When do you think you'll buy your first electric car?

If a pickup truck was my primary vehicle, I'd go for the F150 Lightning as my next one for sure. To me, its a game-changer as a personal-use utility vehicle provided that towing an RV long distances isn't part of your plan. For towing the boat to the river, occasional trips to Home Depot, shuttling kids around, its pretty awesome. 

If Chevy were to release a Bolt/Sonic EV with 250hp/300 torques in a $25K platform that can handle I'd be all over it. I would love to replace the FiST with an electric hot-hatch and can't swing a Tesla 3 performance. Make it small, make it a hatch, make it handle like the FiST. Perfect for autocrossing and around-town driving. If I ever head to the Tail of the Dragon, I will deal with recharging on the way. My hope is that electrification will make cars cheaper eventually.

Replacing the primary family vehicle is the question, so let's see. The minivan goes about 400 miles on a tank fully-loaded with the bubble on the roof. I stopped for pee breaks/food/gas about 5 times on the way down to the beach, a trip of 520 miles. So in an imaginary Tesla Minivan with a range of 300 miles, I would start with 300 miles, and top that off for 15 minutes five times. That would not impact my length of trip at all, provided I had access to chargers every time.  If I wanted to make the trip as fast as possible, the Van will require 1 stop for gas, adding maybe 5 min for filling up.  In the Tesla van, if I drive 300 miles, then add another 200 miles in 15 minutes, I fall short by 20 miles.  So it would take and extra 15 min to top off again. Realistically, I'd have to pee again so its a wash. Looking forward to it, provided there are many, many chargers open. 

More then likely when either someone makes something that matches the practically of my Honda Element and the price drops enough on the second hand market or it becomes practical to convert the Element to electric or when the Miata becomes some sort of electric.

I've already had my first, but my insurance company decided they didn't want me driving a $40,000 car.

1988RedT2 said:

frenchyd said:

1988RedT2 said:

Never.  As in, not ever.

I could almost see a scenario that could justify a hybrid, but something with batteries only?  Never.

I know someone who recently bought a Tesla.  Used it to run up to Maryland a couple times a week to play poker.  He kept it maybe a month or two.  Range anxiety, you know.

That makes as much sense as worrying about running out of gas. When low on gas or charge you stop to deal with it. 

Except filling a tank with petrol takes what, five minutes, tops?  How much of a charge can you get in five minutes? 

In 15 minutes you can get enough to go 75 miles.  That's after using up the 200-300 miles of the original charge.  Since that will take  4-5&1/2 hours to do are you telling me you won't have to go to the bathroom, maybe stop for a bite to eat?  With A family you won't get that done in 5 minutes.  In fact every stop will be at least 30 mi utes unless  you act like a dictator.  So now you've added 150 miles. 
      You'll figure it out.   It will become as natural as brushing your teeth. But by your nature you won't be a pioneer. That's  OK. The west wasn't settled in a year.  

I'm taking a wait and see attitude for a whole host of reasons; everything from cost to net reduction in pollution.

One thing that might get me to make a move sooner would be if Ford gets close to selling 200k EVs, which would mean I wouldn't get the $7500 tax credit anymore. I'm thinking by this time next year, they will have done so, with the Mach E being out for more than a year and the Lightning hitting the streets.

tester (Forum Supporter) said:

When the market makes them convenient, cost effective, and necessary. 

Change is inevitable.  Cars change every year.  Sometimes more often.  Remember when a 2 year old car wasn't reliable enough anymore?  Besides styles changed every year. One year the fins were vertical, the next they were horizontal. 15 inch tires became 14's and even some 13's 

     But tell me aren't today's cars more reliable than those of the 50's and 60's. No more oil changes at 1500 miles, tune up's at 3000, new plugs points condenser cap and rotor. 
 Brakes lasted 10-12,000 miles and tire less than that?   Fuel mileage was often single didgets  
I remember when they first went to unleaded gas. Us Luddites drove out of our way to buy leaded gas.  Then came pollution controls and we couldn't rip them off fast enough. 
   Now cars are expected to last at least 100,000 miles and EV's will last much longer. Brakes instead of 50-60,000 miles will last, probably a very long time beyond that.  
     No more oil changes, filters, grease jobs!   
Everyone is talking about range but there is electricity almost every place in the world. I watched a video in England were they went for maximum range with EV's  and the fast chargers were no more than 20 miles apart while the slower ones were as close as 3 miles apart. 
    I know America isn't as advanced as England but we aren't that far behind.  Since there is money to be made, we will catch up. We traditionally have. 

