My biggest concern with EVs is longevity. How long are these batteries going to last before they need to be replaced, and how much are those replacements going to cost?
I always thought hybrids were dumb. The extra weight, cost and complexity of adding an electric motor and battery to an ICE car never made much sense for the marginal benefit in fuel consumption. But yeah, you'd get whiplash from how suddenly they went from being a virtue signal to evil, polluting filth that should be banned.
EV cars aren't immune, they're starting to talk shit about "particulate matter" now.
Most manufacturers give you a 7 or 8 year warranty up to 100,000 or 150,000 miles. If it falls under 70% capacity in that time, you get a new one for free. It's easy to check. You should be reasonably able to expect the battery to hold up for over 10 years, maybe as much as 20 but that depends on a lot of variables so I wouldn't count on it.
Replacement costs are high, something like $12,000 on a Tesla Model S (which is a big ass 100 kwh battery pack). Compared to buying a new car, that's not a lot but it's still not cheap. Prices have fallen over 80% in the last decade and are expected to continue to fall over time (there's a huge gold rush of investment into battery tech and manufacturing).
But there's no guarantee of anything, including ICE cars and fuel, becoming cheaper soon in the current economy, what with all the inflation, wars, sanctions, trade wars, taxes and shit. Running and repair costs on an EV should be lower, but it probably won't save you money overall. If I was buying a car for maximum longevity at the lowest cost I'd choose a 1997 Toyota Corolla.
I remember reading something about an original generation Tesla Model S reaching 200k miles, although it did need a motor replacement at one point, and I don't remember how many battery changes it got.
As a comparison,
there was an article about someone driving a Mitsubishi Mirage for over 400k miles. Compared to that Tesla, the Mirage owner only needed to replace a starter motor, wheel bearings, and the standard tire, battery, and fluid changes as needed, so the car was still running on the same engine and transmission.
Going back to Tesla Hate, one other thing I don't like about them, which is not about Tesla cars themselves, but it seems like some of the competition doesn't seem to try, when they decide to build EVs. Toyota comes to mind as a big example, as the bZ4X (along with it's Subaru
cousin rebadge, the Solterra), not only has a stupid name (although Solterra is a much cooler car name, which could attract people to buy it on name alone), but a lot of design choices seem questionable. All of the US-bound bZ4X's will have a panoramic sunroof as standard (and I hate sunroofs in general, and bZ4X's elsewhere can be equipped with rooftop solar panels, which are very negligible in terms of battery recharge, and just add on to cost), the car does not have any front storage, or even a glovebox, and the car doesn't have one-pedal driving, which is one of the big selling points with EVs.
Granted, it's because Toyota was more in on Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology, which hasn't catched on in the US, as Fuel Cell cars are only available in California and Hawai'i, and hydrogen fueling is still very expensive, and very energy consuming.
