I did the math 2 years ago when it was time to replace my wife's old gas crossover anyway. Here's what I was looking at then.
$10K to get a used crossover with less than 100K miles getting 15mpg. $45K for a new gas crossover that would get probably real world 25mpg. $55K for a new EV crossover without the luxury extras, plus another $2K to add a home charger, that would get 3.5 miles/kWh, minus the $7,500 EV tax credit and call it $50K for the EV.
Gas was $5/gallon back then, but I expected it to go down to about $3.50/gallon, so I went with that. But let's go with $3/gallon since that's what I have locally (translation: it's an election year so Biden's handlers are letting energy go down temporarily). If I had gotten the $45K gas crossover getting 30mpg, drove it 12K miles per year, getting $65 oil changes every 5K miles, it'd cost $1,584 annually to drive it. But my EV crossover would cost $549 on my power bill (16 cents per kW) to drive it 12K miles (pretending I don't have solar providing 80% of my power homemade). A difference of $1,000 per year. But change that to 14K miles and the difference is $1,200/year. So in 10 years you save $12K. Of course if gas goes up again the savings is more. IMHO, that makes up for replacing the battery at 10-12 years (as long as you don't get an EV with expensive battery replacement).
As far as tire wear goes, my EV crossover weighs 10% more than the gas crossover it replaced, and 5% less than our gas pickup. The tire wear on the EV seems to confirm that. Plus with the EV doing most braking through regen braking, the brake pads wear less. So I counted the 10% more in tire expense more than made up for in lower brake expense.
At least that's my experience (we drove ours 26K miles last year, with 16K miles charged at home). I don't recommend EV's for everyone. And I'm certainly against the Dims' forcing and incentivizing EV's. But it's safe to say that in a free market there are use cases where an EV makes sense.
Maybe there’s a profit to be made here. Manufacturing and selling really long extension cords so I can charge my 200 horsepower electric tractor in the field. Or maybe Joe Biden can give me some of his “Build Back Better” program money to install solar panels and charging stations in my fields. Still going to need a really long extension cord if I’m 300 yards away from a charging station.
[[So I counted the 10% more in tire expense more than made up for in lower brake expense. ]]
Good point- there are usually pros and cons about. MOst things-
I’m not agaisnt em, but sure don’t wanna be forced to buy one. With my luck I’d buy a lemon and have to replace the battery packs @ about $20,000 a pop every few years. Might be better off buying a used ev at that point if i were to get one.
The other problem though is living where it gets very cold and runni g hewter, draining the battery- and then sweltering in the summer because ac drains the batteries. Would be nice if they could create a small really fuel efficient engine tO run heater and air and any extra peripherals while still running on electric propulsion.
F-1 racing cars have a system where tHey harvest their braking power to recharge the car’s energy in the battery, but not sure if that could be done with lithium, batteries too.
Lots of things to work out before evs are ready for prime time, if at all. For summer driving, short distances, buying used might be the easy to go, but I’ll stick with gas as it is tried and true now.