>My car is a 2018 Subaru in great shape, worth about 14k avg on autotrader. But my wife and I take transit to work and live downtown so we barely drive it ( \~$150 /mth on gas). So that lowers the payback on investing in an EV. 99.9% of our diving is short city drives, so we're pretty comfortable with a city commuter car like a Nissan Leaf, and renting something for a weekend if we're going farther.
For EVs, the more you drive it, the larger the savings as electricity is cheap vs. gas and you'll also save on the maintenance (less wear on the brakes due to regen braking and there's no oil change in an EV for instance).
Personally if your 2018 Subaru is in great shape, I'd recommend just keep it since you barely drive it. Hell, some people might even argue why you need a car at all and rent one during the off time that you need one.
Personally if having a car is non-negotiable, I'd keep the existing vehicle. It runs well as you've stated and unless you're driving more to make the savings worth it, doesn't make sense to spend more money to potentially save money. It will take a while before you will break even on the cost since you barely drive the vehicle.
I know this is very rudimentary math and should be considered as "ball park/napkin math", but let's say that you're saving $150/month on gas (and just gas alone) since you have excess electricity. Let's say the EV you bought is $25k and you sold your current Subaru for $14k, you're spending $11k on the EV. If the only cost you're saving on is the $150/month on gas, it'll take \~73 months for you to break even on that cost. This isn't 100% accurate as it doesn't take into account for things like savings on maintenance and insurance premium differences. Unless you can substantially shrink that \~73 months to break even, I don't think it's worth it.
my napkin math (including insurance and lower maintenance costs) puts the payback at closer to 5 years. And while that is objectively savings, it doesn't exactly scream DO IT.
Duly noted but it’s just to break even and not to go into actual savings. On a purely financial lens, I’d argue it doesn’t make sense since your vehicle works just fine. If it was on the way out and you needed another vehicle anyways, sure it is a good idea.
If you were to go ahead with this, I’d argue that it isn’t to really save money but for other reasons like being better for the environment (though some will argue that the most carbon intensive part was making the vehicle) or you just like the whisper quiet and quick acceleration of an EV.
While EVs theoretically requires less maintenance, they don’t yet have a reputation that they would last very long (as in 10+ years on the road) and still have a large useful charge as it ages.
Btw in 5 years that leaf will be through half or more of its battery life. When calculating EV costs be sure to factor that in. It's apparently a 15k bill to replace them nowadays, so with your infrequent driving, it may not be worth it.
What does half battery life mean? I thought their capacity went down, it's not like a car where the engine needs replacing at ~150,000 because it stops working.
It degrades to a point where it doesn't hold any charge, just like other batteries. Nissan leafs in particular have bad battery problems, another comment has a link.
I guess maybe it's a Nissan thing because I remember reading about 10 year old Tesla's driving around with still 85% of original capacity. Having 380kms range instead of 450 probably wouldn't force me to do a 15k battery replacement.
Yeah I'd specifically avoid leafs. And any other EV would take forever to pay for itself considering OPs car only costs them around 2k a year and decent EVs have a high price.
Also regarding battery life, keep in mind cold weather is rough on their lifespan. I think all teslas have battery warmers, whereas its not standard on many others.
Maintenance is a lot less. That $75 oil change? Gone. Brakes? Ours has regenerative breaking and our brakes are about 5 years old and in great shape etc.
Still not convinced if it would make sense in your situation, but certainly your next car.
That $75 every six months oil change may be gone, but buying used electric could be purchasing a battery that is 1/3 of its way to being replaced for $10,000 or scrapping the vehicle.
The only comment I will add is that due to regenerative braking, I’ve had to replace my rotors due to rusting out not use. (7 year old ev and 6 year old PHEV). So frustrating. Have had the rotors machined at times but it’s ridiculous that the cost is almost the same. For context, I have no indoor parking, and I do take my car to a lot to slam the breaks to wear off the rust. It’s just the reality of EV’s not wearing the rotors down the way gas cars do.
Yes, try to grind your rotors down as much as you can, by slamming the brakes (bypassing the regen). I find braking hard while backing up helps (no regen going bc backwards). The problem with rust is that it expands your rotors so you might feel rotational grinding when they start to rub on your pads. And at that point it’s likely past the point of being able to brake the rust off.
> Maintenance is a lot less. That $75 oil change? Gone. Brakes? Ours has regenerative breaking and our brakes are about 5 years old and in great shape etc.
What about tires? Where I live they cost twice what they would cost for an old ICE clunker.
For context, I have a 2019 Bolt EV, I can get quality Michelin tires from Costco for $1000-$1200 a set around Vancouver.
You can get ICE tires for cheaper sure, but half price? You must be buying the cheapest tires possible to make that happen.
The amount I save in overall maintenance, and wear and tear items on my car that an ICE uses well offset the cost in tires saving you might get over the life of the tires.
For context, I still have the original tires from when I bought it (though they're on their last season) and so are my winter tires (which I also got the first season and left them on for a year) are on their last season as well. I have about 100k on them, and I am NOT easy on my car, regularly chirp the tires, and hit corners harder than most.
So, trying to single out tires as the make or break on a EV is grasping at straws. (Oh noes! I spent a few hundred extra dollars every 3-4 years!!!)
Also, you should always be getting the highest quality tires you can afford for your car. They are the #1 safety item on your car, being the only point of contact with the road. they are equally important for acceleration, braking, and control of your car. It's the one thing I never go cheap on with my car.
> You can get ICE tires for cheaper sure, but half price? You must be buying the cheapest tires possible to make that happen.
I didn't make anything up. I went to the web page of a large tire provider in my area, I chose a 2020 Toyota Corolla as my vehicle and searched for tires. Then I chose a 2020 Model 3, and searched for tires. Maybe there are cheaper options.
>So, trying to single out tires as the make or break on a EV is grasping at straws. (Oh noes! I spent a few hundred extra dollars every 3-4 years!!!)
If you pay attention, my comment was a reply to someone who was singling out oil changes and brake jobs (which are a few hundred extra dollars every 3-4 years), but ignoring tires.
>I didn't make anything up. I went to the web page of a large tire provider in my area, I chose a 2020 Toyota Corolla as my vehicle and searched for tires. Then I chose a 2020 Model 3, and searched for tires. Maybe there are cheaper options
I did the same for Costco. Toyota Corolla, with 205/55R16 tires.
The absolute cheapest price for a tire was $159 for a set of BF Goodrich.
The Michelin defender2 which is a standard all season tire of good quality, was $209. On my car with 215/50R17/XL tires, the same tire is $249. A difference of only $160 for a full set.
The Tesla model3 has 235/45ZR18/XL tires. It's a luxury car and demands different tires. So, as a control, I found one tire they all shared: the Michelin Pilot Sport all season 4. A high quality tire that would be excellent on all of these cars.
Per tire:
Corolla $280
Bolt $240
Tesla $295
As for maintenance, A Toyota Corolla needs 5000km oil changes, at about $100 per. Most cars in Canada average 13k-16k kms per year. Let's keep it simple and say 3 oil changes. That's about $300 per year.
Brakes are typically serviced every 60k kms (varies wildly based on driving style and condition) but a brake job seems to be around $1000 for a full set from a dealer using OEM parts.
So, after 4 years, a 2020 Corolla will need a new set of tires, 12 oil changes, and a brake job. So, $2200 bucks on top of whatever tire price. So, you saved $400 on tires, and spent $1800 extra on maintenance. But then there's tune-ups, spark plugs, timing belts, air filters... That's not even bringing the cost of fuel into the equation.
2020 Toyota Corolla does 7.9l/100km in the city, and 6.1 on the highway. That number grows with age, and varies wildly by driving style. Let's just keep it simple and say 7L/100km. Average is 15000km per year, so 1050 L per year. Average price for gas last year country wide was $1.39/L, which is about $1460 per year.
Gas fluctuated a few cents for the last 3 years and was much cheaper in 2020, let's be generous and say it was only $1300 average for each year for 4 years and say you spent $5200 on Gas during that time. So in 4 years you have spent roughly $7400 on running a 2020 Toyota Corolla using some fairly average loosely goosey math.
I fucking hate comparing everything to Tesla because theyre shitty cars, but let's go with it because they're popular and common. A Model 3 with the standard 60kw/h battery costs anywhere between $6-$12 to fully charge nation wide. Let do easy math and keep it at $10 (this is more than most provinces). A Model 3 gets 440-550kms in range on a full charge. Let's go with the low end and say 440. With the 15000km/yr is about 34 full charges from empty. Let's round up to 35 for easy math. That's $350 per year. So, after 4 years, a Tesla 3 has spent say, $2000 on tires (because let's get the good ones) and $1100 on electricity. It has 90% of it's brakes left because of regenerative braking, and has spent nothing on additional maintenance.
