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Comment by mtrovo | Hacker News Reader

I appreciate the discussion about total cost of ownership. My family is looking into our first EV mainly because of the impression of lower running costs. However, the more I read, the more I realize that a fair comparison is far more complex than just fuel savings.

One thing I keep wondering, especially with the high break-even numbers, is what about battery life and replacement costs. That could really wreck any savings forecast, or am I missing something? Also, our family does not drive a huge amount each year, so figuring out if we would even hit that break-even point is still on the table.

I also noticed depreciation for EVs can be more aggressive, so buying a 2-year-old car could, in theory, significantly lower your break-even point compared to a new one, without increasing maintenance costs too much.

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Battery life seems to be looking good on modern cars - better than expected by all accounts. I've been looking at the UK second hand market for ~2-3 year old cars (mostly Autotrader) for Kia Niros, and the hybrid and electric variants are pretty indistinguishable on price, which makes EVs far more attractive. I don't know if this is true for other car types.

Only problem with the Niro is that depending on which year you get, it's not possible to get a proper read on how much the battery has degraded with an OBD dongle - something the E-GMP based cars in Kia and Hyundai's lineup allow you to see quite easily.

But yes, my car is now almost 2 years old (Kia EV6 AWD GT Line) and so far when its lost around 600Wh of capacity, so less than 1%.

EV leases are super cheap in the US right now (YMMV). That’s what we’ve done. With the gas savings (we only charge at home at night and we have very low night rates) we’re paying very little for our car. No maintenance so far. When our lease runs out we’ll either buy or lease again.

The thing with EVs is that there is so much uncertainty in the platform. Is this an actual reliable car or will it crap out due to some byzantine electronics issue in 5 years?

Meanwhile a 4 cylinder dead simple economy gas car is pretty much commodified by automakers at this point. You change the oil, timing belt, brakes, tires, and live somewhere where they don’t salt the roads that car can probably run for half a century making 30mpg costing you pennies in comparison in insurance and registration because its small and slow. It is a known quantity. 4 cylinder ice with same old 4spd auto or 5spd manual is a solved science like a hammer or a tube amplifier is at this point.

Yes and no.

Ask Hyundai / KIA owners about the oil consumption in their brand-new engines. Or even 2012-2015 Prius owners about the new head gaskets they will eventually all need.

Even brand-new ICE cars are not without their risks.

First and second generation Teslas are definitely to be avoided, but even 3rd gen is super cheap now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu97Hq-KoBo

I just picked up a used 2021 Hyundai Kona EV back in December. It had been leased for a corporate fleet and only had 28K miles on it. After the federal tax credit for used EVs ($4000, paid directly to the dealership so they just applied it like a discount), it was less than half of the original price of the car.

I reckon a good chunk of the depreciation is due to the original federal tax credit of $7,500 for new BEVs was also applied to the lease costs, so all-in-all roughly half of the ~$20,000 of depreciation was from tax credits in my case.

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