricity price would have been 1/8 to fuel). So the commercial markup of a charging station was 300%. Not very enticing.

wffurr 4y ago
I see a good variety of EVs parked on the street here in Cambridge, MA, USA. There’s a decent local network of level 2 and 3 chargers that are regularly used to charge the cars, in the neighborhood and at various area workplaces. Some are owned by the city and only charge enough to break even on installation and electricity cost. Workplace ones are often subsidized by the employers as a side benefit. Clearly it doesn’t work in all locations; yours being a prime example, but there are parts of the world where it’s feasible to own an EV without home charging.
- Yizahi 4y ago
  I'm currently in the eastern EU, and while there a lot of EVs on the roads, the infrastructure is not usable for my personal use there too. No chargers at homes or near homes, not even in the new apartment blocks. No chargers at work parkings. Honestly, I wonder how can EU ban selling ICE cars even in 10 years, if the infrastructure in so much lagging behind.
  - badpun 4y ago
    > Honestly, I wonder how can EU ban selling ICE cars even in 10 years, if the infrastructure in so much lagging behind. They won't. I believe it's purely fiction.

reportgunner 4y ago

Can we stop calling a google sheet "something you made" ? There aren't even any intricate formulas in this one, it's just fuel usage per mile * money cost per fuel unit.

xlii 4y ago

One thing that is keeping me from getting EV is infrastructure cost. Sure, maintenance is going to be cheaper and cost per km/mile lower, but there is simply not enough infrastructure where I live to charge the car. Friend of mine got EV. He lives in modern apartment where there are 2 charging stations for like 200 cars/garage. He was ecstatic year ago where he would charge whenever he want and it was free (due to subsidies) but now has to queue in own garage in order to charge it at all. Based on anecdotes from colleagues it takes them ~10-20h every month to charge their cars. It also creates a mental load of "oh, where and when I'll charge my car next". To a ludicrous degree that some even can't plan life activities because they plan for their car to charge. If I put even like half of my hourly rate on the time spent maintaining car's charge calculations aren't attractive as they might seem. On top of it sales of EVs grow much faster than infrastructure. With energy crisis looming I have my doubts. That being said, had I had a house, I wouldn't care and take one.

turtlebits 4y ago
Yeah, it’s not smart to rely on public chargers, especially when L2 charging still takes a while and L3 is so expensive. (Almost 4x residential) I have 8 EV chargers in my work building, and they all fill up.

croon 4y ago

I opened up the google sheet early, and seeing as it's open to public editing, the numbers have already been edited by people, because of course it will. Just FYI. Edit an hour later: Well, let's just say more than numbers were altered on that sheet.

cptcobalt 4y ago
honestly, it was an unexpected delight.
davidd8 4y ago
I underestimated the delightful power of HN public editing, but rest assured the calculation cells are protected in the sheet :)

MobileVet 4y ago

I have been waffling over the purchase of an EV for the better part of 2 years. Despite being cheap AF, the cost of ownership isn’t really at the top of my list of concerns. Mostly that is because the cars I like are far more expensive up front and make the math rough. That said, if you live in the US, the Chevy Bolt actually makes the math pretty fantastic. If they don’t raise the price at the end of the year, it will be an incredible value. Right now, at 29k or 32k, the math including gas and maintenance turns positive very quickly.

remir 4y ago
The Bolt is indeed a good deal. Only negative (IMO) is the charging speed compared to other new EVs.
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  The other negative is that the Bolt's battery tech is now a generation (or at least a half-generation depending on how you figure dividing lines) behind compared to GM's massive investment into the multi-vehicle "Ultium" platform. That may matter for the expected service life of the Bolt (compare to GM's recent cut of service on the Spark EV, a half-generation of battery tech just prior to the Bolt; though to be fair there were a lot fewer Spark EVs on the road compared to Bolts). I'm still confused why the recent model changes to the Bolt didn't include an "Ultium upgrade" other than to keep costs down and not associate the Bolt with the R&D depreciation of Ultium just yet. But given GM's larger commitment to the Ultium platform and number of vehicle models they are now building on it, that's one of my remaining pieces of hesitancy against current models of the Bolt and its already "legacy" platform. (Though the other big hesitancy was the "recent" recall and how that made Bolts impossible to find in dealerships for just long enough that it passed my "impulse buy" window the past couple of years.) I hope GM realigns the Bolt to the present platform and/or starts adding smaller vehicles to the Ultium platform. (Smallest currently announced is the new Blazer which is still much larger than I want as a car.) (I'm an "ancient" Volt owner and have been watching GM's EV projects with great interest as I'm at about the point where I'd like to replace the Volt with a proper EV, but so far GM's EV strategy still seems a bit hit-and-miss and like "next year's models" might be the ones to watch for. From my perspective, at least.)