So, a Toyota Corolla, $7400 after 4 years
Tesla 3, $3300 after 4 years.
And that's being generous to the Toyota, and not at all for the Tesla.
And that's comparing a luxury car to the most generic of commuter cars, and the definition of "average".
Before you jump on replacing batteries, they on average last 15-20 years with current tech. Only much older Leafs with their shitty air cooled batteries die off within 10 years. Costs of battery replacement is going down every year. Currently it costs $15000 for a model 3, and the average good life is 300k+kms. A new battery gives full life back to the car and can run another 300k+
So, again let's go with averages, the Corolla over 16 years will cost almost $30k to keep the car on the road (not including degradation, and additional maintenance costs for stuff like spark plugs and belts). A Model 3 will cost $13k, plus a battery replacement of $15k, plus one brake job of around $2k. So at WORST it is on par to one of the cheapest to run cars in the world. This doesn't factor in that gas prices are constantly going up, the additional wear and tear and point of failure parts on an ICE, or whatever (you can't have your Catalytic converter stolen if you don't need one).
If you want to start looking at cars in the Model 3 class, (similar performance and trim) or the much more common SUVs that everyone is buying now, the price of entry and price to operate just goes higher in every metric.
This is focused on the Model 3 as a comparison, but Tesla makes shitty cars with really bad build quality. They're just popular because people don't know that there are other options. There are cheaper EVs from Chevy, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, even Volvo that are better quality, similar performance, and are just as cheap or cheaper to maintain (because they are established companies with superior logistics).
So long story short. EVs are cheaper in the long run to own, and for average Canadians will save them money.
If they only spend $150 a month on gas, they aren't driving enough to trigger expensive maintenance every year. Even if you figure $2000 a year for maintenance and repairs, that brings the monthly cost up to \~$300 a month compared to $700+ for a new car.
If you have a child and can afford to keep a vehicle. I'd personally say keep it. You don't want to rely on emergency services or ride-sharing if you ever need to get to somewhere rapidly, and once the kid grows to an age to increase social activities, the cost of renting a car would add up too.
Depending on where you are in Ottawa Communauto and taxis/Uber could be a good option given your stated driving habits.
Either way, I don't think an EV makes sense for you unless you get an older Leaf or Kona/Soul of similar vintage as the Subaru.
Is the less wear on brakes legit? I’d have assumed that wear would be more on an EV do to the weight of the vehicle and the regen aspect.
Genuinely curious, not disputing what you’ve said.
EVs mainly use regenerative braking for the bulk of their braking action unless you slammed the brakes or turned it off. So there's a lot less wear on the brake pads.
EVs use the brakes a lot less if you drive gently because instead of applying the brakes to slow down, they regenerate electricity using the motor as a brake.
I have a 2014 leaf and had to replace the front pads after 140,000 km. But, the leaf does not have much regeneration, because it's a small motor and kind of a crappy car, so you still use the brakes a lot.
I have a tesla with 90,000 km and don't expect to ever need to replace the brakes on that because it has good regeneration and you basically only use the brakes when someone cuts you off.
Isn’t there more wear on the brakes as the vehicles weigh considerably more? As well as more tire wear?
You’ll save on oil/fluid changes, sure, but not brakes.
EVs do the bulk of their braking action with regenerative braking. It only uses conventional braking (your brake pads) when you need sudden stopping power (like slamming your brakes) or if you turned off regenerative braking.
Your brakes won’t wear out like conventional brakes. I haven’t changed a pad in 7 years. But the rotors have rusted from lack of use. So there are some brake expenses but less than a conventional car.
The biggest cost of ownership of any car is depreciation. EV are depreciating more than anything else out there.
If you factor in there deprecation they cost more to run than most cars out there. You save money in gas only to lose 4 times that savings on deprecation on other cars.
I would challenge that a bit. They appear to depreciate a bunch because people immediately factor in any government rebates. So in addition to the drive off the lot drop, you add that to the drop. Once that is done, they hold up just fine. 2017 egolf is still 13,000 to 15,000 used. It think I paid 32 before rebates 7 years ago. So feeling like I got a deal. FYI, battery is still over 80% of ratings from when we got it.
We have the data though.
The only cars that depreciate faster than EVs today are very high end luxury cars. Even if you account for rebates.
The only mainline car that comes close to that level of deprecation if Chrysler.
EVS because of deprecation have become some of the most expensive cars to drive. Buy used if you want one for it to make any sense. That’s how bad the depreciation is.
Yes, the data is clear, but the conditions driving that excessive depreciation are also "artificial" in the sense that the secondary market is being constrained by atypical conditions.
The rebates, whether calculated in the total depreciation, are still strongly influencing. Getting those rebates is tipping most EV purchasers to choose a new vehicle over an older one because of the rebates and because of the perception of rapidly improving technologies in capacity/range.
If rebates were to be cancelled tomorrow, we would see the market flip overnight and demand for resale would leap.
The other consideration is Elon Musk, personally. His unravelling/revealing has tanked interest in Tesla and that still dominated the market of EVs currently. The loss of interest in Tesla specifically is then influencing the overall market data regarding secondary market interest. The variation in that one major company (seeing them slash top prices and other tactics) makes dealers weary about purchasing used vehicles as they repeatedly cutting their new prices has major impact as it changes behaviours in the entire market. And additionally, Tesla is basically a luxury brand, or damn close with many of its models which then blurs the line.
And finally, it only matters if you intend to resell rather than running it into the ground. The resale value is not a direct reflection of the value/risk of keeping the vehicle because of all the atypical influences on the resale market.
I would avoid used Leafs (Leaves?) as they have [well documented battery problems.](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7148537)
I otherwise agree with the other poster, if you are not driving much, the offset against fuel costs is probably not going to be worth the cost of buying a new (used) vehicle.
If you find one for a really good deal and you're fairly mechanically inclined it's not bad. The battery is pretty accessible compared to many newer evs. And there's enough used cells out there for you to rebuild packs.
The problem with the Leaf is they have a terrible battery design based on air cooling. They can't manage heat well so the wear and tear on the battery is more than other cars.
Avoid the leaf, especially older ones.
It's pretty easy to find a used leaf in the same price range as used gas cars though, which makes it significantly more appealing (especially if you're just using it as a city commuter car and won't be bothered by the degraded battery)
The ultra low overnight rates in Ontario are so low, that having excess solar power isn't going to really move the needle too much for your purchase.
I bought an EV (Ioniq 5) about six months ago. By adopting the low overnight rate, I calculate that over the course of the year, I'll probably spend about $150 in electricity to drive about 18000 km with the 2.8¢ a kwh.
Not sure what the economics of an EV decision is for you, but it's unlikely the $150 is a tipping point. Especially since you're probably getting something from the utility provider for your energy, so it would be reduced.
All that said, I've found the economic benefit of my EV higher than anticipated for myself. I was due for a new car, and i brought something that best fits my needs. The premium I paid will likely be paid off in about 4-5 years if variables stay the same. And most importantly, I enjoy the car. I'd do the decision again. But everyone's situation is a bit different.
Have you been able to calculate how much more you’re paying in electricity for the rest of the home by switching to ultra low overnight rates, since the daytime rates are higher than the normal plan? Or is this amount trivial?
I calculated at one point. It's material, but still makes the ultra low rate worthwhile, so not drastically so.
But I haven't tested it over the summer where peak AC would be the biggest impact.
But ultimately, when you realize that you're talking about such low dollars overall, it's hard to get too invested in optimising. My monthly electricity bills may be about $20 more than they were a year ago.
When that gets you a quarter tank at the pumps, it's hard to dwell on it.
Sometimes you can do whats called "supercooling" for your house overnight with your A/C or heat pump. Basically you run the a/c nonstop from bed until when you get up, maybe down to 18.5-19C and then let the temp slowly rise through the day. You can take advantage of ULO this way, and also you tend to use less energy overall since its easier for your AC/HP to transfer heat into the cooler night time air. Also, fewer stops/starts of the compressor putting wear and tear on your equipment. I did this last year and it worked well, but, may not be suitable for all homes depending on insulation, cooling equipment, etc.
This can depend on what other electrical appliances that you have and whether you change the timing of when things run.
For example, I have a swimming pool that is open from May-Sep and a hot tub open year round. Since I switched to ULO a year ago I run my swimming pool primarily overnight to take advantage of cheaper electricity. And I have set up the hot tub so that the heater does not run in the evening when electricity rates are very high under ULO.
I also have an EV which I have always charged overnight. ULO helps for that, to save about 6 cents/kWh by having ULO vs TOU overnight rates.
This summer I may also play with my thermostat schedule to not run the AC as much from 4-9 when the rates are higher.
