Also, I hate stopping at gas stations, not just for the monetary cost, but for the time and general annoyance. Now I just plug in every night, my car is always ready to go. I'm never rushing off to an appointment only to realize that my tank is nearly empty, which will make me late. And I never have to change the oil.

And now I can make my weekly ~140 mile round trips without feeling so much polluter's guilt. Sure, it's a drop in the bucket, but a full bucket is full of drops.

Did you take into account that these cars can be programmed to wait until nighttime to start charging, when rates are lowest?

Anyway, sure, economics is a big factor that will slow adoption, but it won't halt it.

Edit to add: Plus I get $9,000 in total tax rebates. Tasty.

Well yeah, you kind of do need to change the oil if you don't want the gearbox to die an early death. There's also still coolant that needs to be changed regularly as well. EVs have significantly less maintenance, but there's still critical maintenance that must be done on time if you don't want to damage your car.

http://i.imgur.com/gU4FfdY.png

It calls for tire rotations every 7,500 miles - not a lot you can do about that, and I suspect tire wear will be worse in a torque-happy EV. Skipping them will only reduce your traction, which I suppose could damage you and your car. And of course you have "required services" like brake pads when those wear out and start to squeal; probably less common due to regenerative braking from the electric motor: Engine braking is a habit that takes work with an ICE, but it's the norm in an EV. And you might want to change the cabin air filter when it gets dusty - not that my vehicles haven't gone...a long time...without cabin air filter changes. Skipping them won't damage your car, just your nose. But fluid flushes? Hardly necessary.

Coolant only needs to be changed at 150,000 miles - hardly "regularly". Most ICE cars don't need changes at less than 100,000 mile intervals. In an EV like the Bolt, coolant deals with a lot less heat than an ICE and doesn't suffer microscopic contamination from hot exhaust gasses and oil.

And the Bolt doesn't have a transmission; it's direct drive. Gearboxes (I assume you mean manual transmissions?) typically take synthetic gear lube now with recommended intervals of 200,000 to 300,000 miles. Differentials use the same stuff. I did elect to change the differential fluid in my Jeep at 250,000 miles - but those diffs are taking a lot more abuse than a typical car.

You're also right that brake pads are going to last longer, on an EV, they barely wear at all. However, there's the brake fluid that will wear out just as fast as on any car. Over time brake fluid picks up humidity, there's no easy way around this. It'll cause the car to potentially lose the brakes if ignored long enough or even rust out brake lines.

Then there's still every single suspension component that a traditional car has. Balljoints and tie rod ends are always going to wear. If you're lucky, your manufacturer might have chosen components with built in grease fittings so that with regular maintenance you can extend the lifespan of those components but that's the exception, not the rule. There's still bearings, shock absorbers, CV joints, motor mounts, and bushings on various things. Every one of those has a finite service life, just because Chevy doesn't list a recommended interval to replace them doesn't mean that they don't need to be inspected and replaced as they wear down.

As for the actual oil comment though, the Bolt isn't direct drive, it has a fixed ratio gearbox with a differential built in. It only has a couple of gears and the differential, but still, they're helical gears and they need the right viscosity oil. Over time, those gears are going to degrade the oil from the shear forces and add contaminants to it. Contaminants are also slowly going to seep in from the vent, you can't completely seal up a gearbox, you need to have a vent on it otherwise running it is going to push oil out of the seals around the axles. As for the recommended intervals you quoted, that's pretty unrealistics and most manufacturers aren't recommending crazy intervals like that.

Here's the maintenance schedule for a Honda: https://techinfo.honda.com/rjanisis/pubs/om/SI9999/SI9999O00...

