The author is basically right. Currently, electric cars don’t make economic sense. However, there are some other factors that are never considered in comparisons like this one. For example, how nice would it be to never have to spend time at a gas station? Does anyone enjoy their time at the gas station? I doubt it. How much leisure and other productive time is wasted just with the process of purchasing gasoline? Let’s suppose that you spend 20 minutes of your life per week getting gas. That’s like 17 hours per year. Suppose you spent that 17 hours doing something that you enjoy. An economic value should be assigned to that. Do other factors such as the one I’ve mentioned justify purchase of an electric vehicle economically? Probably not, but such factors can’t be totally ignored either.
Don’t know where you get gas but if I spend 5-6 minutes it’s a lot.
“Suppose you spent that 17 hours doing something that you enjoy”
Like, say, waiting by the side of the road for a tow truck because your didn’t quite get enough mileage out of your plug-in.
Or maybe NOT doing something because you still have 6 hours to go before your plug-in hybrid is fully charged.
Of course! All value is subjective.
If it weren't for the government subsidies, I'd be singing the praises of the electric car experiment.