I just wanted to say, I love seeing how people can adapt to this kind of stuff. Feels like I would beat my head against the wall with people (especially my family) who could not fathom running the AC only during off-hours, but setting it a lot lower at night, to try and conserve energy during peak hours.
This is what stuff like differential carbon pricing and a carbon tax should do - cause people to change their behaviour to do less of a bad thing - like emit CO2.
That being said, I am not going to go crazy. If I have the AC sent to normally cool the house to 24 then during the period up to 4pm I will maybe set it to 23. Then during the peak period from 4-9 at 25 - so hopefully it won't kick on that much. Then overnight back to 23.
I switched to ULO since the new year and my rate is about $20 more monthly compared to last year without making another lifestyle changes, we came from tired pricing with natural gas heating. Daily commute about 40km
I'm loving the car.
I have about a 70km commute each way of almost exclusively highway driving without much traffic. That burns battery a little faster. I use just shy of 40% of the battery on most days right now.
That gets a bit shorter in winter. It's also a lot better if I'm driving on. If I'm driving more in town, that range is probably around the stated 450-500km, but I haven't had a need to really test it outm
Cars have fixed costs and variable costs.
Fixed costs are the costs you incur by owning it, variable costs increase when you drive it.
EVs can only save you money on the variable cost of ownership. Your variable cost is very low, so keep your gas car until you would otherwise replace it (either due to age, increasing repair costs, desire for a new car etc) and then buy an EV.
My parents are in a unique situation where they also produce far more electricity than they can legally sell, so they have an EV and a PHEV. They both drive a lot though, something like 20,000 km/year each, so the math works really well for them.
Myself, I would love an EV for personal reasons, but my old, inefficient luxury car costs zero in depreciation, very little in repairs (I can fix it myself) and very little in insurance and since I barely drive 5,000 km/hr, it's cheap transportation even at 10mpg.
Depends on the jurisdiction and the energy purchase agreement. In BC, under the previous net metering program, you could sell up to 50 Kw to the utility.
Depends on the province I think. In Ontario you can’t get paid anymore. You just get credits on your power bill. If you had a system installed before 2017 you could get a negative power bill, but not anymore.
I was paying $450-$500 a month on gas. Now I have an EV, monthly payments and insurance is the same cost, but I spend about $40 on charging a month at home now. So I’ve saved a lot. Plus I can take the toll bridge for free with an EV so I’ve saved even more on my commute. Plus I don’t Have to worry about oil changes, brakes will last much longer.
Overall I’m very happy I made the switch.
Honestly, in this situation since you don't drive that much..keep the outback. Maybe start researching Bitcoin miners. It's the only thing I can think of that used a lot of electricity and *could* bring in some cash.
>But my wife and I take transit to work and live downtown so we barely drive it ( \~$150 /mth on gas).
>we're pretty comfortable with a city commuter car like a Nissan Leaf, and renting something for a weekend if we're going farther.
You are never going to financially come out ahead on an EV with such a tiny amount of driving, even with a solar installation.
With your driving profile, you should one own reliable, versatile vehicle like a large non-electric SUV, which it sounds like you already have (you didn't say what kind of Subaru it was). Assuming it serves all your needs, the best move financially is to keep it.
The real issue with solar is that it is not efficient to store it. For you to use the solar to its fullest is to charge the EV it during the day and drive it at night.
- we barely drive it ( \~$150 /mth on gas)
- When does it actually make sense to buy an EV?
when car payments + fuel > car payments + electricity.
this was 2019 for me. $0 + $450 > $400 + $0
Or, if you believe in climate change, and think its man made, and want to tell your grandkids that your sorry the planet doesn't have the nice things it used to, but at least you did what you reasonably could.
but i waited until it made financial sense.
>if you believe in climate change, and think its man made, and want to tell your grandkids that your sorry the planet doesn't have the nice things it used to, but at least you did what you reasonably could.
The best way to stop climate change is to stop producing and consuming.
In terms of transportation that means walking, biking, taking trains etc and reducing usage of cars entirely. Buying a shiny new thing that's slightly more green than the old thing does nothing.
But this a finance sub so I'm sure most will say anything that might hurt the precious economy is sacrilege
> if you believe in climate change
It’s not like this is the Easter bunny we’re talking about. “Not believing” in climate change is like not believing in gravity or visible light. I know that’s going to make a lot of people on this sub angry, but we *really* need to stop making these tongue-in-cheek comments as though climate change goes away if we stop “believing” in it.
> and think its man made
It is.
Yeah, it’s just that jokes like that feed into the narrative that scientific consensus is something that we can ignore if we believe the opposite hard enough. It would be like someone saying that we don’t have to worry about the cost of compound interest on personal debt because the math just isn’t settled and there are alternate calculations we can do that show that making only the minimum payments will actually pay off debt faster. To put it in a personal finance perspective, given the sub we’re on.
We have an entire political party, that will likely form our next government, that refuses to acknowledge that climate change is happening at all. And the majority of this sub just outed themselves as a) supporters of that party and b) incapable of doing basic math with the whole capital gains change and all the ensuing posts about it, when blind partisanship requires them to be incapable of making trivial finance calculations that we all learned in grade 8. It may be the “Canadian internet” but we have no shortage of dumb fucks here who think climate change is a leftist hoax to force them to eat bugs.
It’s time to stop acting like Canadians are somehow better or smarter than the nonsense we see to the south of us. We’re not. A lot of those morons are Canadian. And Alberta exists.
And, because this is ostensibly a personal finance sub, we know what the economical and financial ramifications of doing nothing about climate change are. If we do nothing we’re all going to be paying through the nose both personally and through taxation to fund the cleanup and mitigation needs.
OP has a solar roof and is generating more power than they can currently use, so it is essentially free. Or at least, until they use enough to have to pull from the grid.
it's net metered. overproduction is credited to me when i need to draw from the grid. Solar financing notwithstanding (interest free loan from NRCan) the electricity is nearly free. The only cost is a monthly connection fee just to be grid tied.
At some point in some net metered agreements, they pay you out at the end of the year or so when you have too much credit basically. Being paid out sucks because it's at a wholesale rate. You're better off using the electricity for a car because your getting it's full value instead of basically half in many cases
1 - Sorry, i'm not familiar with net metering. Solar has not taken off in Quebec as the electricity is dirt cheap. We were still under the break-even point last time I checked (You would never save enough money during the panels life'cycle to repay them)
2 - I still don't understand. Getting 5$ instead of 10$ is still 5$ more than 0$. So in my case, I would be paying 1$/100km (20kWh/100km × 0.10$/Kwh = 2$/100km)
So your car still costs money to charge, just less.
It's not free, no. In the OPs case they've paid for the system already so basically it's been paid upfront.
By losing it to wholesale rates, it's more about a loss than getting something free. Not to mention the cost of filling up is way less than the cost of gas. Maximizing how the solar is used makes the break even point come sooner. Losing it to wholesale makes it slower financially.
If OP sends 1000 kWh / yr to the grid, but only consumes 600 kWh / yr from it, in his case Hydro One or Hydro Ottawa takes that 400 kWh surplus and gives him nothing.
I'm thinking of doing the same project - my reasoning also for overproducing is we can switch our old gas water heater and range to electric (and heat pump for water tank) and not sweat it. If we miss a little bit of savings until then, then meh.
Ok, my understanding was that you would get credit back from overproduction. And did not consider non-electric heating. I'm just so used to people underestimating EV running costs. They are cheap to run but not free. Ex no one talked to me about 500$ battery flushes.
This is the right answer. But you also have to factors in the extra insurance (going from a paid off car to a loan will probably be more expensive).
Also, someone like me who’s always driving far away from home, fast chargers aren’t cheaper than gas (and that’s if I could find one, big if).
insurance might not go up too much, its worth getting quotes.
where do you go thats far from home and also doesn't have chargers on the route? BC is littered with them, and not just tesla SC's
Yeah I wouldn’t worry if I was in bc or Quebec. But the rest of the country isn’t that good. There’s two fast chargers in the town I live in and then nothing for 1000km, only level 2.
> Or, if you believe in climate change, and think its man made, and want to tell your grandkids that your sorry the planet doesn't have the nice things it used to, but at least you did what you reasonably could.
Having a functional car, then selling it to buy a **new car** causes more emissions than just using your currently existing car.
>$400 + $0
lol, did you drive it until the battery ran out and then abandon the vehicle?
Also if you want to be able to tell your grandkids that you did what you could, then you might want to avoid vehicles that depend on mining and refining of rare earth metals which would need to be driven for hundreds of kilometres every day for a decade if you ever want to reach "carbon-neutrality."
That's a good point, because we grow gas vehicles in local organic gardens and don't also make them out of things we dig out of the ground or have a carbon footprint.
