What Did I Do Wrong? PHEV v Hybrid Ownership Cost

Also, depending on your use case, I would carefully consider just getting an ICE version. For instance, the Honda CR-V hybrid costs $4500 more than the pure ICE version and gets 36 mpg highway whereas the ICE version gets 34 mpg highway. So, if your commute is mostly highway the hybrid is a losing proposition financially. On the other hand, the hybrid gets way better city mpg. So, it really depends on the use case. But if you are set on a Prius hybrid, those get 50+ mpg highway IIRC... and there is no cheaper ICE version to compare it to.

 

Indeed, but this is the world we live in, at least here in the US. Until politics and policies change from supporting cheap fossil fuels, EVs and maybe even some hybrids don't make sense financially for many use cases. And I don't see that changing anytime soon. And a relatively few of us buying electrified vehicles at a personal financial detriment are not going to change the world or change the politics of it all. I wish it weren't so, but there it is.

 

Does your spreadsheet include a "feel good" factor? If I had a spreadsheet and it included a "feel good" factor, BEVs would sort to the top.

 

Man! If you are buying an EV or PHEV for some mythical ROI don't. Get a regular gas car put the $$$ savings in a certificate or other reliable investment and trade the car in a few years or something. The ROI on this stuff is dubious at best. If you are buying it because you can afford it and both enjoy and want to promote a new technology then buy the car. I love the performance and reliability of my EV's but at the end of the day it's just a car that carries me from place to place, and most all cars these days are very reliable and economical no matter what the flavor.

 

I am the resident cynic, I suppose, but I believe that these public charging vendors are pretty crafty. They know what we pay for gas, and they are going to make sure that they charge us similar or higher cost per mile when all is said and done. I mean we are paying it now, so they are not going to leave that $ on the table and give us better rates. We can do far better by charging at home but again, our for-profit utilities aren't dummies, either. So, if and when the fleet converts more to EVs, expect to get reamed.

 

Exactly why I avoid Shell charging, the cost is incredibly high compared to non-petrol sites. As it is there are enough options in my city that I can shop around for favorable charging, usually opting for free public charging when I need it.

I think, when enough charging infrastructure is available, there will be competitive pressure to lower pricing. Already some businesses offer free charging as an incentive to get customers to stop and shop.

 

A lot of this depends on where you live/will drive the car. If you are not charging at home or at a location with low rates, like off-peak at a shared L2/3 in an apartment complex or something, EV/PHEV is totally dumb, unless you just want one because! If you can charge on a decent TOU rate at night/weekends/whenever, and you can get down in the 0.08/kwh range you can save money. If you get north of 0.20 to charge your car, the only reason to consider an EV is the "Feel Good" factor. I think most sane people are somewhere in-between. I DIY'd an extremely robust solar system, as part of my EV purchases, mostly to test feasability, I was not looking for an ROI per se. The savings from not buying fuel was a factor in the affordability of what I wanted to do as a project. Again I was not trying to save money overall, but the savings in fuel costs, helped aid the affordability of the entire system.

 

Exactly... but for EVs to really go mainstream overall affordability considering purchase cost, maintenance costs and fueling costs
will need to reach parity with ICE vehicles... unless there are mandates which, IMO, will not likely happen here in the US. We are still pretty far from that now.

 

Forcing someone to buy an EV is morally wrong. Long term blowback from these kinds of policies often leads to disaster. Subsidies and mandates always affect those that can least afford it the most. People think government money comes out of thin air, and it doesn't. Hyperinflation doesn't affect the wealthy.

 

And EV's are already "mainstream". I live in the hood. Seriously. 12v battery went out in the Kona about 2 hours ago, had to do a rescue, and swap it out. On the way over, about 5 miles away I passed by no less than 15 EV's, Several Tesla's, 2 BMW's, an IONIQ 5, a Lucid, 2 Mach-E's, and 4 Bolts, and a Rivian. Plenty of people own and drive EV's regularly. The cost/price of an EV has continued to drop, and will continue to drop as the technology to build them improves.

 

There are incredible leasing deals now, and EVs have been around long enough that there's starting to be a viable used EV market.

 

I think this is key, coupled with the improvements in the BMS tech keeping the batteries viable these days. The Prius started out with NiCd's, and we really didn't start seeing a lot of LIon unti about 12 years ago with the early Leaf's. The quality of the lithium batteries and the management systems of same have been on a steady linear improvement line since. Tesla really raised the bar on this, and frankly you really have to kill a few batteries naturally to see if your on the right track. At this point you can expect most used EV's 5 years old to have at least 90% of their original battery capacity.

