Featured 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric rated at class-leading 258 miles of range by EPA

But that's a hybrid, not a traditional vehicle.
Virtually all cars with an ICE will require an oil change once year, and likely more than once. Then there is the transmission fluid, spark plugs, air filters, and belts that will need to be seen to. Many of these are low cost for the DIYer, but they add up over the time the car is owned. It is possible a BEV will come along with serviceable gear oil, but all the rest are things that are zero cost because they aren't on a BEV. Then anything without regenerative brakes will pay a higher price for their maintenance, and a plain hybrid will wear brakes faster than a plug in.

Gas prices tend to be more volatile than electric, and electric rates are lower over much of the country than in New England.

 

That's all true. But I still think most of today's traditional vehicle maintenance cost is not higher than the sales price difference between traditional car and BEV. My last ICE only traditional car was 1998 Civic. We drove it 17 years, but we did not spend any more than $1000 total on maintenance, and no I did not DIY those maintenance. Then of course, preventative maintenance is one thing, but when it come to major repair of a vehicle, there is still quite bit of cost advantage for a traditional vehicle over BEV or even over hybrid, I think. Those will change over time, I am sure, but for now it is still more economical to drive a traditional car than BEV or hybrid for many folks.

 

Oh please. Model 3 for $35k is still vaporware. Order one for me if it is not true. Tesla will not sell you one until the queue for the LR Model 3 dries up, which will not be any time soon.... and try to milk a few buyer into Model S.

And by the time you can order one, the Fed credit will be dried up. Might as well get a better deal for a $44k LR model 3 car now, and essentially get the same car with more range.

The new 2019 Leaf with 64k battery pack will be inline (price) with Kona/Niro BEV ($40k).... and guess what, they all have the same LG Chem battery... of the Chevy Bolt.

 

The up front cost premium and associated cost opportunity losses remain a barrier for battery electric vehicles (BEVs), especially in the 200+ mile EV range club. But this premium continues to shrink with time, and likely in a several years will be entirely gone and starting to reverse.

In the mean time, there are lots of great deals on new/used lesser range BEVs when all incentives are considered that are a great fit for bringing into the typical 2+ car family.

It only continues to get better from here.

 

Charging off the grid, at the average US grid price, EVs are much cheaper. For those in the minority, it can be the same cost, or even costlier. For those with solar, as you said, the costs of fueling tends to be even cheaper yet.
As for maintenance, EVs are much cheaper than a similar car built by the same manufacturer.

I get a kick out of hearing about the Leaf owner’s maintenance. Pretty much windshield washer fluid. Brakes last longer, on average, than even those of the Prius.
The Volt requires an oil change once every two years. I can’t wait to see the trends for the Bolt after a couple years.

Yes, required maintenance has improved over the years. But when you take that engineering and design experience and knowledge and apply it to an inherently simpler mechanism, you get even greater improvements.

 

Yeah, I am looking for a 50-100 miles range BEV with a lot of cargo space and AWD priced at ~$30K max (price without any incentive) for our second car.

 

I've got to say, I'm impressed by seeing BEVs hit another milestone so quickly.

At $40k this car roughly passes the classic 20/4/10 affordability rule for a buyer with $100k income. Inching closer to mainstream affordability.

Cheaper than a current model 3, not much more than the future barebones 3, and to be honest I have a bit more faith in Hyundai than Tesla.

I'll be watching this one.

 

I like Tesla a lot more... until I have to service it.

1. Expensive service cost (year 1 = $600 to just rotate tires, and plug your car into their computer)... ($900 for year 2... to do year 1 + brake fluid change). OUCH. I am waiting to bend over for my turn to call service when I have time to bring mine in for yearly service.
2. When you get into a fixable accident, it might take MONTHS to get your car back. So insurance will just junk your car (cheaper to do).
3. Most insurance companies hate Tesla because of #2. So I get charged a lot more being in CA. I hear great rates at places that don't have traffic, just not in my case. hehehe.

As much as I hate dealerships, they work better for service than sales, compared to Tesla.

 

Right, your needs/wants and mine do not necessarily reflect the general public, "average", or "mainstream" consumer. The typical 2+ car family does not need all of their vehicles to have a lot of cargo space and there are many to be had for <<$30k.

In your unusual case, a used RAV4 largely meets this criteria.

 

I was considering used 1st Gen Leaf. Then, I read people commenting it only has 40 miles range in winter. It was cheap enough, I was going to live without AWD or a lot of cargo space. But not satisfying 50 miles minimum range was a deal breaker.

 

UBS put out a report last year based on the tear down of the Bolt in which they predict cost parity between a traditional car and a BEV will be reached this year. The BEV will have a higher purchase price, but the lower useage costs will equal out the overall ownership costs between two.

Of course this won't apply for everybody's situation. The report may even have been referring to the European market with higher fuel costs, but lower average annual miles driven. Then again, if the range of a used Leaf works for a person, that will probably beat a traditional used car in TCO in most regions.

Plug ins offer more that just fuel savings for their extra price, which gives them an advantage over hybrids in the US market.