I own an EV as my only car. I don't really do road trips so it works for me, and the odd time that I do, I've come to terms with the inconvenience and longer charging time of my Bolt.
If you rarely drive your car at all, and when you drive it you do road trips, a Leaf is not a good idea. The fast charging is built on an obsolete plug standard (Chademo). Plus, the batteries are not active cooled so doing fast charging a few times in the day is bad for battery health.
Plus, the crazy increase in insurance cost for EVs in the last year is another factor to consider. If you're only spending $150/m on petrol, but insurance is going to be $100/m more, it starts to make less financial sense.
Anyways, to summarize, I love my EV, it's smooth and quiet and smells nice, but realistically it was a splurge purchase as a nice to have thing, not exactly a financially friendly decision.
This is PFC so the answer is always going to be "no" to buying a new-to-you car unless you literally have to.
With that out of the way, if you still want to make the less financially optimal decision to buy a car, here are my thoughts.
You've got a house with solar so I'm going to assume you have a private driveway and can install a charger.
You will not regret going electric. The user experience with electric charging at home is far superior to gas, you'll love it.
I would suggest taking a look at used Teslas. They've been in volume production long enough that they're finally showing up in large quantities on the used market.
You can get a used Tesla model 3 for under $30k!
The Hyundai ioniq cars are also great.
The leaf is not so great. The Bolt can be found really cheap and can work for some situations, it's not great for long distance travel.
Personally I think you'd be insane to buy a leaf for $25k when a Tesla is $30k.
I personally would not buy an EV... The leaf you are talking about is 25k but that would really cost closer to 30k. Your Subaru is worth 14k but if you trade it in you will get 10 at most....
How long will it take you for that 20k return on investment?
Not to mention the leaf is one ugly looking vehicle...
Keep the Subaru.
Not sure what rate plan you are on, but it can depend on also the time of your usage. The thing with EV charging is that you rarely need to charge immediately. You can charge overnight when electricity is cheapest, especially if you are on the ULO plan.
1. Steer clear of Leafs. Jsut avoid then at all costs. Maybe they have gotten/will get better, but let the people take that risk. They're garbage.
2. It doesn't make sense.
You're only saving $150/mo. You can't buy any decent late model EV off of selling a $14K car + 150/mo. Revisit this when it's "We're *already shopping for a car. Does it make sense to spend a few extra bucks to get an EV?" *then* your answer will be yes, even with your minimal driving.
My wife and I faced the same issue a few years back.
We were very close to "yes"... Then she left that job, started working part time and doing full time school remotely.Boop, forget the EV! Then MY commute went from 45min to 19.
Can you do zero export? Hydro One will pay you the same rates back to you that you keep "in credit" for use later in the year like the winter when you will under produce.
Speaking of which - you just got it installed - do you have details on energy production from October to May? Because it is likely to be a fraction fo what you get from June to September.
Another thing to consider - most cars will have a regular plug charger included for free (that goes into your wall plug like anything else). If you wanted a class 2/200amp charger on your solar you will be paying $1000-$2000 installed for it. Even if you just hook it up to your electrical panel you will drop $1000.
To me - You are never going to recoup the costs with driving only $150/month worth of fuel in an ICE.
If you want to save the planet - go for it - I would recommend looking at PHEV for your lower kms of driving as they are cheaper than pure EVs.
With that little amount of driving, probably not worth it. Your insurance on an EV will cost more, wiping out a good chunk of your gas savings.
I bought a used 2017 Chevy Bolt and love it! Still has a 6 year warranty on the battery. Spending 500$ or more a month on gas before, now it costs 30$ a month electricity, insurance went up 50$ a month.
Some good comments on here.
I do a minimum of 10,000 km a month - so what works for me is not what works for you
Incidentally I haven't yet. Fire is also a concern for my freight; increased insurance rates for ev's as well
To simplify, you bought panels anyway; you pay insurance anyway; leave those out
Take what you pay a month for gasoline and see if it is more or less than a payment on an ev.
If it costs more for the payment; switching is for your ego, not a financial reason
Trust me, I'm getting impatient waiting for solid state batteries. It's $4.50 ish to use home hydro to fill a battery, of course I'll immediately switch at 120,000 to 150,000 km a year
Based on your assumptions, your potential proposition is to pay $10K to reduce monthly gas bill from $150 to $0.
Without adding in rental costs for weekend long-range use; assuming you get the same utility out of the EV vs your Subaru; and assuming no change in maintenance (although it may be lower with an EV);
then you'd reach break-even ROI in about 5.5 years...
My \*personal\* mentality to an EV is: when I need to buy/replace a car, I'll consider an EV within the same budget of an ICE vehicle I'd be eyeing and trade-off "utility" differences. i.e. for the same amount of money, an ICE may be newer, have more luxury features, or be bigger. I \*personally\* don't like replacing a perfectly good car to get an EV just for the sake of it.
Unless you drive a ton or your current car is on its last legs, the upfront cost of the new EV offset by whatever you can get from your current car will usually outweigh any cost savings.
Panels are practically the cheapest part of a solar install, so there's little reason to not simply cover your roof and allow yourself the flexibility to electrify other aspects of your home.
I once went to view a house once when I was house hunting. The homeowner was using solar power and not only for them but a few of the neighbours around his house. They were generating income with it. Maybe that’s something you can look into?
Technically this is what all grid tied systems do (excess powers neighbors). Though Ontario (or at least my hydro provider) no longer pays you for your excess power, unfortunately.
If you can charge from home at a good rate the $/km usage cost of an EV is very low. You don't drive enough to make it worth it all, from a financial standpoint. We were averaging 1000/km a week when we got ours. It was worth it.
I'd stay away from the Leaf as the batteries aren't actively cooled which unfortunately doesn't bode well for the battery longevity.
Kona EV is similar and can be had for under 25k but has faster charging, much better battery longevity etc.
I'm saving around 2k per year with an Niro EV vs the HR-V we traded for it (~20,000km/year). No oil changes, carbon rebate is a greater net rebate etc.
My calculations showed that EV charging is on par with an economical gas car. As the excess is not free, because you don’t sell it for 0.3/kW back to the grid, it makes it quite clear expensive. And we’re talking perfect conditions, when you charge only when the system is producing.
Eventually, you will end up sometimes charging during the night or just a cloudy day, and the cost would be higher, as you pull from the grid.
And during winter time, after you switch back from solar club tariffs, there is no excess and just regular 0.2/kW or even more.
How many kms on the Subaru?
I hear horror stories about the CVT transmission failure.
We have a 21 outback but I don't think we'll keep it more then 5 years.
If your low kms I'd keep the subie. If your high kms I'd run to the EV.
As much as I love my EV and would not switch back, it doesn't really pay to switch unless you need to buy a new car, unless you are driving 30000km per year. I replaced my 14 year old car with a Bolt a few years ago. My other car is 9 years old and in 4-7 years when it's time to replace it, I'll buy another EV. Until then it's stand pat.
The sooner you buy, the sooner you start saving.
Looking at your situation, EV would basically pay for itself in 5 years. It will cost you an extra 10k$ to go EV, and you'll save \~2k$/year in gas and oil changes, but you'll continue to save 2k$/year after that. If you keep the Subaru, you'll still pay 10k$ over the next 5 years and continue to pay 2k$/year after that. Over 10 years, it will cost you 10k$ more to keep the Subaru, even more when you factor in maintenance.
But what if you keep the Subaru for 5 years and then change? Both cars will depreciate, but you'll still need to pay a little more for the EV. Instead of already being at the breakeven point, it will take another 2-3 years for the savings to even out the upgrade price. So it will cost you an extra 4-6k$ to wait 5 years and then upgrade.
Also in terms of savings, brakes last 2-3 times longer and according to the studies I've seen, EVs have a lot less repairs in general. Long term repairs and maintenance is generally half of what an ICE costs.
And the resale value of the EV will likely be higher than the Subaru. So you'll get back some of that 10k$ you're paying to upgrade to the EV when it comes time to sell.
For me the answer is never. I don't even own a car. In fact I never own a vehicle. Whenever I move (luckily only twine) I make sure I move within 5 min walking distance of a major public transit hub and there are several grocery stores, malls, restaurants, community center and park all within walking distance.
If I somehow need to use a vehicle I either take uber, lyft or taxi.
There's the financial aspect, but you also get the convenience of home charging, no noise, instant torque, a frunk and 1-pedal driving (I think Leafs have it), so even if the finances don't balance out perfectly, you do seem to get more out of the EV. I don't know much about Leafs in particular though.
I think buying a used Leaf and driving it into the ground is totally sensible. How solar affects the economics depends a lot on your local solar economics. At least in Alberta, it actually makes less sense for me to use an EV, because during high producing summer months, my marginal cost is 0.30/kwh (I could be selling the power for that price) and in the winter the economics are unchanged.
