Featured The EV version of the "Dust to Dust" report

Just as CNW was paid by the dino juice industry - one necessarily suspects the same disingenuous sources will eventually be revealed. or maybe the author simply got his arss spanked by 2 seconds or more at the ¼ mile track by a Model S plaid.

 

As I have pointed out before, you exchanged two assets for your Tesla. One was your $24k. The other was your $18.3k Prius.

You received a depreciating asset which is now worth considerably less than when you bought it.

So add the depreciation and the fuel cost to get a cost of ownership. Then divide by months owned to get cost per month. Or by miles driven to get cost per mile.

My hybrid, when I do that, cost me $200 a month. Granted I have 1/4 the miles on mine compared to yours.

What has your Tesla cost? KBB says a 2019 Tesla M3 with 133k miles is worth $11k ish. With 33k miles, $25k ish.

 

2005 dodge dakota $24,000. (sold last year) 30,000 miles in 18 years = 1,600 miles per year

2012 prius plug in $30,000. (traded last year) 87,000 miles over 11 years = 8,000 miles per year

2023 chevy bolt $23,500. (purchased last year) averaging 1,000 miles//month so far = 12,000 miles per year.

do the math

 

The real crime is using data from used cars, sold in 2022-23, that are 3 year old models - 2019s

Let's consider the following:

The sellers had bought a more expensive electrified car in 2019.

Maybe a year or so later the pandemic hits and people drive much less than before on average. Many people were able to keep their jobs working from home if they were in office/white collar work. Fields which will generally pay higher wages than jobs that would have to be done in person.

So people who bought higher end electrified cars, and electrified cars in general given the price premium would have even less reason to drive.

So was the $/mile math adjusting for the massive shift in driving habits for the years of ownership that these used cars were owned under?

How did car availability and the spike in used car prices impact this vehicle segment in 22-23 vs other vehicles? I remember people could flip new Tesla's for profit because the waitlist was so long for them, as an example. If the waitlist for electrified cars was double that of ICE, then the supply crunch pushed their prices even further inflating the $/mile.

I don't think vehicle depreciation would have been a huge factor for 2019 model years being sold in 2022 for example.

Maybe people had multiple cars and driving less during/after pandemic, they decided to just sell the more expensive of the two cars from a budget perspective. Why keep a Tesla M3 if your family only needs one car and driving is down to 100miles a week on average, and you own a paid off 2017 Corolla or Elantra for example.

Unless they controlled for variables like household income and employment sector given how turbulent that was during the pandemic the statistics can be confounded pretty easily.

And of course a more expensive car costs more per mile to drive. That's inherent and obvious. And especially more luxury and power cars will also be driven less because people tend to drive them less in general. Many people don't like to drive their luxury car in winter for example. So that would extend to things like a Porsche Cayenne Hybrid too.

 

From time to time, iSeeCars throws out one of these snapshot 'reports' to get headlines to drive more traffic to their site in the hopes someone will pay them for the real, in depth report. Everytime one comes out, the lack of usefulness gets discussed here.

 

"iSeeCars press releases are essentially a single data point from one point in time. There is not enough info in them to see trends, learn causation, or learn anything of worth. If you actually want that, and not quote the press release for propaganda, you have to pay iSee Cars for the full report."

I think that would cover anything in the press by them.

 

Hey Bob, long time no see.

I've been seeing that virtually every automotive related post on facebook devolves into an argument over EVs. Doesn't matter how it starts out, someone will enter the chat and start spouting misinformation about EVs.

It seems to me that the Anti EV forces are following the Russian misinformation playbook: co-opt as many willing and uneducated participants as you can to flood the web with misinformation and dilute the real issues. I'd love to discuss the actual downsides of EVs with people who are arguing in good faith, but they aren't out there.

Glenn Arnold

 

So cars are expensive. But I have the opportunity to go get a "free" 1985 VW diesel, that has some 700,000 miles on it, and it still runs great and gets decent fuel mileage, better than my Avalon hybrid.

I like EV's, but I think the economic situation of the USA is only getting worse. So I believe the solution to reducing emissions is to either help the economy in a way that makes environmentally better solutions a no-brainer for customers and their budgets, or to just give up on the idea of owning a motorized vehicle.

I can't be paying 50% of my income on a Tesla. It just doesn't work that way.

 

Been to a ski resort lately? People who can afford a Cayenne are the ones going up to their chalets. They need a big car to lug their cases of wine.

 

To be fair, from what you have said in many threads, you can't afford most new cars. Why pick on Tesla.
Buy a used Bolt, or VW, or Versa, etc.

 

I didn't mean to pick on Tesla. Tesla's are around the average price of a car in the USA. Yet a person who makes a median wage can't hardly afford a base model of the cheapest new cars here, much less an average priced car like a Tesla. I'm picking on the current state of the US economy. Take home pay of $3,750 and rent that's over $2,000 and with current health insurance prices and food prices, then being told that insurance on a new car would be $200/month and that the interest rate on a loan is now over 8%, not 4%, and that no new car will be under $20,000 next year... At least I have a couple cars that run.

 

Ya, well, I'll be 52 in August. I have the feeling that in 13 years, when I'm of retirement age, things aren't going to be any easier.

I did try that with the Leaf. It cost me $9,000 and I sold it for $7,000 a year later. So basically the sell paid off the rest of the loan.

 

Even cases of Two Buck Chuck have become way overpriced, or more correctly put - purchased with devalued dollars. It's lead to wine making has a hobby. The latest batch is rice wine so we'll see how that goes. Hoping it will turn out as nice as the grape & the Cherry fermented Elixir has turned out.
.

 

In general, this is the best option, but it means having functional public transportation, or bicycle routes. You can get away with that in major cities, and it Europe.

 

There are many downsides with EVs, but you have to be willing to see them. Do you think perhaps it is you that might be biased if you think there is no one arguing in good faith?

The main criticism to EVs is how unconvenient and costly they are. If they were not, i would expect more people would be driving them. Allow BYD cars to be imported and sold in the US, and youll easily have a larger EV market.

EVs arnt bad, there are just better choices and the consumer only cares about a few things like cost and usefulness. They also dont want to buy cars that will have no resale value or cost a lot to fix.