The new Leaf and Ioniq Electric both meet that, except for the AWD. The KISS way of doing AWD in a BEV is to install a second motor, which may cost more to do than giving a traditional car AWD.

Mercedes dealers once charged over $100 to fill a diesel's DEF tank. Oil changes for these segments can cost hundreds of dollars. Tesla's cars are luxury models, and the options and services are priced accordingly.

The S and X have all aluminum bodies. There are few body shops that can fix this material. So you get high costs and wait times. The Model 3 is mostly steel. Fixing it shouldn't have such issues.

 

There are horror stories with just bumper replacement, had nothing to do with the aluminum frame. And stories of insurance junking them for that. And a running joke about this on the Internet among owners.

I think the Model 3 owners will find out they will get the same treatment soon. The S has been out for 6 years and parts are still in short supply.

The service charge has nothing to do with aluminum body parts. Just the rate Tesla charge the customers. So Model 3 will get the same charge as Model 3/X... and will get sticker shock... that was what happened to S owners (especially when all the talk about cheap maintenance in an EV... exempt Tesla. Hehehe). And the way the warranty works, Tesla will not sell you extended warranty if you do not bring your car in for yearly service. My Rav4EV did not have to do that, I bought the extended warranty. I just go to tire shop when needed. And back to stealership to replace the EV motor/battery coolants at 50k miles, for less than $400, for all 5 years of ownership. Tesla will want about $5k for 4 years of service (year 4 is the most expensive with coolant replacement).

And since Tesla sucks at stocking spare parts, Model 3 owners are having problems getting their cars fixed. Yes, new cars. Many Model 3 have defects that need to go back to the shop... sometimes not even off the showroom during delivery and goes straight into their shop.

This is where traditional brands have taken care of when they sale their cars (say Toyota/Honda especially).... that Tesla has not learned after a decade with customer experience. They try to invent the wheel with "ranger service"... but still have not fix the original problem with service. Which is... they are slow to get needed hardware.

As much as I love my Tesla, I might replace the Rav4EV with a major brand in a few years. VW might sound good if they can pull it off. I am eyeing their idCrozz and idBuzz.... even at $50k with a 82kwh battery pack (which they say should be around $35k). And most importantly, these 2 cars do not scream "look at me, I am in an EV". idBuzz is look at me though, I want to be a hippy feel... hahaha.

 

The service prices are because Tesla is a luxury brand. There is always a mark up for that that has nothing to do with part availability. Why do Nike cotton t-shirts cost more than Hanes?

They have a issue in part supplies for repairs, which needs to be addressed. On the other side, with the US dealer network, traditional car companies aren't the ones paying to warehouse their spare parts.

 

I have to think the warehousing and inventory costs are built into the price the dealer pays to get the parts. And ultimately you pay. It is just that consumables are more available from third party suppliers for the cars sold in volume.

Of course premium brands who sell in lower volumes have higher prices. The same fixed prices in computer diagnostics, parts inventory on site, etc have to be spread out over fewer cars.

OTOH, it isn't always that way. Once I had to replace an O2 sensor in a Porsche and a Honda in the same month. Guess which one was cheaper using a parts cross reference and buying the part branded from the original maker of the part and not from the maker of the car (they spray on their part number, box it in their livery and mark it up). The Bosch part for the Porsche was cheaper. Because I couldn't find a cross reference for the Honda. Porsche owners work on their cars and share more info on the net than Honda owners do, least it was that way 6 years ago.

 

Hyundai won't constantly be getting OTA updates making it much better several years after you buy it like a Tesla does.

 

I'll admit, I have yet to recognize the value of that feature.

I think it's fair to ask how much of a commitment Tesla has made to their buyers. Will they continue to patch and tweak as long as these owners choose to keep these cars on the road? Or will they attempt to use "support sunset" as a lever to arbitrarily obsolete an otherwise useful car?

Does Tesla have the resources to buy back the fleet if (heaven forbid) a terrible problem is discovered that can't be remedied with software? Think of VW's diesel situation as a precedent. I wouldn't wish that situation on anyone, but I do have the sense that Hyundai is better prepared to pull it off if they really had to.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-Tesla. I'm just not wealthy enough to accept the risk of buying from a relative newcomer to the industry.

 

It allows them to not need personal to make the updates, and also inconviene their customers.
For example, much of the fixes Toyota made to the Prius brakes and traction control were just software ones. Yet the owners still needed to take time out of their day to go to the dealer, and have s technician manually update the car's software.

 

Fair point. My next-newest car has only needed one software change thus far, and it occurred during the original owner's miles. It's old enough that there just weren't a lot of things to update via software.

So I've had relatively little experience with cars needing new software. The problem they're solving is one I haven't had yet.

 

It isn’t just repairs, it is new functionality.
For example, through a software update, Tesla vehicles are now programmed to use the AC to keep the interior temp below 105 degrees for up to 12 hours.
This can be set by the user to use only the fans (in which case temp can go above 105) or the safety feature can be turned off.

There are a wide variety of things Tesla has used this for. Including fixes, improved performance, user interface enhancements and new capabilities.

 

Is everyone OK with Big Brother knowing where your car goes?