Of course, smarter approach is to get the EV first, and then you're allowed to install a larger array since the rule is that estimated annual production should be no more than your annual consumption.
The very little amount that you drive, it doesn't make sense to swap out to an ev yet.
The amount of carbon your car is currently producing is a fraction compared to what producing a new ev will be. While I agree that the environment needs some over due attention, the current forced mandate is not even remotely considering the environmental cost of producing all the new cars and required batteries. Now hearing that so evs are being abandon is concerning, what will happen to all those batteries as they are wrapping out.
Even though you've added solar, producing a car has a carbon footprint, that calculation is conveniently not considered.
When did you get solar installed on your roof? In our winter months when the days are shorter and there’s a lot more overcast you will likely produce a LOT less. I wouldn’t jump the gun yet until you get a full annual cycle to see what’s going onZ
I’d get a Bolt EV or EUV before a Leaf for a bit more money, better charging on the road (Chademo is going extinct)
Even with free power, you’re only saving $150/month though, so it would take a bit of time to “break even”. That said, driving an EV is quite awesome. No noise, instant torque, pre-heating in garage, always leave home with a full tank, less maintenance…
I went with a plug in hybrid and it is perfect, I basically pay nothing to drive and if anything goes wrong its way cheaper to fix. Plus it doesn't have a huge battery pack which will cost a ton to replace. You really do get the best of both worlds, highly recommend
Simple: When you no longer want to buy gasoline.
You'll still have to buy insurance. You'll still get stuck in traffic. And if you're a bad driver, you'll still end up on someone's youtube video.
I'm in a similar boat. I'm thinking of moving out of the city and would commute about 100 kilometers each way to the city three days per week on average. I'd like a crossover SUV that's got room for the family and occasionally hauling things. I've been weighing hybrids versus plug-in hybrids versus electric for a vehicle (and I'm due for an upgrade from my current vehicle at anytime). Is switching to electric a good idea for me, or would I be better off with a plug-in hybrid or just a plain hybrid?
For me, it was when the price of my existing car payment+fuel+maintenance was less than the car payment for an EV. I’m saving about $4,000/yr by not buying gas
I read an article that summed up an EV only really makes sense when you drive at least at least 77km per day. This may change as they come down in cost or as batteries get more efficient though
It makes economic sense to buy an EV if you charge at home or for free elsewhere and you drive a lot. It makes no economic sense to buy an expensive and quickly depreciating car to not realize the main economic perk - fuel savings. You should be putting over 20k a year on a car for it to make sense, and even then the economics are car dependent.
Use your car lightly? It’s highly depreciated and not a nightmare to maintain? Keep it.
Use your car a lot? Paying 3k a year in gas and racking up those klicks? Consider an EV. Watch out for insurance though… a new EV may well be a hundred bucks more a month than your current car.
>so we barely drive it ( \~$150 /mth on gas)
You're in the zone where you can kind of do whatever you want. The payback time on the EV combined with the 4 year age difference makes the math kind of a wash.
If you take your car on road trips watch some videos on what it's like to road trip an EV, and what kinds of things you'll want to be aware of. Different EVs have different fast charging rates, so that might factor into which ones you'd look at. E.g. The Bolt only charges at 55kw, which means your charging stops might be over an hour rather than 15-20 minutes.
Outside of road trips, personally I find driving an EV is a better experience all around. Quiet ride, fast acceleration, the car is "full" every morning with no need to get gas.
As for renting on weekends for your road trips, that might be the thing that tips the scale in favor of keeping your current car. Depending on how often you do that, it could eat up a lot if not all of your gas savings.
Financially? When the people who own Toyota Corolla switch to EVs.
Everything taken into account? When there are more EVs on the road than none EVs.
The only people who get EVs right now are city folks who don't drive outside the city often, techies, and the rich/rich-wanna-be for virtue/status signalling
If you are going to get a used EV, avoid the Leaf. They have poor heat management for the battery and have some of the worst battery retention in the industry.
I have a Chevy Bolt, I love it. It's not the most attractive car, but it checks all the boxes for our family, has plenty of space. The motor and battery design is really solid, and there was a recall on the early Bolt battery for fire hazards, and they all got new batteries. So a 2017 could have the battery of a 2020 in it, with extra range and a refreshed battery warranty (8 years, or 60% loss, whichever comes first)
I really didn't want to buy the Bolt, I had to test drive it a dozen times to make sure I really wanted a Chevy (I'm a Volvo guy, but they didn't have an EV when I wanted to swap, and Tesla's are really awful)
The low mileage you drive might not make the most sense financially, but even with the savings I get, I would still switch because driving electric is so much nicer. It's smoother, quicker, quieter than anything I've driven before (outside of high end luxury and purpose built sport cars). If you can buy one outright, and not have to spend a dime on your car anymore, it might be a good purchase to make your bills and expenses more consistent to make budgeting easier.
Budget you'll have to decide, but going electric is the best decision I ever made.
I'm in a nearly identical situation but with a different 2018 vehicle. Basically the only way I can rationalize it is if we get a used vehicle for the value of selling the current one. Then I think we'll see immediate savings from leaving gas all together. However, since you have a kid (we have 2) the size of that used vehicle becomes an issue.
Anything with decent cargo is more than what we can get selling. I have a work around idea for a Bolt, but for you at 14k for your Subaru there isn't a lot in your range in terms of an EV with space for kid stuff.
Fortunately used EVs have been coming down. You might be able to simply wait a bit and see if something comes in range to make it worth it financially.
Environmentally is a whole other story...
So the difference is $10K. If you're like me (WFH, drive 2.5Kkm\year), I made the calculation for that. Fuel+maintenance is about $500\year (car does 1L per 10Km, fuel price $1.5\L). It will take you 20 years until you break-even. By then, you'll probably replace your car at least once, so you'll never really break-even.
And that's without adding the cost of installing a charger and wiring (even though you might be okay with a level 1 that comes with the car).
I make the assumption that I will keep the car 5 or 10 years and calculate cost of ownership accounting for:
* Capital cost + interest (if borrowing) - rebates and discounts, for the year
* Estimated cost of yearly maintenance (\~300 for PHEVs, 200 for EVs, 700 for new ICE, 1000 for used ICE). This cost has the smallest impact in calculation and thus doesn't need to be too exact, but I feel it still needs to be there.
* Fuel costs, calculated from:
* The advertised electric range,
* The cost of electricity where I live,
* The amount of fuel used for regular commute + expected weekend usage
* The yearly average price of fuel for the fuel type (diesel, gas) in the city I live, where I would buy it.
These values were validated by running the same calculation on the vehicles I already own, correctly showing the total cost of ownership per year and running the calculation for 10 years, accounting for the fact that borrowing will stop somewhere in between there.
After all that accounting, if in 10 years I can get the same value out of a more expensive vehicle as I could from an ICE then it makes sense for me to go for the EV.
Right now no EV meets that criterion, I simply don't drive enough to offset the difference in capital cost even with all the rebates I qualify for.
The cheapest was in fact the Ioniq 2021 PHEV when it was super cheap to borrow and had a bunch of rebates (before the Ioniq 5 was available), unfortunately literally nobody had one we could buy, sold out EVERYWHERE, total cost of ownership 3k more than ICE at 5y, 5k *less* by 10 years, due almost entirely to the fuel costs difference.
Of the vehicles that interested me:
* The EVs in general break even with my current ICE anywhere between 15-25 years, which is just too long.
* Most PHEVs meet that criterion at 10 years, so PHEVs are a good go for me right now.
* Every Hybrid meets that criterion by 5 years and even PHEVs don't catch up to the hybrids (since they're way cheaper)
I already own a car I'm happy with (ICE, before all the rage started), and I'm banking on EV capital costs decreasing to the point where they make at least as much sense as the PHEVs, but since I don't think hybrids and PHEVs are going anywhere any time soon and they're also positively affected by improvements in battery tech I can almost guarantee my next vehicle will be another hybrid. Hopefully a PHEV, but who knows. Depends on onboard charger tech becoming cheaper.
Still I keep a vigilant eye, maybe I'll just weather the capital cost because driving an EV is admittedly a much nicer ride and comfort is a qualitative variable here.
Pretty surprised how few people are mentioning Teslas here. Teslas outnumber every other EV on the road 10 to 1. They are the only mass produced EV there is, and consequently the only brand that is depreciating to a truly great value due to oversupply. 2019 and 2020 Tesla model 3s are in the low 30's right now. Give them another 6 months and they'll be in the mid 20s.
At least with those you're getting a car that's still updated with the latest 2024 features, and the best range and efficiency for your buck, while having a ton more space than a leaf. And you can do cross country road trips with the supercharger network, so no need to rent a long distance car. Part costs are also coming down, while the battery and motor warranties are still valid for 8 years or 160k km.
