I’m hoping my next car (might be a while, my Prius is only 8 years old and I will continue to drive it until it becomes necessary to replace it) will be an EV or a PHEV, but it will not come from Elon’s company.
I had the same hope, then got rear ended and my 12 year old Lancer got written off. My plan had always been to keep it as long as possible, maintain it, and drive it into the ground, but I hadn’t banked on someone else doing that for me.
Have a PHEV now, charging infrastructure where I live is pretty asstastic, and I do just enough longer range driving to make a full EV annoying under those circumstances.
Thankfully, I don’t need a huge range, so that isn’t a big deal to me. I’m in the U.S., in Indiana, in coal country, so yeah, electricity is not clean, but I’m also not under any illusions that me driving an EV or PHEV will help save the planet, either. The savings in gas is a bigger issue to me and I would be happy if I never had to go to a gas station in the middle of winter again.
Savings in gas, oil, transmission maintenance, brake pads adds up nicely. However be prepared to lose some of those savings in higher taxes because you aren’t contributing to the roads via gas tax (which is stupid because by and large the ones tearing up the roads are truckers). And of course battery replacement is expensive but I think that’s less of a problem than most people expect.
Caveat: I own a Volt, not a full EV, but I’ve been watching for quite a while.
I don’t know that it would even out with taxes, I think I’d still come out ahead, but I’m not sure I admit. Never having to go to a gas station again as long as I live unless I wanted coffee or something would be worth it alone. I absolutely loathe pumping gas. Everything about it. Especially the smell.
I’m not concerned about the battery issue. My Prius is from 2016 and the battery is still in great condition.
I’m stuck at hybrid, as I work from home and live in an apartment complex that has only one level 1 charger for some 300 units near the front office where the property manager parks her stupid Tesla.
I’d go full electric if I had a place to reliably charge it.
I think the biggest hurdle for PHEV and EV adoption is going to be people like you living in apartments. Landlords have no incentive to spend money on chargers. It should be subsidized.
Absolutely. And the real kicker is apartments tend to be the exact demographic that could use a midrange electric vehicle to commute daily with the most.
my Prius is only 8 years old and I will continue to drive it until it becomes necessary to replace it
That might be a while. My parents had one of the first hundred Priuses imported into the US in 2001, and it barely needed maintenance and hit 200,000 miles before my niece totaled it in an minor accident. When they bought it she still needed a car seat.
That’s fine with me and great to hear! I have no interest in regularly getting a car upgrade. Every car I have ever owned, I have driven until it was either too expensive to keep driving it or it got totaled in a crash (never something that was my fault, thankfully).
I mean I would love an EV or a PHEV, but not enough to do anything about it unless I have to. If I’m lucky, by the time I need a new car, they’ll actually be self-driving and I won’t have to worry about that either.
I’m hoping my next car (might be a while, my Prius is only 8 years old and I will continue to drive it until it becomes necessary to replace it) will be an EV or a PHEV, but it will not come from Elon’s company.
I had the same hope, then got rear ended and my 12 year old Lancer got written off. My plan had always been to keep it as long as possible, maintain it, and drive it into the ground, but I hadn’t banked on someone else doing that for me.
Have a PHEV now, charging infrastructure where I live is pretty asstastic, and I do just enough longer range driving to make a full EV annoying under those circumstances.
Thankfully, I don’t need a huge range, so that isn’t a big deal to me. I’m in the U.S., in Indiana, in coal country, so yeah, electricity is not clean, but I’m also not under any illusions that me driving an EV or PHEV will help save the planet, either. The savings in gas is a bigger issue to me and I would be happy if I never had to go to a gas station in the middle of winter again.
Savings in gas, oil, transmission maintenance, brake pads adds up nicely. However be prepared to lose some of those savings in higher taxes because you aren’t contributing to the roads via gas tax (which is stupid because by and large the ones tearing up the roads are truckers). And of course battery replacement is expensive but I think that’s less of a problem than most people expect.
Caveat: I own a Volt, not a full EV, but I’ve been watching for quite a while.
I don’t know that it would even out with taxes, I think I’d still come out ahead, but I’m not sure I admit. Never having to go to a gas station again as long as I live unless I wanted coffee or something would be worth it alone. I absolutely loathe pumping gas. Everything about it. Especially the smell.
I’m not concerned about the battery issue. My Prius is from 2016 and the battery is still in great condition.
I’m stuck at hybrid, as I work from home and live in an apartment complex that has only one level 1 charger for some 300 units near the front office where the property manager parks her stupid Tesla.
I’d go full electric if I had a place to reliably charge it.
I think the biggest hurdle for PHEV and EV adoption is going to be people like you living in apartments. Landlords have no incentive to spend money on chargers. It should be subsidized.
Absolutely. And the real kicker is apartments tend to be the exact demographic that could use a midrange electric vehicle to commute daily with the most.
That might be a while. My parents had one of the first hundred Priuses imported into the US in 2001, and it barely needed maintenance and hit 200,000 miles before my niece totaled it in an minor accident. When they bought it she still needed a car seat.
That’s fine with me and great to hear! I have no interest in regularly getting a car upgrade. Every car I have ever owned, I have driven until it was either too expensive to keep driving it or it got totaled in a crash (never something that was my fault, thankfully).
I mean I would love an EV or a PHEV, but not enough to do anything about it unless I have to. If I’m lucky, by the time I need a new car, they’ll actually be self-driving and I won’t have to worry about that either.