It doesn't have that high of a service interval but for something like a 2015 Honda Civic it's still just using their regular long life coolant which is supposed to be good for 5 years or 60,000 miles. Brake fluid is something that's pretty much always going to last around 3 to 5 years regardless of manufacturer. And manual transmissions typically have a much more reasonable recommended fluid life of somewhere around 90,000 to 120,000 miles. Some manufacturers are listing some transmissions as having "lifetime" fluid, but there's also identical transmissions with the same fluid in other vehicles where the recommendation is 90 to 120 thousand miles. There's no such thing as "lifetime fluid", every single fluid in any vehicle wears down in use and picks up contaminants, eventually every fluid will need to be replaced. Any manufacturer who tells you otherwise is lying to you.

Do you have a source for some of your claims? Honestly the recommended change interval of 200,000 to 300,000 is higher than I've ever seen and even on stuff like a 2015 VW Jetta you're supposed to change the manual transmission fluid every 40,000 miles. Here's the 2014 Jeep Wrangler service interval for the manual transmission and transfer case: http://www.wranglerforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=198...

250,000 miles is much too long for a differential, I'd imagine the drain plug was probably coated in metallic sludge right? I've seen a few drain plugs out of differentials and transmissions that were all treated way better and still be coated in what used to be the gears.

Also, we figured out a long time ago that sealed transmissions are okay, but it all boils down to how you drive the vehicle. Yeah, if you treat the car like shit, or you get the transmission checked (if this is even possible these days), if it's low then there's something wrong & you'll need to add fluid, or drain & fill. Otherwise? You don't touch it & it's fine. Volkswagens last a solid 200-300k miles before you actually need to do something major, but that's subjective.

Yes, there's all these wonderful suspension components, but I imagine with Tesla vehicles, those components are most likely heavier duty than a regular vehicle, given all the fucking obnoxious batteries. They also probably wear a lot differently & components will fail differently than they will & at different rates compared to a traditional ICE vehicle.

As for whether or not it's strictly necessary, you can avoid oil changes altogether and a decent car will make it quite a long way before it seizes up.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Justrolledintotheshop/comments/2zoc...

You can do the same with a transmission or a differential, but they'll last a lot longer if you replace the contaminated and worn out fluid with new fluid.

But even just checking the fluid level in a transmission or differential, if the fluid is low, you can't ever just refill it. It didn't burn up, you've got a leak and it'll probably just get worse if you ignore it. There are plenty of vehicles out there with absolutely ludicrous mileage on them, on a modern vehicle, if you keep on top of maintenance, engines and transmissions can last hundreds of thousands of miles.

As for suspension components on a Tesla though, I would expect to spend a decent bit keeping all of them in working order. The suspension on a Tesla is really nice, but air suspension isn't nearly as robust as a simpler Macpherson strut setup on an econobox. It's fancy, but fancy suspension and more moving parts means more things to wear out and fail. You've got 2x the ball joints to fail in the front, additional linkages all over, and more bushings to wear out.

And all ecars have at least a differential, and many have gearsets, even if they do not shift. These are mostly heilical/hypoid style gears. That fluid uses shear additives that need to be replenished to abate wear. If you have not changed your trans/diff fluid in over 100k, now is the time. Your jeep, having a solid axle, is tremendously more simple and overbuilt than a normal car too. Extrapolating from that is not accurate.

Well actually, a Nissan Leaf is going to have 8 gears in the reduction drive. 4 in the differential, 2 to couple the differential to an intermediate shaft, and another 2 to couple that shaft to the motor itself. That being said, ATF does wear out over time, those gears are going to be adding finely powdered metal to the fluid and even just the shearing forces on the fluid literally breaks down the oil chemically. It'll certainly last a whole lot longer than engine oil but eventually that inspection is going to necessitate a replacement.

If your primary concern is cost-per-mile, it's hard to beat an old $250 moped off Craigslist that gets 100+ mpg.

If you claim you need something more enclosed, an old truck for $2000 might be your answer. In that rustbucket, you're belching smoke into the atmosphere and burning a dollar of gas every 5 miles, but it will still get you more than 100,000 miles before you match the purchase price of the Prius. In those same 100,000 miles, the Prius has been burning gas as well (true, at a whopping 47 mpg) but this gas cost would be enough to buy you a replacement old truck (or, let's face it, a second old truck).

