Featured DOE findings on TCO: ICE, HEV's, PHEV's, & BEV's

too many variables to use as a personal guide to car purchase if tco is important to you (which it isn't to most car buyers)

 

Wouldn't surprise me if plenty of car buyers are kind of trying to think of TCO but just not finding it easy to do.

 

it's not easy, that's for sure, and generalizations probably don't help much.

 

This is an interesting assumption.
On the battery level I believe a number of companies are under $170/kWh today.

 

It's nice to see the Hybrids and PHEVs getting some positive press.

Many people try to use TCO when buying a car. While my family does not make the TCO the only factor, it is used as a contributing factor. For instance, the expense of maintenance and cosy to replace small parts were instrumental in the decision to NOT purchase a replacement Jaguar when dad was no longer able to climb into his XKE. The low cost of buying and owning/operating a Prius led my son to buy a gen 4 for his commute.

They are not talking cost to manufacture. They are talking of cost to buy retail or to replace. I read an article yesterday that quoted over 13,000 for a Tesla battery replaced outside of warranty. They even included a copy of the invoice.**

I imagine that even though the cost of the battery itself may drop, the introduction of batteries built into structural members of the car will result in increased costs to remove, repair and replace. One of the things that bring down battery cost is mass production and interchangeability so that the costs of tooling are spread over as many models as possible. Building battery packs that can only fit in one place on one model of car will increase the costs to manufacture. I can foresee a fender bender wiping out not just a fender but also the custom battery that was molded to shape under it.

** How much does a Tesla Model 3 Battery Replacement Cost? | Current Automotive

 

Since I buy and payoff my rides, the ‘capital cost’ is a onetime expense. In contrast, the operation costs are paid year after year and mile after mile. I typically drive just under 20,000 miles per year. Operating cost is very important to me.

Bob Wilson

 

Even if you "buy and payoff" your cars, there is still the net cost of of the car when you sell it or send it to the junk yard. As such, the value of the car is not a "one time" issue. It would be foolish to think that the cost of daily operation is the only factor.

But it's not unusual to find people using that mindset. The kid who delivers pizzas in his fancy little BMW is quite happy that he's getting $5 per pizza delivery. After all, it only costs him 1/3 gallon of gas to make the the 10 mile round trip from one side of town to the other. He does not associate the need for frequent brake jobs nor the depreciation when he sells a 3 year old car with 70K miles.

The same applies to people who commute from the suburbs to work low paying jobs in the urban area. A 50 mile commute gets you rent that's 1/2 of big city prices for less than 300$ a month in gas. The cost of maintenance and depreciation for 26,000 miles a year is seldom associated with the rent savings, so it looks good on the surface.

 

Tesla's lead in batteries will last through decade while GM closes in

The lithium iron phosphate batteries that tesla uses in its MIC model 3 standard + are rumored to be around $100/kwh. They will move American production of the standard+ and an even cheaper car to this battery type. CATL has factories being built that will lower this to under $100/kwh in 2023 when made in china. US battery pack manufacturing is highly automated, I would not assume that American batteries would cost much more than chinese made ones in 2025.

This is what they used -

$185/kwh probably is a good number for average manufacturers paid in 2020 not sorted by volume. But I would assume that if tesla is paying less than $100/kwh in 2025 others will drop much faster than $150/kwh by then or not be selling any volume. VW group is now investing and will need to drop it much more by then. Poor assumption by Argone labs, but they do spell out that others have estimated much lower costs.

 

That's precisely what's missing from this analysis as the cost per mile data is greatly defined by miles driven... I suspect if you're a regional sales rep in a rural part of the country and you can put 100K miles on a car in less than two years your cost per mile is going to be way different than if you only drive 20K miles per year. How does the report account for these discrepancies?

 

what if i can buy a 34k prime for 20k, does that affect the tco? or if i pay 5k more than msrp for a rav4 prime?

 

Yea... That basically totally blows up their calculations... Whoever was the boss of this report sucks at their job. They could of done this in a way that allows for individuals to calculate their best option by inputting their own numbers. It of been way more useful info had they done this.

 

In any analysis you start by determining what the outliers are and remove them from the data. The straw man presented of 100K miles a year is obviously abnormal. Obviously the other extreme would be a person who buys a $75,000 car who drives it once a month to the barber 3 blocks up the street. There is a stated assumption for miles per year in the report. The common figure that I recall seeing is around 15,000 miles a year.

Sure, you can buy a $34,00 Prime for $20,000. Incentives should always be considered in TCO. Isn't that the way that you do it? The TCO for my first car was $100 purchase + $75 for 4 tires, and about $2076 for gas to drive 29200 miles. Junkyard battery was $10. License for two years was about $30. Insurance was 75 a year. It went through 3 sets of plugs and 3 sets of brake shoes after repairing leaking wheel cylinders multiple times. Oil was consumed at the rate of 1 quart for every 20 gallons of gas. My girlfriend's mom gave me a car worth $5000 in exchange for mine with the requirement that I take my car to the junk yard. Junk yard gave me $50. TCO was less than nothing since I made a nice profit.

And that's where I learned about the total cost of ownership.

 

You must be kidding. Don't they teach you kids to do any analysis anymore? This statement reminds me of people who vote against a city's zoning laws because the law does nothing to prevent spouse abuse. That's not what the law is about.

In this case, providing a way to add up your personal expenses is not what the report was for. Their objective was to identify sub classes of autos and determine the AVERAGE TCO within each sub group. This was not for the average driver. It's the average of the TCO.

 

My woman drove her BMW i3-REx to Nashville only to find:

• Athens Electrify America - totally failed to give her a fast DC charge. She called me 'hot' (climate) and pissed. I told her 'Electrify America' has a reputation for being unreliable.
• Blink in Nashville - she did not have a Blink account or App and was totally pissed she could not get a charge. I told her 'Try their 1-800 number. Blink in Tennessee tends to work work but can be obstinate. Worse, they are cost more than ChargePoint.'

I love my woman but hate the poor quality charging options available to her away from me. But at least she can run the two-cylinder, modified, 640 cc, motorcycle engine to not get stuck. ...

Bob Wilson

 

What thread were you trying to put that in? It does not seem to have anything to do with Total Cost of Ownership. It does point out why one might walk away from one design in favor of another.

 

there's a mental and emotional cost that should be figured in

 

The acronym storm makes my head hurt.

 

rotfl