Further we are just now starting to see some aftermarket for the traction batteries. The bubbling up of information from the rebuilding of the packs has highlighted what you can and can't get away with, and stretched the lifetime of the cells. The control chippery / BMS is becoming less of a black art and more of a cookie-cutter, stamp it out, as the total volume of active cells increases, and the use stretches into the solar arena. I suspect in about 5 years things will be much different in terms of cost differential.

 

LOL... not my 'hood which is nothing like a real 'hood, if you know what I mean. Fairly common mixed development DC 'burbs, single family, townhomes, and condos. Out of the dozens of vehicles I see daily only 2 EVs that I know of, both Tesla Model 3s. One is my next door neighbor and he just got it a few weeks ago. So, not mainstream at all. Can't even smell mainstream. There are quite a few hybrids.

 

I would also add in my GF's condo development I haven't see a single EV except for rare visitors. None. Zero. The neighboring TH's have one, I believe.

 

When I say I live in the hood, I mean 5 years ago there was a shooting at the house across the street from me, and yellow police tape across the cactus in my lawn at 2AM. Arizona/Phoenix is an ideal location for EV's. Power is relatively inexpensive at night, and population density is low, the Rivian plant is down the road. Higher density areas where it is the most difficult to retrofit home charging, are going to be the last to adopt the tech, but that does not mean it's not "mainstream". There is nothing esoteric about owning an EV anymore:

mainstream
1 of 3
noun
main·stream ˈmān-ˌstrēm


: a prevailing current or direction of activity or influence
mainstream adjective
mainstream

2 of 3
adjective
main·stream
: having, reflecting, or being compatible with the prevailing attitudes and values of a society or group
mainstream media

movies that appeal to a mainstream audience

mainstream success

EV adoption is pushing forward at a healthy rate. There is no stigma or blow back with owning an EV, and your friends are not going to fall over in disbelief if you say you bought an EV. More like, "ahh, interesting how do you like it?" At some point it will likely be the dominant mode for most private road travel. If you live in a more modern suburban area, say built after 2000 the electrical infrastructure should be in place to handle EV's. Many of the older neighborhoods in the northeast were built with with 50 and 100 amp service to the homes, and used natural gas and oil furnaces to heat in the winter. It's not like tomorrow we can rip and replace all this for the millions of existing homes in these areas. It's more about time than money. Over time it will get done (see below)

Here in Phoenix I live in an old neighborhood near downtown. I can't get decent internet service, the cables just don't run down this way, everything in the ground is 50 years old. I have flaky coax cable and just put in Starlink which is surprisingly good. "They" just ran a brand new fiber trunk down the road 1 mile north of me last year. SRP actually came thru with a boring project and replaced all the electrical lines about 10 years ago, and I can now ask for 200A service to replace the 150A I have. None of this was done with federal money, all local and private. All the newer neighborhoods already have fiber pedestals nearby, many now have fiber to the house, and they are replacing the copper with fiber in all the newer places where the copper was in conduit. All new electrical is underground, and we have been gradually moving it underground in the older neighborhoods.

My local taxes are lower than yours. Your in the DC Metro outskirts, that's it's own little bubble, I've lived in Fairfax, Arlington, Reston and Winchester (Which used to be WAY out there). 66 is a parking lot disguised as an interstate. Maryland is so "blue" it's bizarre. It always seems to me it's the more blue political pundits, that want to force *other people* to adopt all these "green" technologies, while they fly private and live in old non-insulated homes with oil fired boilers. They should be ashamed, instead they want to shame you. 90% of politics is LOCAL. You should attend a town council meeting, and pay close attention to the people on your local boards and utility commissions. Does your locale have a plan to keep your infrastructure moving forward? If not why not, if so are they keeping their timelines? Find out where the local money went. Federal money for local projects is always a boondoggle. Make your voice heard where it does some good.

In the mean time, you will probably find in the more 'red' states you will see a continuous and increasing adoption of EV's as they become ever more dominant in the mainstream, without the federal bureaucracy getting involved, because they actually have a lot to offer in the long term.

 

Got nothing to do with politics, just cost, depreciation, and lack of charging infrastructure. People vote with their wallets and buying an EV is still a very bad financial decision for mainstream drivers.