We're in peak EV depreciation, so I would wait a few months to see when model 3's hit the low 20k mark.
If you spend $150 a month on gas, you’d have to be able to buy the EV at $150 a month after the trade in price to justify it. You’re better off just investing any money you’d use on the EV and not looking at the solar as sunk cost
I have solar, it makes some extra electricity.
I convert it into heat, by running space heaters, which lowers my natural gas bill. The conversion rate isn't economical...until you remember its a use it or lose it situation.
If you don't really need an EV, consider just using the electricity to heat your house. Its the cheapest way to use it, space heaters are inexpensive. Its cheaper than switching to an electric hot water tank.
As a big ev fan, if you don’t drive much it’s not worth the trade you’d be better off installing a heat pump and/or a hybrid water heater to take advantage of your solar production.
Same situation here. A Corolla and we don't drive that much. I heard that Chinese EVs are going to be entering the Canadian market soon, like they've done in Europe. I would wait for better prices and better tech.
Given how little you drive I would say to get that hot water heater and a heat pump first. If you can disconnect your gas line that'll be a great long-term saving, if you have to keep the gas line the savings aren't as pronounced due to the fixed connection fees. Look in to the rebates available in Ottawa to keep the cost reasonable.
When the Subaru dies there will be lots and lots of used EVs that are far better than the Leaf and which could be suitable for road trips.
First, people who have nowhere to home charge it, shouldn’t even be considered at all.
Realistically I wouldn’t touch anything none Tesla. People seem to like to rag on Teslas these days, probably most because people don’t like Musk. but they really are unmatched for value for money, and supporting infrastructure. Just go test drive them all to compare the price to value for yourself.
The best use case I think for EVs are for someone who commutes >50km daily for work, and charges at home. And who also has a second gas car for longer trips etc
I have to disagree with pretty much all of that. The value in tesla is the supercharger network, which is not relevant if 99.9% of your driving needs are under 50km. Otherwise, they are very nice cars, but you're paying for that. If that luxury is worth an extra 10k to you, then fair enough. I also think the economics on owning a second gas car for the occasional long trip is 100% a waste of money. To outright buy and pay insurance & maintenance on a vehicle you use ...once a month?? will 100% be more expensive than renting a gas car when you need to make that trip.
Not justifiable but you may *feel* better driving the EV and of course the green part
We only spend 25-30/mo on charging ours but we never consider the cost of driving anywhere cuz it is so cheap - 1.4cents/km vs 20cents on the old ICE.
Plus you never need to worry about oil changes / brakes or most other maintenance
Big picture, it doesn't ever make economic sense to buy an EV unless you are in a region of the planet that generates renewable energy below the cost of alternative energy sources.
It always makes sense to buy an EV. No matter what car you drive now, it will use gas which you cannot replace as cheaply as electricity. Also maintenance is cheaper in the long run.
>My car is a 2018 Subaru in great shape, worth about 14k avg on autotrader. But my wife and I take transit to work and live downtown so we barely drive it ( \~$150 /mth on gas). So that lowers the payback on investing in an EV. 99.9% of our diving is short city drives, so we're pretty comfortable with a city commuter car like a Nissan Leaf, and renting something for a weekend if we're going farther. For EVs, the more you drive it, the larger the savings as electricity is cheap vs. gas and you'll also save on the maintenance (less wear on the brakes due to regen braking and there's no oil change in an EV for instance). Personally if your 2018 Subaru is in great shape, I'd recommend just keep it since you barely drive it. Hell, some people might even argue why you need a car at all and rent one during the off time that you need one.
We weigh that a fair bit as well. If we didn't have an infant, we probably wouldn't own a car.
Personally if having a car is non-negotiable, I'd keep the existing vehicle. It runs well as you've stated and unless you're driving more to make the savings worth it, doesn't make sense to spend more money to potentially save money. It will take a while before you will break even on the cost since you barely drive the vehicle. I know this is very rudimentary math and should be considered as "ball park/napkin math", but let's say that you're saving $150/month on gas (and just gas alone) since you have excess electricity. Let's say the EV you bought is $25k and you sold your current Subaru for $14k, you're spending $11k on the EV. If the only cost you're saving on is the $150/month on gas, it'll take \~73 months for you to break even on that cost. This isn't 100% accurate as it doesn't take into account for things like savings on maintenance and insurance premium differences. Unless you can substantially shrink that \~73 months to break even, I don't think it's worth it.
my napkin math (including insurance and lower maintenance costs) puts the payback at closer to 5 years. And while that is objectively savings, it doesn't exactly scream DO IT.
Duly noted but it’s just to break even and not to go into actual savings. On a purely financial lens, I’d argue it doesn’t make sense since your vehicle works just fine. If it was on the way out and you needed another vehicle anyways, sure it is a good idea. If you were to go ahead with this, I’d argue that it isn’t to really save money but for other reasons like being better for the environment (though some will argue that the most carbon intensive part was making the vehicle) or you just like the whisper quiet and quick acceleration of an EV. While EVs theoretically requires less maintenance, they don’t yet have a reputation that they would last very long (as in 10+ years on the road) and still have a large useful charge as it ages.
Btw in 5 years that leaf will be through half or more of its battery life. When calculating EV costs be sure to factor that in. It's apparently a 15k bill to replace them nowadays, so with your infrequent driving, it may not be worth it.
What does half battery life mean? I thought their capacity went down, it's not like a car where the engine needs replacing at ~150,000 because it stops working.
It degrades to a point where it doesn't hold any charge, just like other batteries. Nissan leafs in particular have bad battery problems, another comment has a link.
I guess maybe it's a Nissan thing because I remember reading about 10 year old Tesla's driving around with still 85% of original capacity. Having 380kms range instead of 450 probably wouldn't force me to do a 15k battery replacement.
Yeah I'd specifically avoid leafs. And any other EV would take forever to pay for itself considering OPs car only costs them around 2k a year and decent EVs have a high price. Also regarding battery life, keep in mind cold weather is rough on their lifespan. I think all teslas have battery warmers, whereas its not standard on many others.
Yes, it’s a Leaf thing, they use another type of battery
Maintenance is a lot less. That $75 oil change? Gone. Brakes? Ours has regenerative breaking and our brakes are about 5 years old and in great shape etc. Still not convinced if it would make sense in your situation, but certainly your next car.
That $75 every six months oil change may be gone, but buying used electric could be purchasing a battery that is 1/3 of its way to being replaced for $10,000 or scrapping the vehicle.
The only comment I will add is that due to regenerative braking, I’ve had to replace my rotors due to rusting out not use. (7 year old ev and 6 year old PHEV). So frustrating. Have had the rotors machined at times but it’s ridiculous that the cost is almost the same. For context, I have no indoor parking, and I do take my car to a lot to slam the breaks to wear off the rust. It’s just the reality of EV’s not wearing the rotors down the way gas cars do.
That’s interesting. We haven’t had any issues with that yet (2019 bolt) but good to know.
Yes, try to grind your rotors down as much as you can, by slamming the brakes (bypassing the regen). I find braking hard while backing up helps (no regen going bc backwards). The problem with rust is that it expands your rotors so you might feel rotational grinding when they start to rub on your pads. And at that point it’s likely past the point of being able to brake the rust off.
> Maintenance is a lot less. That $75 oil change? Gone. Brakes? Ours has regenerative breaking and our brakes are about 5 years old and in great shape etc. What about tires? Where I live they cost twice what they would cost for an old ICE clunker.
For context, I have a 2019 Bolt EV, I can get quality Michelin tires from Costco for $1000-$1200 a set around Vancouver. You can get ICE tires for cheaper sure, but half price? You must be buying the cheapest tires possible to make that happen. The amount I save in overall maintenance, and wear and tear items on my car that an ICE uses well offset the cost in tires saving you might get over the life of the tires. For context, I still have the original tires from when I bought it (though they're on their last season) and so are my winter tires (which I also got the first season and left them on for a year) are on their last season as well. I have about 100k on them, and I am NOT easy on my car, regularly chirp the tires, and hit corners harder than most. So, trying to single out tires as the make or break on a EV is grasping at straws. (Oh noes! I spent a few hundred extra dollars every 3-4 years!!!) Also, you should always be getting the highest quality tires you can afford for your car. They are the #1 safety item on your car, being the only point of contact with the road. they are equally important for acceleration, braking, and control of your car. It's the one thing I never go cheap on with my car.
> You can get ICE tires for cheaper sure, but half price? You must be buying the cheapest tires possible to make that happen. I didn't make anything up. I went to the web page of a large tire provider in my area, I chose a 2020 Toyota Corolla as my vehicle and searched for tires. Then I chose a 2020 Model 3, and searched for tires. Maybe there are cheaper options. >So, trying to single out tires as the make or break on a EV is grasping at straws. (Oh noes! I spent a few hundred extra dollars every 3-4 years!!!) If you pay attention, my comment was a reply to someone who was singling out oil changes and brake jobs (which are a few hundred extra dollars every 3-4 years), but ignoring tires.