To be more serious, I bought my 2003 Toyota Matrix XRS with 150k miles for $3100, and have been getting about 30 mpg for the past 60,000 miles. Every purchase of a new vehicle - hybrid, electric, or gas - is done for non-economic reasons.

Cheap. One kid still has and drives that car. Approaching 400k miles now.

You could split the difference -- buy a Chevy Volt for $34,095 ($26,595 after Fed Tax Credit). Drive electric up to 50+ miles per charge, but still get 42mpg when driving on gasoline, with over 420 miles of total range per fueling.

> In general people buying electric vehicles in 2017 are buying them for non-economic reasons. They lose money. Hybrids are likely the best bang for your buck.

I'd argue plug-in hybrids are where the real sweet spot is.

It's only an extra $3k over the Prius, to get ~90% of your driving miles via zero-emission electricity, but still have full gasoline available for any long-distance trips. I think that's a really compelling argument. It's really easy to save more than just $3k on fuel alone, after a couple of years with that car.

Regular hybrids are cheaper up front, but are wasteful. They cheap out on tiny batteries that are way too weak to take full advantage of the vehicle's technology. Stick a wall-chargeable 10-20 kWh battery into a hybrid, and you get the best of everything in one vehicle.

The Chevy Bolt has a $7500 electric vehicle tax credit, many states have rebates of $1000 to $3000, and some utility companies offer their own rebates and incentives. That narrows the price difference quite a bit, and drops it well below the average new car selling price.

You're also not going to be producing gasoline at home, while a lot of people buying these expensive early electric vehicles are also early adopters of solar panels.

If you look at the $/kWh trend on lithium ion batteries (over 80% drop in 6 years), the most expensive part in these cars, it's only a matter of time before EVs cost no more than other types of vehicles without the government help.

I'm an electric car fan, but to be fair, unless your solar installation is proceeding more than you can use, and you don't have net-metering, then this is a false advantage here. Every KWh you use to charge your car is one you'll eventually have to buy from (or not sell to) the power company.

Solar panels which are paid for themselves by sending money back to the grid. If you redirect it into your vehicle, then you've just transferred the cost from the power company to your solar panel loan.

Costs are dropping on EVs and will continue to drop as economy of scale picks up. They may not make sense today but there's a good chance they will tomorrow.

https://www.bchydro.com/accounts-billing/rates-energy-use/el...

Are you, perhaps, being sarcastic with your comment?

Anyway, there are few countries (if any) on Earth where EVs make financial sense for an average person. Their time will come, but buying into it now is not investing – indeed, as the GP commented, you do it for altogether different reasons.

That said last time I broke down my per-mile costs new tires at $1k every 40k was my highest cost by far.

If so, I get it.. you don't own a car; which begs the question of why are we discussing this?

Did I break even? No, but with prices coming down it'll happen.

Well down-vote me to make it up.

No, I didn't break even because I came from a '03 beater that I'd been driving for the last 15 years. The thing is, if no one buys EVs there won't be sustained demand. I don't mind spending a bit more on my end to make sure the industry moves forward(I believe they call that voting with your money).

What? I mean, what? Whatever you want, I guess.

The latter.

Most manufacturers recommend 10,000 miles now, some as high as 15,000 (Jaguar, known for being unreliable):

https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/tips-advice/stop-changing-y...

Being as how manufacturers have to cover the warranty issues that could be related to lack of oil changes, I go with what they recommend.

The engine does not consume too much oil, either, so a single 4L bottle – about a gallon I think – is easily all that the oil I need between changes. With European prices, that is the equivalent of a single refill (even with my modest tank size), which makes you simply laugh and wonder at all the people that (always) bring up oil changes in the discussion of ICE vs EV. I can't but wonder how many of those actually own and maintain a not-imaginary vehicle.

