EVs Are Awesome Except When They Break Down and There's No One to Fix Them

So you got yourself a brand new, $70,000 subsidized electric vehicle (EV), and everyone on your block is envious. Quiet, non-polluting, cheaper to operate than a gas-powered vehicle, right?

That’s not entirely accurate. The grim fact is, you better pray your EV never breaks down. The electric vehicle manufacturers sort of forgot to train the necessary number of mechanics to service your beautiful new car, leaving you with repair costs that will be through the roof.

It seems like too obvious a detail to overlook. And it’s going to blow up the EV industry once a couple of millions of them are on the road.

EV’s are, it turns out, incredibly dangerous to work on. The electric voltage technicians work with could kill mechanics very quickly. Then there’s the fire hazard with EV batteries.

And the specialized diagnostic equipment needed to service EV’s is putting off most small, independent repair shops that experts agree are going to be needed to keep the cost of repairs and warranties down.

If I were you I wouldn't do the gas to electric conversion if all you're paying is $10/month gas bill. In fact, even if your natural gas bill was a lot higher (because you used natural gas for more than just cooking), I wouldn't switch anything to electric unless you're trying to use decentralized solar and/or wind and/or hydro power to make your own power. IMHO natural gas is better than power except for that one tiny fact that I can't drill and provide my own natural gas like I can power. IMHO, an all-electric house and/or doing most of your driving in an EV is beneficial only from the standpoint if you're trying to achieve more self-reliance on your energy needs.

I converted the home to all electric two years ago in fall of 2021 (in Oct 2021 I replaced the regular AC and nat gas furnace with variable speed heat pump and variable speed blower). In Nov 2021 I replaced the nat gas water tank with a hybrid water tank. With that initial phase of my solar it produced 58% of all the power we needed (buying less than half the power we needed from the grid).

Later in June 2022 (15 months ago) I had to replace my wife's old ICE crossover and chose to get an EV crossover. We do most of our driving in it (though we still drive our ICE pickup every now and then when we need to drive in 2 directions for the day or do pickup chores, and I'm sure there will come a day when we chose to go on a road trip with few charging options). So basically since June of 2022 our driving is almost all electric (26K miles per year with about 22K or 23K of those miles charged at home). And I upgraded my solar a couple of months later in Aug 2022 (one year ago). In the past 12 months I've had to buy only 18% of my power from the grid -- the other 82% of my power usage came from my own solar production/battery storage.

My past 12 power bills averaged $74/month. I calculate that on the past 12 months I've saved a total of $8,301 in power + natural gas + gasoline. That's with me tracking each month my odometer reading of my EV and how much price per gasoline is at the cheapest of the nearest gas stations, but also some added power cost by the fact that I have to charge my EV, but at the same time a lot of reduced power cost by virtue that most of my power is free anyway. Plus my inverters give me good telemetry in 5-minute candles I can export and query in a homemade TSQL database how much power my home (and EV charging) actually consumed during that power billing period and subtract from that the little bit of power the power bill says I pulled from them. So instead of paying $765/month on average in power bill + natural gas bill + gas at the pump, I pay $74/month for power $820/month on the HELOC payment I took out to pay for it all. However, every year I get a tax credit (total of 3 years since the solar tax credit carries forward to future years if you don't use it all up with your total tax liability) I pay down on the HELOC balance, which lowers the HELOC payment.

Bonus points that the energy portion of my budget feels like it's year 2019. In that year I averaged $188 power bill + $125 natural gas bill + $150 buying gasoline at the pump (for 1 of our 2 cars when both of us went to the office 5 days per week). So $463/month was what I used to pay in energy costs in the normal year of 2019 (last year of Trump before covid and before Brandon). The way I operate it now is that any time my power bill + HELOC is more than $450/month (which it is) I pull the difference from the HELOC so that my budget feels like my energy costs are still $450/month. That increases the HELOC some (until the next tax credit refund pays down the HELOC more than I increased it). That saves my retirement accounts from having to pay out the nose to keep up with the Dims' sky high energy costs. After I got the EV I increased that to $850/month to help me make the car payment (back in 2019 and for many years my wife and I put $400/month into a car savings account to pay for car repairs and the next car replacement, so I now use that $400/month to make my overall energy costs + car payment feel like my budget is costing me $850/month).

The EV will be paid off the same year I quit getting tax credits (year 2026). And I'll revert to putting that $400/month into car savings for future car repairs (most notably a probable battery replacement on about the 10th year of owning the car). At that point I'll go back to making my budget feel like it should pay only $450/month for the small power bill + HELOC payment. That process will slowly lower the HELOC balance, which slowly lowers the HELOC payment.

That should have the HELOC paid off about the 20th anniversary of beginning this whole solar project, assuming I can refinance the HELOC on the 10th year anniversary when it has to be paid off, but that's only if interest rates are low again. If interest rates are still high then I'll just pay off the HELOC with the $75K to $100K in energy savings the energy project will have provided those 10 years (assuming only a reasonable 3% inflation rate in energy costs going forward). Basically I'll be grateful that $75k was able to stay in our Roth IRA's an extra 10 years and grow tax free instead of paying way more in energy costs than the year 2019 norms. And even after the HELOC is paid off I'll still have the solar equipment giving me free energy and other home improvements making my home more efficient anyway.

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