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

This is a poor TCO calculation and there's many better ones available that include more variables, e.g. random pick: https://afdc.energy.gov/calc/ https://afdc.energy.gov/calc/ The answer is almost certainly yes if you would otherwise buy an ICE car and the only factor you care about is cost. There's some corner cases, but this doesn't cover them.

byhemechi 4y ago

There's another option which in my case is much cheaper (and subjectively easier): buy a mazda2 for dirt cheap and only use it when you can't use public transport. Not only does it work out to be cheaper, it's also (in my opinion) much more convenient not having to find parking than not having to wait 10 minutes for a bus/tram/train. Obviously, your mileage may vary (ha) based on where you live, but for someone who lives in Sydney it works pretty well.

kkfx 4y ago

Mh, beside the issue of a spreadsheet itself [1] and the fact it's shared to the world [2] the real computation must be another: since crystal balls are out of service but luck is blind and bad luck sees very well... The right computation, witch happen to be pure logic NOT reducible to math, a thing soo many people forget is IMVHO "how likely is a diesel/gasoline shortage in the subsequent 1-8 years future?", "can I eventually charge LOCALLY on my own energy (p.v. typically) a BEV?", "can I sustain to buy a new BEV at current prices every 5-8-10 years?". The answer to this three questions is not numeric, but it's the key. Having an EV to protect themselves against fuel shortage is meaningless if you can't charge it autonomously, being able to buy one but unable to sustain it's CapEx is a desperate action, that tend to have equally desperate consequences, otherwise if you are not living in a country who produce LOCALLY enough oil and have a population enough ready to fight if needed to get it an EV is not economically convenient, but it's a guarantee to being able to travel. The importance of such expensive guarantee it's very personal, depending on so many parameters that's more easy to estimate in person instead of trying summarize all of them for a generic solution. Really of topic but IMVHO more HN-ish is the means the author choose to share: if in 2022 someone willing to do something AND SHARE IT to the community, a technically sound one, resort to such tech... Well... That means we are really in a sorry state. It's NOT a critic to the author, nor an indirect encouragement against sharing, is instead a sore consideration of the actual state of computing and widespread tech knowledge. [1] spreadsheets should NOT EXISTS at all, they are a tentative from another era to provide a flexible calculator for tabular data to the masses and such tentative was and is a FAILURE: instead of simplify it complicate things and instead of empower users if force them toward very bad paradigms. [2] witch prove the very limited scale of such collaborative model, perhaps to be confronted with the SCM model(s) AND the idea of sharing "active" documents (formatting + code) like org-mode files in Emacs or Jupyter notebooks etc where any user get the doc (so the logic) and instantiate it alone on in a small cohort witch is the sole example of live collaboration limited effectiveness behind the WOW effect.

sokoloff 4y ago
Spreadsheets are one of the most popular and widespread computing platforms out there. Excel is almost surely the single largest no-code/low-code install and monthly-active-users base. I don’t see spreadsheets as a failure nor evidence of poor state of computing or technical knowledge. If anything, I think they’re useful, practical, extensively used, and evidence that computing is working for people.

rpmw 4y ago

Cost of battery maintenance seems to be a huge thing I never see mentioned here. I imagine EVs will depreciate much faster in that arena. My 15 year old Ford Focus still gets 30 mpg and still goes just as far on a full tank.

pornel 4y ago
Teslas are now old enough that there's large-scale long-term battery degradation data available. They lose roughly 1%-2% of capacity per year (that's a linear approximation, actual degradation is steeper in the early years, tapers off later). So after 15 years you'd expect 70%-85% of the range left. Modern EVs have battery management systems that keep their temperature and other factors within the range that's gentle for the battery. EVs also have some spare "inaccessible" battery capacity that prevents them being (dis)charged to extremes that would shorten their life. 15-year-old EVs will be fine. EV batteries aren't your cellphone batteries.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Even my LEAF (which has one of the worst battery management systems in terms of having passive cooling only) is 7.5 years old and has around 85% of its original capacity.
  - rpmw 4y ago
    I guess I don’t understand why that’s acceptable. 15% degradation takes you from what 350 miles from full to just shy of 300. How much worse is it in the winter? None of those things happen in ICE vehicles that are much cheaper than even the cheapest BEV.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      It's way worse than that. Mine is a 2015, so has only a 24kWh battery. I'm down from around 90 miles to around 75 miles. Winter is less, but not catastrophically less. When I was in an office, it was 8 miles away. Our grocery is 1 mile away. The farthest kids' friends house is 2.7 miles away. As proof that there's utility there: the LEAF does more miles per year than our ICE car, so it gets plenty of use, even with the severely limited range compared to higher-end EVs. As for why it's acceptable: the car was $22K new after incentives. In 7.5 years, I've just now changed the wiper blades and cabin air filter for the second time. I turn all the wrenches on our family cars and I have literally only put a wrench or socket to the LEAF once in that time: to remove and charge the battery after we parked it for almost 8 weeks when COVID first hit and my little OBD2 Bluetooth dongle ran it down. (Wipers and cabin air are changeable without tools, as is filling the washer fluid tank.)

Hackbraten 4y ago

> This calculation excludes considerations for emissions, environmental impact When are calculations going to start not excluding those?

Hackbraten 4y ago
To downvoters: just keep on not accounting for emissions and environmental impact when you’re planning your next car purchase. Your children and grandchildren are going to _love_ having to face the consequences of your actions.

taylodl 4y ago

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.

bdcravens 4y ago

I'm not buying an EV to save money. Right now the economics are a bit skewed, but I'd buy an EV even if gas was $1/gallon. Emissions are the reason why I want to buy an EV. Ditto for going solar, etc.

dinom 4y ago
This sounds like burning the candle at both ends and I can't help but think the attitude is counter-productive. That is, if a gasoline powered engine is actually less expensive, why not drive the gas engine and invest or donate the savings towards alternative energy initiatives? That way EVs (and alternative energy in general) can flourish and become unequivocally better.
- bdcravens 4y ago
  My opinion is that emissions cause enough harm that we need to not donate our way out the problem. To me that's like letting your pets have unwanted offspring and just donating to a local shelter to make up for it.

TurkishPoptart 4y ago

You guys are having way too much fun in this spreadsheet, lawl.

Proven 4y ago