Shakil, When going from an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) to another technology: Get an end-of-lease Hybrid (HEV), Plug-in Hybrid (PHEV), or Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) - the new car depreciation will make the car about $5,000 more affordable than a new one. If you decide it is not for you, selling it won't be terribly expensive. You will also feel better about modifications and self-maintenance. Hybrid - these have the smallest battery that keeps the engine working in the most efficient range. For example, our old 2003 Prius died at 260,000 miles when a difficult part broke and it was leaking oil. Still, it got 52 MPG both City and Highway and the 1.1 kW emergency power inverter ran the house 4 days and 6 hours at 2 gallons per day and NO carbon monoxide risk. My 2003 Prius drive home was 800 miles. But the later 2010 Prius only got 52 MPG even though it was seven years newer technology. Plug-in Hybrid - these are a limited range, electric car with just city, EV range, that needs to be least 50 miles (80 km.) The 2017 Prius Prime, 25 mile (40 km) EV, that I traded in for our 2019 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus pissed me off every time the temperature went below 55 F (13 C) because it insisted on running the engine! It was a 'three stop car' around town. My first drive was 1,200 miles (2,000 km.) In contrast, your Mom's 2014 BMW i3-REx, 72 mi (115 km), is a '10 stop car'. Pre-dating the VW diesel fiasco, the modified motorcycle engine driving a generator meant you could drive down the highway for 1 hour 15 minutes, pull into a truck stop, add 2 gallons, visit the bathroom and get back on the road. My first drive was 450 miles (720 km) over the Appalachian mountains in a thunder and lightning storm. Battery Electric Vehicle - a BEV is like learning to swim by being thrown into deep water. The HEV and PHEV experience taught me valuable EV lessons with gas backup as my reserve. So March 1, 2022, we drove 786 mi (1,258 km) between 7 AM and 5 PM costing $16.74. It is a 2019 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus with 62,000 mi (99,200 km.) Tesla does sell used BEVs BUT some of the early ones do not have AutoPilot which is your co-pilot on a cross country trip. There are other EV makers with new, used, and end-of-lease BEV but I don't care for them because we found the CCS-1 charging network is too often unreliable and more expensive than the Tesla SuperCharger network. For example, in 2016 it cost $24 charging costs between Huntsville and Nashville, 120 miles (192 km) but only $6 gas to return. Your operational costs will save about one car payment per year for HEV or PHEV. The lower engine and transmission stress means they last a long, long time. Our BEV saves twice as much as our past HEV and PHEV. If you decide to look, use eBay motors, completed sales. Unlike the traditional used car dealers who add ~$1,500 per sale, search on your own and you can find a good deal but it may take a couple of months. GOOD; FAST; CHEAP -> pick two. I don't know your time pressure. A 240 VAC, level 2 charger (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment EVSE) will run about $500 and can multiplex with a dryer circuit. You come home and before midnight; plug in the car, and; the next morning the car is charged. The L1, 120 VAC chargers can work but they take a long time. Think of them as 'emergency' chargers when stranded on the road. Questions? Bob Wilson
This was a really good, clear explanation. I sent a similar explanation to my Dad recently. He's toying with the idea of a PHEV. One thing.... Australia is very backward when it comes to EVs, so this isn't a thing for us. But the blue Prius I had when I joined PC - the one on my avatar - was an ex-government car. I still own a Holden (Vauxhall/Opel/Saturn) Astra that was ex-government too - I bought that for the nanny. The Prius was two years old when I got it, with about 40,000km on the clock. New it would have been A$40,000; I bought it at an auction of government vehicles for A$16,000. It would have been about A$25,000 from a dealer, and about A$22,000 on eBay or another site from a private seller. This wouldn't be an option for an EV here, because apart from a couple of Mitsubishi i-MIEVs and a few Leafs, Australian governments have bought almost no EVs. When I get my EV - when one of the ones I want finally gets released here - I'll have to buy new. But would buying an ex-government EV at auction be an option in the US? And have governments bought EVs? And have they had them long enough to be selling them? And would the savings be good? I'd have thought that buying ex-government at auction could be a particularly good thing with EVs, given that there is so little that can go wrong: there is an inherent risk (a gamble I was prepared to take given the savings) buying an ICE car at auction when you can't test drive it.
Our previous president shutdown all EV and hybrid testing. They had (have) a remarkable lack of curiosity and honesty. Bob Wilson