We seriously considered an EV when we replaced my wife's Volvo last fall.  We weren't able to find anything that quite fit in the price range and condition that we were comfortable with.  We like to keep a car for around 170k miles and we didn't really want to spend over $15K.  That price in EVs seemed to limit us to Nissan Leafs with questionable batteries and the prospect of replacing said batteries at least once in the time we owned the car. In addition I like the current generation of Leaf but that price had us looking at the previous generation and I just don't care for them.

I guess the short answer to the question is that I'll buy an EV when there is a larger selection of slightly used ones and we have abetter idea of how they hold up at high mileage.

frenchyd said:

Everyone is talking about range but there is electricity almost every place in the world. I watched a video in England were they went for maximum range with EV's  and the fast chargers were no more than 20 miles apart while the slower ones were as close as 3 miles apart. 

I was having this conversation with a Tesla-owning friend a couple of years ago. I talked about how when you get to rural areas, there aren't a lot of EV stations, so you could get stuck out there. His response was "They're not banging rocks together for light, are they?" 

APEowner said:

We seriously considered an EV when we replaced my wife's Volvo last fall.  We weren't able to find anything that quite fit in the price range and condition that we were comfortable with.  We like to keep a car for around 170k miles and we didn't really want to spend over $15K.  That price in EVs seemed to limit us to Nissan Leafs with questionable batteries and the prospect of replacing said batteries at least once in the time we owned the car. In addition I like the current generation of Leaf but that price had us looking at the previous generation and I just don't care for them.

I guess the short answer to the question is that I'll buy an EV when there is a larger selection of slightly used ones and we have abetter idea of how they hold up at high mileage.

Whatever you decide will be fine.   But do consider the cost of delaying.  Resale of used EV's is strong and I foresee no  reason it should drop.   Unlike cars, brushless motors don't wear out quickly. There are Tesla's used as taxi's with near 300,000 miles on them and the batteries still retain 85% of charge capacity.  
     Meanwhile they paid nothing for oil changes/ filters etc. brakes are likely original. 
 In the meantime  instead of $35-50 fillups  every couple of days they put $3.45 worth of electricity. 
Yeh, your mileage may vary.  But let's just see shall we?   Assume 20 gallon tank at $3.15 a gallon. 25 mpg ( city driving )  that's just short of 8 cents per mile.   $8,000 per 100,000 miles.    Your electric cost would be .007 cents per mile.  Would be $700 for 100,000 miles. 
plus the savings of no oil changes,  no brake jobs.  Or fan belts  etc etc. Let's say I'm 100% wrong,   so instead it will cost you $1400. 

Things change. You either change with them or get left behind.
Take your time.  Whenever you're ready but when the average owner starts doing a little calculation what do you think your current cars value will do?  
  

rodknock said:

When someone makes an electric hot hatch with decent range I'll be in the market. The current options don't appeal to me or are way out of my price range. 

Have you ever driven what's out there, like the $25k Bolt with 200 hp and 266 lb ft of torque and a 250-300+ mile range? Have you? Fun little hot hatch that really needs a set of tires to be competitive with the GTI and MINI Cooper S.

This is my Oasis Blue 2020 Bolt and it's a blast to bomb around backroads and in traffic in town (lots of point and squirt with zero hesitation, as well as lots of torque coming out of corners):

Typical range that I see:

My wife just drove it from here in Baltimore down to Greeneville, TN and back to visit her brother with no problems and it took barely longer than in a gas car. She also had taken it up to Norwich, CT in Febrary (cold weather) and back with no issues. This was recharging in NJ on the way up:

As for the original question, I started with that Volt in the picture above back in 2013, and added the Bolt in Feb 2020 ($25k out the door, no government incentives). I'll always have an EV as my daily driver/errand runner/road trip car, and until there's a cheap EV convertible sports car, I'll have a gasser to fill that role. We're also thinking of replacing our 2500 Suburban with a Ford F150 Lightning EV in the next couple years.

frenchyd said:

APEowner said:

We seriously considered an EV when we replaced my wife's Volvo last fall.  We weren't able to find anything that quite fit in the price range and condition that we were comfortable with.  We like to keep a car for around 170k miles and we didn't really want to spend over $15K.  That price in EVs seemed to limit us to Nissan Leafs with questionable batteries and the prospect of replacing said batteries at least once in the time we owned the car. In addition I like the current generation of Leaf but that price had us looking at the previous generation and I just don't care for them.

