TheAsterisk!
Elio Aficionado
My earlier post, and this response with it, are not meant to 'make the case' against electric vehicles, nor is it meant to convince or persuade others to think like me. I'm a fairly obvious weirdo, and I know it, and I'm fine with my particular madness. I offer my comments as explanation of the reasoning behind my position, as it pertains to my use, no more.
As I get frustrated by the continued attempts to persuade me to get excited about current EV technologies, most of which are based on misunderstandings or hasty assumptions about my priorities and my goals with vehicles, the tone becomes somewhat adversarial below. I'm not ticked off at anyone in the thread so much as tired of revisiting the same topic in multiple media and fora, and it shows in my response. Hopefully, you all understand, and there will be no hard feelings. If not, then you have my apologies.
Accordingly, and due to its possible lack of utility to forum members with distinctly different automotive concerns and needs, the bulk of my response has been placed in spoiler tags to save some frustration and space.
Here be dragons...
My Civic could do about 440 miles. Even my crappier replacement, a Ford Focus hatchback, can exceed 300 mile range. I visit family in Wisconsin every couple of weeks (about 180 miles), and can't easily borrow a car. Refueling takes minutes, but a recharge even on a fast-charger takes significantly longer- nevermind standard household current.
I have no credit cards, which rules out most car rental agencies, too, since they freak out at my non-existent credit history. Outside of charters, flights don't happen, not unless you want to terminate your travel about an hour away from where you want to be, and only after connecting through Detroit or Chicago and paying close to $350 fare each way. Trains only go to Chicago, and a connection effectively makes travel a day-long affair, with eventual bus connections, with no time left to visit, all for about $200 round-trip. Buses are cheaper, but similarly overwrought and slow.
When gas was still close to $4/gallon, the Civic did it for about $35, round-trip, maybe $50 if I drove like I was really angry at the world.
An EV, at current state-of-the-art, isn't an option for this use-case.
Used car prices are also persistently and laughably inflated anywhere near Bloomington, IL, since it's State Farm's headquarters and they bring in people unaccustomed to their new (higher) pay rates, who rack up huge bills on credit, driving up market prices on durable goods around here. What I paid $1100 for was probably really worth about $1900-$2K, and around here would be more like $3K-$4K, easy. The Ford, at $1500 here, really should have been more like $900 most other places, given what work had to go into it right away to make it serviceable, and it was actually a little bit of a deal in the local market.
If I'm buying used, given my financials, we're talking about cars topping out at $3K, cash, else it isn't worth it. So far, I've spent a maximum of $1500 on any one vehicle, that being my most recent and most expensive one, mostly since it was bought in town here. To keep it in perspective, a good yearly income for me is maybe $24K, with $16-19K being much more typical. I have savings disproportionate to the norm for my income, but they are just that- savings. They are there for if and when things go sideways, not to facilitate wants in place of needs. Given the unsavory (to my sensibilities) terms of financing, any higher price isn't worth it to me unless I can get a new-manufacture car, with full warranty, for less than $11K, tops, more comfortably at $9k. I am not prepared to pay interest on, and pay under threat of repossession of, a marginally better but more expensive used car that gains me maybe two or three more years of reliable service, tops.
On a similar note to that, if I were looking at used cars for around $8-9K, like your hypothetical used Leaf or Spark (the latter of which I've never actually seen in the wild), I could get a similarly conditioned, boring-but-venerable little Toyota sedan or somesuch for somewhat less, with greater range and adaptability. Just because I have "x" dollars in my budget does not mean that I would pass up a chance to spend only "x-n" (where "n" is a positive number
) instead, given the chance.
I'm not here as an automotive enthusiast. In fact, I pretty much hate cars for the apparently obstinate way that they fail to lend themselves to easy maintenance. Even many of those tasks that are easy to do are only easy given a significant up-front investment in proper tools, and much of it still can't be done in- say- an apartment complex parking lot, at least not if you don't want the manager or landlord on your backside afterwards. I come from the utopia of PC builds, where parts are largely standardized and interchangeable across brands and models, and it's the Fisher-Price school of installation (square plug goes into the square hole, only fits one way, no real physical calibration needed, blue-to-blue, etc.), and cars' lack of such universal commonality are a byzantine nightmare to those sensibilities. I'm here because I'm one of those guys that Paul Elio talked about who will pay for the remainder of the car with the gas card because that's my only attractive choice. Knock down that balance to about $4K with a sizeable down payment (or just initial balance payment- depends how they do it), and it actually becomes something I can just tolerate in spite of my aversion to carrying debt.
