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Photo cred: Scott Rybarik
By: Jason Bean
With the recent push by the U.S. Government for Americans to buy Electric Vehicles, we take a look at the feasibility of this push.
As with any push by the Government, Electric cars have been the subject of much debate and controversy. One point of view is they save the planet with less emissions and less use of fossil fuels, they cost less.
Where as, the other point of view states, they are a waste of money, they don’t save fossil fuels and they aren’t practical.
Regardless of your opinion the Federal government has made a major push for everyone to buy Electric cars. With California looking to ban the sales of gasoline vehicles by the year 2035.
Is this feasible? Lets look at some real life experiences.
Yes, Electric cars are cool, full of technology, powerful and fast. But, as we’ve seen with close colleagues of our, Electric cars are super high on the cost side. Running down the list per our colleagues experiences. First, The initial purchase price and taxes.
At one time Electric cars had tons of tax breaks included in their purchase. Those days are gone. For example in Utah, in recent years the local State Representatives passed several laws taxing Electric car use. They realized the revenue that was being lost with so many new Electric car users. Road taxes have been assessed, tax incentives were removed. All in an effort to make up the loss of tax revenue. With the first time purchase of an EV you will have to hire an electrician to wire your home to charge your EV. A cost that is not chump change. As well as of 2023 a studies show that the average purchase price for an EV is $16,000 higher than their Gas counterparts.
We’ve also heard many complaints from Electric car owners of issues with charging stations. Tesla has created a large infrastructure of charging stations across the planet. However that infrastructure is non existent with new manufacturers getting into the Electric game. Ford, GMC, Hyundai etc, do not have their own charging stations spread amongst the highways and byways. Owner of these vehicles are left using chargers produced by third party companies. And as we’ve heard they are not reliable at this time.
They are super hard to find in some remote areas or they don’t work. We’ll use one example for you to watch. Check out YouTube Stradmans video titled “The Sad reality of owning an EV.”
Also as reported at one time the price of charging an EV made it cheaper per mile driver than an internal combustion vehicle. Those days are gone too. With added in state and federal taxes, it is now more expensive per mile in most instances to drive an EV than it is a gas vehicle.
Ford touted the new F-150 lighting as being an EV capable of towing and still traveling the highways without issue. We’ve seen and heard that also is not true. Towing a large or heavy load takes the range on the F-150 lighting down by almost a third or more. Video evidence can be found on Hoovies Garage YouTube channel on the video titled, “Towing with my Ford Lightning EV was a total disaster.”
Currently their are laws being enacted pushing EV’s in certain states to where manufacturers of aftermarket car parts for gas vehicles will be run out of business. Aftermarket exhaust, motors, air intake systems etc, all will be illegal in the near future.
Believe me we get it, we do need to act to help our planet. But the push for EV’s has a ways to go, as it is simply not practical currently for American consumers to purchase these vehicles and spend more and more of their hard earned money each year on ever increasing cost to own these vehicles.
Depending on where you live, the infrastructure and low managed costs are not there at this time in history.
We’re not telling anyone what to do, EVs are fantastic vehicles with gobs of engineering put into them. They are fun, fast, and cool. Heck, I want one. We have many friends that love their EVs. You are free to choose the vehicle that fits your life. That’s what’s great about automobiles, you can express yourself with your vehicle, and that’s why we love cars so much.
By Jason Bean
As the supplier of the photo for this article and an EV owner I can say that our EV experience has been highly positive. The key to EV adoption is making sure that your use case supports it. While public EV charging infrastructure isn’t as built out at gas stations (and nothing will be for a long time to come), the notion that there is a “gas station” in my garage where our car charges silently, and without fumes every night, is really convenient. The vast majority of our driving takes place well within the range of the car on any given days, so we’ve cut our “fuel” bill by nearly 80% using the EV instead of a gasoline powered car.
State dependent, there are fantastic incentives for off-peak charging. Our utility in MN discounts our off-peak electricity by 66%, and our car is capable of charging in the window of time when the electricity is cheap. They also paid for the installation of the charger in our garage, but we were responsible for getting a proper circuit to the location.
The car is brilliant to drive. Quick, quiet, comfortable, very easy to use.
Like any emerging technology, there are phases to adoption by the general population. These early phases are necessary for the development of the technology, and this development makes the product both better, and cheaper.
There are several other problems to solve for an “all electric” future, and truth is we might not get there. We need better and cleaner sources of electric generation, we need batteries less dependent on rare earth minerals, and we need better ways to store electricity in bulk – these problems will get solved as the demand for their solutions increases. This is one of the beauties of market economies. They are good at producing solutions for things when there is a profit to be made.
If you get a chance, drive an electric car. I think you’ll find yourself impressed.
Scott, thank you so much for this reply and the photo. We appreciate the response from an EV owner that shows us the qualities and abilities that an EV can bring to your life. Solid information right there.