I’m already doing my homework on an electric car (or truck), even though my current GMC gasser won’t be paid off until May of ‘23.
Don’t get me wrong: I think “climate change” is the biggest temporal scam in human history. I think Algore is as big a fraud as “Dr.” Falsie. I don’t have a “man” bun, wouldn’t be caught dead in skinny jeans, and don’t wear a muzzle while attempting to sip a Starbucks latte on a Seattle streetcorner.
However, I want lower fuel costs. I don’t like changing air filters, fuel filters, motor oil, oil filters, plug wires, radiator coolant, spark plugs, or transmission fluid. Nor do I like replacing bad alternators, brake pads, catalytic converters, coil packs, fuel pumps, mufflers, starters, or water pumps. Electric cars seem like an end run around such expensive and/or laborious hassles.
Coil Packs have been my pet peeve for a couple of decades now.
Sounds like you are driving 1960’s autos. Maybe time to trade up, you know?
Same here. My old company involved driving from Texas to US Customs in Los Angeles, and back to Boston within 5 weeks. And that was just one of the long trips that I made. But mostly highway miles and a major metro area at either end.
Since I no longer drive on the highway much, an electric car is looking pretty good ... especially after Uncle Sugar pays me to keep union employees working.
but you'll still pay for replacement of electric motors, electronic power control units, HIV inverters, HIV chargers, a thousand electronic sensors likely not easily accessible, brakes, steering, wheels and suspension, interior, heater/a-c, (and some filters there I'd imagine) etc. Tesla's wall of power for the home runs somewhere upwards of $8K and that's before you call the electrician to install a dedicated high voltage line to your home if you want more than trickle charging. And those heavily-subsidized 'free' charging stations won't be free for much longer. The $20K theoretical ‘saved’ in gas purchases over 10 years will likely morph into $45K of post-purchase expenses over 10 years. If a person wants to dedicate that much of their earnings to a vehicle, that's their choice, tho.
OTOH, A gas powered vehicle is capable of producing its own electricity, and, at the end of the chassis life, that engine can be used out-of-vehicle for a hundred purposes. (3-d printing and wide-spread use of gas vehicles elsewhere in the world ensures continuity of parts). Gas vehicles can be adapted to run on biofuels, and can run continuously, allowing for refueling, for days or months without heat buildup issues.
Maybe I'm blind, but I can't see a future for EVs in much of the world - China prefers mass transit as a means of personalized control of nonparty members, and will sell their own brand of EVs to their party citizens expected to buy them, and socialist urban infrastructure in first-world nations is already being built to support mass transit and high density housing in 'walking neighborhoods' that block vehicle access. With that basic infrastructure conflict, cost aside, EV sales seems limited to an urban audience that can call one as an Uber or that can afford $400/mo parking space rent for their EV they can't drive in the city. :)