I guess the short answer to the question is that I'll buy an EV when there is a larger selection of slightly used ones and we have abetter idea of how they hold up at high mileage.

Whatever you decide will be fine.   But do consider the cost of delaying.  Resale of used EV's is strong and I foresee no  reason it should drop.   Unlike cars, brushless motors don't wear out quickly. There are Tesla's used as taxi's with near 300,000 miles on them and the batteries still retain 85% of charge capacity.  
     Meanwhile they paid nothing for oil changes/ filters etc. brakes are likely original. 
 In the meantime  instead of $35-50 fillups  every couple of days they put $3.45 worth of electricity. 
Yeh, your mileage may vary.  But let's just see shall we?   Assume 20 gallon tank at $3.15 a gallon. 25 mpg ( city driving )  that's just short of 8 cents per mile.   $8,000 per 100,000 miles.    Your electric cost would be .007 cents per mile.  Would be $700 for 100,000 miles. 
plus the savings of no oil changes,  no brake jobs.  Or fan belts  etc etc. Let's say I'm 100% wrong,   so instead it will cost you $1400. 

Things change. You either change with them or get left behind.
Take your time.  Whenever you're ready but when the average owner starts doing a little calculation what do you think your current cars value will do?  
  

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if we'd have been money ahead over the whole life of the vehicle if we'd upped our budget and bought a new or at least newer EV as opposed to the three year old gas power car we bought but we would have had to tie up more cash (or credit) than we wanted. 

As far as resale value is concerned I don't factor that in on my wife's cars because she really prefers to keep them till they're worth almost nothing.  We basically hang onto them until she either wrecks them or they have 200k plus miles on them and they need an expensive repair.

pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) said:

If Chevy were to release a Bolt/Sonic EV with 250hp/300 torques in a $25K platform that can handle I'd be all over it. I would love to replace the FiST with an electric hot-hatch and can't swing a Tesla 3 performance. Make it small, make it a hatch, make it handle like the FiST. Perfect for autocrossing and around-town driving. If I ever head to the Tail of the Dragon, I will deal with recharging on the way. My hope is that electrification will make cars cheaper eventually.

200 hp and 266 lb ft of torque is pretty close to that, especially when you factor in the INSTANT delivery of that power and torque, with no waiting around.

Then add good tires instead of the crap eco ones it came with and the Eibach lowering springs (like the red one I posted) or even coilovers, and you get a REALLY low CG hot hatch with 250-300 mile range for cheap. How cheap? For the last year and a half, since GM lost the tax credits, they've been selling new for as little as $22k (cheaper if you are a Costco member). As I mentioned above, our 2020 Bolt cost $25k out the door with a decent selection of options (though it was the LT model with the heated cloth seats). An aquaintance just bought a new '21 for $22,500...

As for the Dragon, my wife was going to take hers on that when she drove down to Greeneville earlier this month, but didn't end up with enough time. TN is setting up a charging initiative where you'll never be more than 50 miles from a fast charger. With a car like the Bolt with a 250-300 mile range, that means you can top off at a local charger, run the Dragon and still have enough charge to get to the next charging station.

I'd say probably 5-10 years. I plan on buying a new "fun" ICE car in the next 6-9 months. My better half would like to get a bigger vehicle than the Mazda 3 for camping as well.

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

frenchyd said:

Everyone is talking about range but there is electricity almost every place in the world. I watched a video in England were they went for maximum range with EV's  and the fast chargers were no more than 20 miles apart while the slower ones were as close as 3 miles apart. 

I was having this conversation with a Tesla-owning friend a couple of years ago. I talked about how when you get to rural areas, there aren't a lot of EV stations, so you could get stuck out there. His response was "They're not banging rocks together for light, are they?" 

That's a good line, I'm going to steal it :)

There are chargers in surprising places, especially if tourists go there. The electrical infrastructure is pretty solid and widespread, it's just waiting for chargers to be stuck on the ends. It's not like we have to build pipelines.

Then there's that planned charging station in the NWT that's over 50 miles from the nearest power lines. That's a problem.

frenchyd said:

Whatever you decide will be fine.   But do consider the cost of delaying.  Resale of used EV's is strong and I foresee no  reason it should drop.   Unlike cars, brushless motors don't wear out quickly. There are Tesla's used as taxi's with near 300,000 miles on them and the batteries still retain 85% of charge capacity.  