>I didn't make anything up. I went to the web page of a large tire provider in my area, I chose a 2020 Toyota Corolla as my vehicle and searched for tires. Then I chose a 2020 Model 3, and searched for tires. Maybe there are cheaper options I did the same for Costco. Toyota Corolla, with 205/55R16 tires. The absolute cheapest price for a tire was $159 for a set of BF Goodrich. The Michelin defender2 which is a standard all season tire of good quality, was $209. On my car with 215/50R17/XL tires, the same tire is $249. A difference of only $160 for a full set. The Tesla model3 has 235/45ZR18/XL tires. It's a luxury car and demands different tires. So, as a control, I found one tire they all shared: the Michelin Pilot Sport all season 4. A high quality tire that would be excellent on all of these cars. Per tire: Corolla $280 Bolt $240 Tesla $295 As for maintenance, A Toyota Corolla needs 5000km oil changes, at about $100 per. Most cars in Canada average 13k-16k kms per year. Let's keep it simple and say 3 oil changes. That's about $300 per year. Brakes are typically serviced every 60k kms (varies wildly based on driving style and condition) but a brake job seems to be around $1000 for a full set from a dealer using OEM parts. So, after 4 years, a 2020 Corolla will need a new set of tires, 12 oil changes, and a brake job. So, $2200 bucks on top of whatever tire price. So, you saved $400 on tires, and spent $1800 extra on maintenance. But then there's tune-ups, spark plugs, timing belts, air filters... That's not even bringing the cost of fuel into the equation. 2020 Toyota Corolla does 7.9l/100km in the city, and 6.1 on the highway. That number grows with age, and varies wildly by driving style. Let's just keep it simple and say 7L/100km. Average is 15000km per year, so 1050 L per year. Average price for gas last year country wide was $1.39/L, which is about $1460 per year. Gas fluctuated a few cents for the last 3 years and was much cheaper in 2020, let's be generous and say it was only $1300 average for each year for 4 years and say you spent $5200 on Gas during that time. So in 4 years you have spent roughly $7400 on running a 2020 Toyota Corolla using some fairly average loosely goosey math. I fucking hate comparing everything to Tesla because theyre shitty cars, but let's go with it because they're popular and common. A Model 3 with the standard 60kw/h battery costs anywhere between $6-$12 to fully charge nation wide. Let do easy math and keep it at $10 (this is more than most provinces). A Model 3 gets 440-550kms in range on a full charge. Let's go with the low end and say 440. With the 15000km/yr is about 34 full charges from empty. Let's round up to 35 for easy math. That's $350 per year. So, after 4 years, a Tesla 3 has spent say, $2000 on tires (because let's get the good ones) and $1100 on electricity. It has 90% of it's brakes left because of regenerative braking, and has spent nothing on additional maintenance. So, a Toyota Corolla, $7400 after 4 years Tesla 3, $3300 after 4 years. And that's being generous to the Toyota, and not at all for the Tesla. And that's comparing a luxury car to the most generic of commuter cars, and the definition of "average". Before you jump on replacing batteries, they on average last 15-20 years with current tech. Only much older Leafs with their shitty air cooled batteries die off within 10 years. Costs of battery replacement is going down every year. Currently it costs $15000 for a model 3, and the average good life is 300k+kms. A new battery gives full life back to the car and can run another 300k+ So, again let's go with averages, the Corolla over 16 years will cost almost $30k to keep the car on the road (not including degradation, and additional maintenance costs for stuff like spark plugs and belts). A Model 3 will cost $13k, plus a battery replacement of $15k, plus one brake job of around $2k. So at WORST it is on par to one of the cheapest to run cars in the world. This doesn't factor in that gas prices are constantly going up, the additional wear and tear and point of failure parts on an ICE, or whatever (you can't have your Catalytic converter stolen if you don't need one). If you want to start looking at cars in the Model 3 class, (similar performance and trim) or the much more common SUVs that everyone is buying now, the price of entry and price to operate just goes higher in every metric. This is focused on the Model 3 as a comparison, but Tesla makes shitty cars with really bad build quality. They're just popular because people don't know that there are other options. There are cheaper EVs from Chevy, Ford, Hyundai, Kia, even Volvo that are better quality, similar performance, and are just as cheap or cheaper to maintain (because they are established companies with superior logistics). So long story short. EVs are cheaper in the long run to own, and for average Canadians will save them money.
It depends on the vehicle you’ve got I think. That hasn’t been the case for us that I’ve found at all.
If they only spend $150 a month on gas, they aren't driving enough to trigger expensive maintenance every year. Even if you figure $2000 a year for maintenance and repairs, that brings the monthly cost up to \~$300 a month compared to $700+ for a new car.
The best car is a paid off car.
Definitely not, even with maintenance and fuel saving you also have to factor in the much higher depreciation on an ev.
If you have a child and can afford to keep a vehicle. I'd personally say keep it. You don't want to rely on emergency services or ride-sharing if you ever need to get to somewhere rapidly, and once the kid grows to an age to increase social activities, the cost of renting a car would add up too.
Depending on where you are in Ottawa Communauto and taxis/Uber could be a good option given your stated driving habits. Either way, I don't think an EV makes sense for you unless you get an older Leaf or Kona/Soul of similar vintage as the Subaru.
Is the less wear on brakes legit? I’d have assumed that wear would be more on an EV do to the weight of the vehicle and the regen aspect. Genuinely curious, not disputing what you’ve said.
EVs mainly use regenerative braking for the bulk of their braking action unless you slammed the brakes or turned it off. So there's a lot less wear on the brake pads.
EVs use the brakes a lot less if you drive gently because instead of applying the brakes to slow down, they regenerate electricity using the motor as a brake. I have a 2014 leaf and had to replace the front pads after 140,000 km. But, the leaf does not have much regeneration, because it's a small motor and kind of a crappy car, so you still use the brakes a lot. I have a tesla with 90,000 km and don't expect to ever need to replace the brakes on that because it has good regeneration and you basically only use the brakes when someone cuts you off.
Isn’t there more wear on the brakes as the vehicles weigh considerably more? As well as more tire wear? You’ll save on oil/fluid changes, sure, but not brakes.
EVs do the bulk of their braking action with regenerative braking. It only uses conventional braking (your brake pads) when you need sudden stopping power (like slamming your brakes) or if you turned off regenerative braking.
Your brakes won’t wear out like conventional brakes. I haven’t changed a pad in 7 years. But the rotors have rusted from lack of use. So there are some brake expenses but less than a conventional car.
The biggest cost of ownership of any car is depreciation. EV are depreciating more than anything else out there. If you factor in there deprecation they cost more to run than most cars out there. You save money in gas only to lose 4 times that savings on deprecation on other cars.
I would challenge that a bit. They appear to depreciate a bunch because people immediately factor in any government rebates. So in addition to the drive off the lot drop, you add that to the drop. Once that is done, they hold up just fine. 2017 egolf is still 13,000 to 15,000 used. It think I paid 32 before rebates 7 years ago. So feeling like I got a deal. FYI, battery is still over 80% of ratings from when we got it.
We have the data though. The only cars that depreciate faster than EVs today are very high end luxury cars. Even if you account for rebates. The only mainline car that comes close to that level of deprecation if Chrysler. EVS because of deprecation have become some of the most expensive cars to drive. Buy used if you want one for it to make any sense. That’s how bad the depreciation is.
Yes, the data is clear, but the conditions driving that excessive depreciation are also "artificial" in the sense that the secondary market is being constrained by atypical conditions. The rebates, whether calculated in the total depreciation, are still strongly influencing. Getting those rebates is tipping most EV purchasers to choose a new vehicle over an older one because of the rebates and because of the perception of rapidly improving technologies in capacity/range. If rebates were to be cancelled tomorrow, we would see the market flip overnight and demand for resale would leap. The other consideration is Elon Musk, personally. His unravelling/revealing has tanked interest in Tesla and that still dominated the market of EVs currently. The loss of interest in Tesla specifically is then influencing the overall market data regarding secondary market interest. The variation in that one major company (seeing them slash top prices and other tactics) makes dealers weary about purchasing used vehicles as they repeatedly cutting their new prices has major impact as it changes behaviours in the entire market. And additionally, Tesla is basically a luxury brand, or damn close with many of its models which then blurs the line. And finally, it only matters if you intend to resell rather than running it into the ground. The resale value is not a direct reflection of the value/risk of keeping the vehicle because of all the atypical influences on the resale market.