To clarify my earlier post, I meant of course that a single bottle of oil is enough for the refill (between 3 and 4 litres) and more than enough for any top-ups for the about 30000 km before the car starts to remind of the end of the “Long Life” maintenance cycle. Oil is certainly not up there when it comes to costs of owning a small car, ICE or not.

A cursory look at used oil: it's still rather like the stuff that goes in, albeit black, of course. Without specific tools, I think it's impossible to tell it apart from oil that's used for, say, 10000 km.

It's a whole industry that you have that seems to be entirely redundant!

These days, most (all?) cars have an idiot light that pops on every 5-10k miles, based on usage patterns. Some have a more robust algorithm than others. Either way, in my experience, my last 3-4 cars (Jeep, Lexus, Volvo, VW) have all gone about 8k miles between services, as indicated by the light.

It used to be that the oil change interval was something like 3k miles for stop-n-go traffic (or dusty conditions) - ie, regular city driving. You could go about 6-8k for highway driving. If you were doing off-road driving, the number could be as low as 2k.

Today's oils are better, and so is the manufacturing and other factors; so longer intervals don't surprise me - but you have to be dealing with a newer car, something made in this century at least.

Even so, for my own vehicles I try not to go much beyond 6k between changes, and for one of my vehicles it's closer to the 3k mark (because I want it to last as long as possible - then again, its engine is a known oil-burner, and between oil changes I add enough oil for it to equal an oil change; I could almost just change the filter and do nothing else). The money I may be wasting isn't a big deal to me, plus I get a fresh filter (also, I do my own oil changes, so the numbers are a bit lower depending on what dino juice I use).

Generally, the best way short of an analysis to judge doing an oil change is by looking with your eyes at the color of the oil, by feel (rub it thru your fingertips), and by smell. It's a thing you have to get a "feel" for, and between that knowledge and what your miles since the last change, you can know if you need a change or not.

Another thing you can do (I learned this from a website that tested an analysis company - and to see how long they could really go between oil changes) is to (every 3k) drain a quart of oil out of the engine (you need something like a fumoto plug for this), and then swap on a new filter and refill with a new quart of oil. It's basically a "topping up" procedure, but if you do that, you can go for about 12k between full oil changes. However, you should only do this if you are analyzing your oil.

Compare this to GM/Chevy vehicles where this is a 'solved problem' with their on board DICT computer, it measurements the containment (via resistance? electricity?) in the oil & tells you the 'health' or 'life' of the oil until you need to change it. This leads to a lot more reasonable oil change intervals in line with Mobile's testing over the years: 5k, 7k or 10k change intervals are common.

BMW is one of the few brands that recommends once a season, or 10k, because they know what oil is capable of, in so far as they've removed dip-sticks entirely (retarded decision, but hey). However, most dealerships & shops? They still want that sweet money on that 3k oil change. 5k has become the 'open secret' standard, though.

I'm talking about the "Service Required" indicator/message that appears in the central info display, not the "Check Engine Light". Two different things in the VW, Lexus, and Jeeps I've owned.

That may be true in America. Here in Norway, fuel costs 1.7 euros/L; that is, $7/gallon. The calculation comes out rather different.

Lastly I would add that you can't directly compare the cars on price in that way because the Bolt (and Nissan Leaf) are also much nicer cars than the base $23k Prius with many features the Prius doesn't have.

EDIT: oh and one more thing; I don't know about Utah but most energy companies in the US have different rates for electricity during the day or at night (off peak) and you can easily set your EV to charge overnight, saving even more money.

Thanks for mentioning this. It is significantly cheaper to charge at night if your energy company drops the price during off-peak hours. That $8 or $9 drops to like $3 or $4 here in MA with National Grid service. I did some really rough math and figured that it would cost about half as much to charge a Chevy Bolt from 0 to 100% than it would be to fill my current car, a 2014 Jetta, with gasoline. My greenhouse gas emissions will go down by over 50% judging from an estimate I got based on how MA currently generates energy.

That said, I put a deposit down on a Bolt Premier but am not sure if I will be buying it because it is damn expensive, even after tax rebates and such.