If, like me, you've driven nothing but used cars for years because you hate car payments, my consideration of buying a new EV isn't compared to new ICE cars, but to my next used ICE car. Basically, I'm looking at replacing my wife's used car in a year with another used car for $10K. If I buy the EV instead it's now a $37K choice to get the EV (the difference between $47K and $10K), not a $47K choice. I'll keep an ICE car so we have the best of both worlds. Truth is, we ordered an EV that's $60K because it's got a handful of luxuries.
Then it's how much do I spend on gas and oil changes per year. For me that's $3,000 per year in gas ($4.50 per gallon at 15mpg because we drive used cars for 10,000 miles per year). And I expect that to go up by 3% inflation each year ($3,090 next year, $3,180 the year after that, etc.). Since I get an oil change every 5K miles and they cost about $65 where I live, that's $130 per year. Again 3% inflation. So with gas that's $3,130 the first year, etc.
One cost about the EV though, at least in my case, is the extra for insurance. I estimate the increase to be $1,000 per year to go from liability to full coverage. So now my EV savings is $2,100 first year. I'm going to ignore repairs -- my old used cars need repairing every now and then, which a new EV will need repairing rarely, but when it does need repairing it'd cost more. So I'll count repair costs as a wash.
Then there's the fact that on average I replace each of mine and my wife's cars every 7 years (as part of us driving used cars). So in the 7th year of owning an EV and inflation has made my savings creep up to about $3,000 per year, on that 7th year I'll save another $10K by not having to buy another used car like I normally would.
By my math, driving on average 10K miles per year makes the EV pay for itself on about the 8th year. And that assumes only a 3% inflation rate of energy costs. Obviously the Dims want the energy costs to keep skyrocketing.
Couple that with the fact that I'm in the process of upgrading my 10kW solar array to 20kW, and my battery storage from 30kWh to 90kWh, and I can soon go into retirement by shifting the future variable energy costs (who knows what the cost of gas, electricity, and natural gas will be in the future?) to a fixed cost: the cost of the monthly payment on the HELOC I took out to do the solar and convert my natural gas appliances to high efficiency electric ones, and the monthly payment of the new EV. Those payments won't go up with inflation. In fact, my HELOC payment goes down as the balance is paid down. Basically next year it'll cost me less money (lower HELOC payments) to save more money (higher energy rates I'm avoiding by having 90% of my power generated by my solar system and buying only 10% of what I need from the grid).
Before the solar upgrade and before I'm getting an EV (which I don't have yet), my home energy costs are $300/month. I have a tiny power bill and no nat gas bill, but I do have a HELOC payment. Whenever my HELOC + power bill is above $300, I pull the difference from the HELOC. This is about what it cost to energize my home in 2019 (before covid and before Brandon) on average each month with my power bill + nat gas bill. Even though I pull money from the HELOC on those months (which increases the HELOC balance), the HELOC payment itself pays down the balance more than my withdrawal increases the balance. Thus the HELOC balance is being paid down while I'm living on a home energy budget like it's still 2019 without the past year and a half of Brandon energy inflation. I wish I could do the same with all inflation.
When I get the EV I'll do the same process, but it'll be $450/month instead of $300/month. I put the 26% tax credit for my original solar installation into a simple investment account with mutual funds. (Honestly I'm out of equities right now waiting on the market to crash.) I figured that was better than using that money to pay down on the HELOC with it's 2.85% interest. I'll do the same with the next 26% solar tax credit for my upgrade, as well as the $7,500 EV credit. All of that will help me make the car payments so none of this transition to more energy independence harms my retirement investments.
If my math and assumptions from here on are as correct as they were for my first year of solar, we're looking at the entire project paying for itself on the 9th or 10th year (8 or 9 years from now since I'm 1 year into phase I of the project). And that's with my wife and I getting a more expensive $60K EV with its added luxuries. At that point I'll probably have to spend $10K to replace the EV batteries. But I'll still have years left on my solar panels (25-year warranty guaranteed only a gradual decline in throughput to still be operating at 70% the final year) and home solar batteries (19-year/50%). Obviously, if the Dims keep having their way and energy costs keep going up, the decision to wean myself from their energy polices pays for itself sooner. Also obvious is it would pay for itself sooner if we had gone with a $45K-ish EV instead of a $60K one.
So if you own your home, live in the south (good for solar) and plan to be there for at least 10 years, you ought to at least consider sitting down and doing a little financial planning, studying of your power bills each month, and figuring out if there's something you can do to make yourself a little more energy independent so the Dims have one less way to control you and your family. If I could drill and process my own natural gas I would because that's an energy dense source -- but I can't. Same with oil and coal. At least for now the Dims haven't figured out how to get between me and the sun.
For those of us who live in the north country where -26 is a not uncommon January temperature, EVs may not be practical unless you live in a city. Imagine driving with traffic backed up during a snow storm in below zero weather and needing your lights, wipers and defroster as well as your heater. Lots of luck finding a charging station or if you are stranded with no charge left.