Source on that? Not doubting you, but the C&D long-term Model 3 is down to 93% after only 24k miles. Limited battery life (and the cost of replacing them) is one of the things giving me pause about buying an EV.

In reply to Chris_V :

The Bolt looks great in photos.  But next to the Volt, it makes the Volt look tiny.

This jibes with real life "What minivan is that?" experiences.

When I think hot hatch, I think of something closer to Veloster than Caravan, no matter what its raw numbers are.

266ft-lb also doesn't sound impressive without context.  I mean, my RX-7 has 612ft-lb at the driveshaft, or 2980ft-lb at the axles....  Where in the EV drivetrain does the number come from?

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said: 

Source on that? Not doubting you, but the C&D long-term Model 3 is down to 93% after only 24k miles. Limited battery life (and the cost of replacing them) is one of the things giving me pause about buying an EV.

In the future DIYers will be diagnosing and replacing battery cells (not the whole battery pack) instead of replacing timing belts. I know a guy that did that with a Prius, bought it cheap because the battery was "bad".

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

frenchyd said:

Whatever you decide will be fine.   But do consider the cost of delaying.  Resale of used EV's is strong and I foresee no  reason it should drop.   Unlike cars, brushless motors don't wear out quickly. There are Tesla's used as taxi's with near 300,000 miles on them and the batteries still retain 85% of charge capacity.  

Source on that? Not doubting you, but the C&D long-term Model 3 is down to 93% after only 24k miles. Limited battery life (and the cost of replacing them) is one of the things giving me pause about buying an EV.

They're charging it at Superchargers quite often, so that's a tradeoff. They do acknowledge that their degradation is worse than a considerable majority of the sample size. It's the EV equivalent of running the car at the track all the time, things wear faster. If it was an ICE, it would likely be seeing faster internal wear as well but you can't check that in software :) Maybe they should be doing oil analysis on their long term performance cars.

There was a survey last year that showed that EV owners did something like 90% of their charging at home, which means only 10% would likely be at fast chargers - although some could be at destination chargers. I'm having trouble pulling it up, but I did find a Consumers Reports study that says that, based on driving habits, an EV with 250 miles of range could charge at home 92% of the time. With 33% of their charging taking place at Superchargers, C&D is definitely outside the norm so it's not surprising their car is as well. Probably also not good to use their tire life data as fully representative either...

Here's another big slug of data points (as opposed to one). This is from a group of 350 European Tesla owners sharing their data with each other and this summary is about three years old. Feel free to dive into the thread if your Dutch is up to it ! Interesting that the rate of degradation appears to level off, maybe we'll see the same with the C&D car.

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

frenchyd said:

Whatever you decide will be fine.   But do consider the cost of delaying.  Resale of used EV's is strong and I foresee no  reason it should drop.   Unlike cars, brushless motors don't wear out quickly. There are Tesla's used as taxi's with near 300,000 miles on them and the batteries still retain 85% of charge capacity.  

Source on that? Not doubting you, but the C&D long-term Model 3 is down to 93% after only 24k miles. Limited battery life (and the cost of replacing them) is one of the things giving me pause about buying an EV.

Please believe what you want. I'm sure it's true. At least for someone.  
I don't know enough about charging and how they are used to be definitive. It's one of those your mileage may vary things.  Plus I've heard through a variety of sources that Tesla updates the whole system on a regular basis. Is it one of those self learning things? Or different programming etc?   I don't know.  
 But my neighbors with them have reported similar sort of life, some report 98/99% with 2-3 years. admittedly with much less mileage.  Everyone seems to plug it in when they return home ( sorta like shutting the door kind of habit ) 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Chris_V :

The Bolt looks great in photos.  But next to the Volt, it makes the Volt look tiny.

This jibes with real life "What minivan is that?" experiences.

 Really? The Volt is 17 inches longer and nearly 2 inches wider than the Bolt. The only dimension where the Bolt is bigger is height, where it's 7 inches taller. That more upright stance means there's more usable legroom for the occupants, since they sit more upright than in the Volt. I owned a Volt for 6 years, and the new Bolt feels more compact - about Honda Fit dimensions.

I like the Bolt a lot but the seats were rather uncomfortable for me. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Makes sense. The car mags are known to be hard on their long-term testers.

Truth? When they can make long distance travel with the time efficient of an ice car. Tinfoil hat? When I'm convinced Elon isnt a supervillain.