If it meets someone else's needs, by all means. They don't meet mine. Once they do, I'm all for it. Electric drive is wonderful, but the energy storage/batteries are marginal at best, right now, though improving steadily and incrementally as time passes.
I have no credit cards, which rules out most car rental agencies, too, since they freak out at my non-existent credit history. Outside of charters, flights don't happen, not unless you want to terminate your travel about an hour away from where you want to be, and only after connecting through Detroit or Chicago and paying close to $350 fare each way. Trains only go to Chicago, and a connection effectively makes travel a day-long affair, with eventual bus connections, with no time left to visit, all for about $200 round-trip. Buses are cheaper, but similarly overwrought and slow.
When gas was still close to $4/gallon, the Civic did it for about $35, round-trip, maybe $50 if I drove like I was really angry at the world.
An EV, at current state-of-the-art, isn't an option for this use-case.
Used car prices are also persistently and laughably inflated anywhere near Bloomington, IL, since it's State Farm's headquarters and they bring in people unaccustomed to their new (higher) pay rates, who rack up huge bills on credit, driving up market prices on durable goods around here. What I paid $1100 for was probably really worth about $1900-$2K, and around here would be more like $3K-$4K, easy. The Ford, at $1500 here, really should have been more like $900 most other places, given what work had to go into it right away to make it serviceable, and it was actually a little bit of a deal in the local market.
If I'm buying used, given my financials, we're talking about cars topping out at $3K, cash, else it isn't worth it. So far, I've spent a maximum of $1500 on any one vehicle, that being my most recent and most expensive one, mostly since it was bought in town here. To keep it in perspective, a good yearly income for me is maybe $24K, with $16-19K being much more typical. I have savings disproportionate to the norm for my income, but they are just that- savings. They are there for if and when things go sideways, not to facilitate wants in place of needs. Given the unsavory (to my sensibilities) terms of financing, any higher price isn't worth it to me unless I can get a new-manufacture car, with full warranty, for less than $11K, tops, more comfortably at $9k. I am not prepared to pay interest on, and pay under threat of repossession of, a marginally better but more expensive used car that gains me maybe two or three more years of reliable service, tops.
On a similar note to that, if I were looking at used cars for around $8-9K, like your hypothetical used Leaf or Spark (the latter of which I've never actually seen in the wild), I could get a similarly conditioned, boring-but-venerable little Toyota sedan or somesuch for somewhat less, with greater range and adaptability. Just because I have "x" dollars in my budget does not mean that I would pass up a chance to spend only "x-n" (where "n" is a positive number
) instead, given the chance.I'm not here as an automotive enthusiast. In fact, I pretty much hate cars for the apparently obstinate way that they fail to lend themselves to easy maintenance. Even many of those tasks that are easy to do are only easy given a significant up-front investment in proper tools, and much of it still can't be done in- say- an apartment complex parking lot, at least not if you don't want the manager or landlord on your backside afterwards. I come from the utopia of PC builds, where parts are largely standardized and interchangeable across brands and models, and it's the Fisher-Price school of installation (square plug goes into the square hole, only fits one way, no real physical calibration needed, blue-to-blue, etc.), and cars' lack of such universal commonality are a byzantine nightmare to those sensibilities. I'm here because I'm one of those guys that Paul Elio talked about who will pay for the remainder of the car with the gas card because that's my only attractive choice. Knock down that balance to about $4K with a sizeable down payment (or just initial balance payment- depends how they do it), and it actually becomes something I can just tolerate in spite of my aversion to carrying debt.
I have no doubt that EVs will eventually meet and even exceed my demands. I will happily make use of them at that point. In the interim, I will not hamstring myself, financially or operationally, just because it's an EV.
If it meets someone else's needs, by all means. They don't meet mine. Once they do, I'm all for it. Electric drive is wonderful, but the energy storage/batteries are marginal at best, right now, though improving steadily and incrementally as time passes.
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