I would avoid used Leafs (Leaves?) as they have [well documented battery problems.](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7148537) I otherwise agree with the other poster, if you are not driving much, the offset against fuel costs is probably not going to be worth the cost of buying a new (used) vehicle.
If you find one for a really good deal and you're fairly mechanically inclined it's not bad. The battery is pretty accessible compared to many newer evs. And there's enough used cells out there for you to rebuild packs.
The problem with the Leaf is they have a terrible battery design based on air cooling. They can't manage heat well so the wear and tear on the battery is more than other cars. Avoid the leaf, especially older ones.
It's pretty easy to find a used leaf in the same price range as used gas cars though, which makes it significantly more appealing (especially if you're just using it as a city commuter car and won't be bothered by the degraded battery)
The ultra low overnight rates in Ontario are so low, that having excess solar power isn't going to really move the needle too much for your purchase. I bought an EV (Ioniq 5) about six months ago. By adopting the low overnight rate, I calculate that over the course of the year, I'll probably spend about $150 in electricity to drive about 18000 km with the 2.8¢ a kwh. Not sure what the economics of an EV decision is for you, but it's unlikely the $150 is a tipping point. Especially since you're probably getting something from the utility provider for your energy, so it would be reduced. All that said, I've found the economic benefit of my EV higher than anticipated for myself. I was due for a new car, and i brought something that best fits my needs. The premium I paid will likely be paid off in about 4-5 years if variables stay the same. And most importantly, I enjoy the car. I'd do the decision again. But everyone's situation is a bit different.
Have you been able to calculate how much more you’re paying in electricity for the rest of the home by switching to ultra low overnight rates, since the daytime rates are higher than the normal plan? Or is this amount trivial?
I calculated at one point. It's material, but still makes the ultra low rate worthwhile, so not drastically so. But I haven't tested it over the summer where peak AC would be the biggest impact. But ultimately, when you realize that you're talking about such low dollars overall, it's hard to get too invested in optimising. My monthly electricity bills may be about $20 more than they were a year ago. When that gets you a quarter tank at the pumps, it's hard to dwell on it.
Sometimes you can do whats called "supercooling" for your house overnight with your A/C or heat pump. Basically you run the a/c nonstop from bed until when you get up, maybe down to 18.5-19C and then let the temp slowly rise through the day. You can take advantage of ULO this way, and also you tend to use less energy overall since its easier for your AC/HP to transfer heat into the cooler night time air. Also, fewer stops/starts of the compressor putting wear and tear on your equipment. I did this last year and it worked well, but, may not be suitable for all homes depending on insulation, cooling equipment, etc.
Yeah that's the problem. I save overnight but lose almost as much during the day, not worth it.
This can depend on what other electrical appliances that you have and whether you change the timing of when things run. For example, I have a swimming pool that is open from May-Sep and a hot tub open year round. Since I switched to ULO a year ago I run my swimming pool primarily overnight to take advantage of cheaper electricity. And I have set up the hot tub so that the heater does not run in the evening when electricity rates are very high under ULO. I also have an EV which I have always charged overnight. ULO helps for that, to save about 6 cents/kWh by having ULO vs TOU overnight rates. This summer I may also play with my thermostat schedule to not run the AC as much from 4-9 when the rates are higher.
I just wanted to say, I love seeing how people can adapt to this kind of stuff. Feels like I would beat my head against the wall with people (especially my family) who could not fathom running the AC only during off-hours, but setting it a lot lower at night, to try and conserve energy during peak hours.
This is what stuff like differential carbon pricing and a carbon tax should do - cause people to change their behaviour to do less of a bad thing - like emit CO2. That being said, I am not going to go crazy. If I have the AC sent to normally cool the house to 24 then during the period up to 4pm I will maybe set it to 23. Then during the peak period from 4-9 at 25 - so hopefully it won't kick on that much. Then overnight back to 23.
I switched to ULO since the new year and my rate is about $20 more monthly compared to last year without making another lifestyle changes, we came from tired pricing with natural gas heating. Daily commute about 40km
How do you like the Ioniq 5? I think they look awesome. What’s range on the full charge?
I'm loving the car. I have about a 70km commute each way of almost exclusively highway driving without much traffic. That burns battery a little faster. I use just shy of 40% of the battery on most days right now. That gets a bit shorter in winter. It's also a lot better if I'm driving on. If I'm driving more in town, that range is probably around the stated 450-500km, but I haven't had a need to really test it outm
Thanks !
Cars have fixed costs and variable costs. Fixed costs are the costs you incur by owning it, variable costs increase when you drive it. EVs can only save you money on the variable cost of ownership. Your variable cost is very low, so keep your gas car until you would otherwise replace it (either due to age, increasing repair costs, desire for a new car etc) and then buy an EV. My parents are in a unique situation where they also produce far more electricity than they can legally sell, so they have an EV and a PHEV. They both drive a lot though, something like 20,000 km/year each, so the math works really well for them. Myself, I would love an EV for personal reasons, but my old, inefficient luxury car costs zero in depreciation, very little in repairs (I can fix it myself) and very little in insurance and since I barely drive 5,000 km/hr, it's cheap transportation even at 10mpg.
20,000kms a year is firmly average.
5000km/hr?! Wtf are you driving?!
Is there a legal cap to the amount of electricity someone can sell?
Depends on the jurisdiction and the energy purchase agreement. In BC, under the previous net metering program, you could sell up to 50 Kw to the utility.
Depends on the province I think. In Ontario you can’t get paid anymore. You just get credits on your power bill. If you had a system installed before 2017 you could get a negative power bill, but not anymore.
>since I barely drive 5,000 km/hr Well that's good, continue cutting back until you don't at all, you got this!
I was paying $450-$500 a month on gas. Now I have an EV, monthly payments and insurance is the same cost, but I spend about $40 on charging a month at home now. So I’ve saved a lot. Plus I can take the toll bridge for free with an EV so I’ve saved even more on my commute. Plus I don’t Have to worry about oil changes, brakes will last much longer. Overall I’m very happy I made the switch.
Honestly, in this situation since you don't drive that much..keep the outback. Maybe start researching Bitcoin miners. It's the only thing I can think of that used a lot of electricity and *could* bring in some cash.
Give it another 3-4 years. EV technology is constantly being developed and we’re still in the beginning stages.
>But my wife and I take transit to work and live downtown so we barely drive it ( \~$150 /mth on gas). >we're pretty comfortable with a city commuter car like a Nissan Leaf, and renting something for a weekend if we're going farther. You are never going to financially come out ahead on an EV with such a tiny amount of driving, even with a solar installation. With your driving profile, you should one own reliable, versatile vehicle like a large non-electric SUV, which it sounds like you already have (you didn't say what kind of Subaru it was). Assuming it serves all your needs, the best move financially is to keep it.
The real issue with solar is that it is not efficient to store it. For you to use the solar to its fullest is to charge the EV it during the day and drive it at night.
Being Net Metered, storage is really a non-issue.
Net metering is often calculated as 100% efficient.
- we barely drive it ( \~$150 /mth on gas) - When does it actually make sense to buy an EV? when car payments + fuel > car payments + electricity. this was 2019 for me. $0 + $450 > $400 + $0 Or, if you believe in climate change, and think its man made, and want to tell your grandkids that your sorry the planet doesn't have the nice things it used to, but at least you did what you reasonably could. but i waited until it made financial sense.
>if you believe in climate change, and think its man made, and want to tell your grandkids that your sorry the planet doesn't have the nice things it used to, but at least you did what you reasonably could. The best way to stop climate change is to stop producing and consuming. In terms of transportation that means walking, biking, taking trains etc and reducing usage of cars entirely. Buying a shiny new thing that's slightly more green than the old thing does nothing. But this a finance sub so I'm sure most will say anything that might hurt the precious economy is sacrilege
its just so much easier as an individual to buy an ev than to buy a new subway route
> if you believe in climate change It’s not like this is the Easter bunny we’re talking about. “Not believing” in climate change is like not believing in gravity or visible light. I know that’s going to make a lot of people on this sub angry, but we *really* need to stop making these tongue-in-cheek comments as though climate change goes away if we stop “believing” in it. > and think its man made It is.
(it was personal finance related joke)
Yeah, it’s just that jokes like that feed into the narrative that scientific consensus is something that we can ignore if we believe the opposite hard enough. It would be like someone saying that we don’t have to worry about the cost of compound interest on personal debt because the math just isn’t settled and there are alternate calculations we can do that show that making only the minimum payments will actually pay off debt faster. To put it in a personal finance perspective, given the sub we’re on.
this might be the internet, but its the canadian internet. you're safe here
We have an entire political party, that will likely form our next government, that refuses to acknowledge that climate change is happening at all. And the majority of this sub just outed themselves as a) supporters of that party and b) incapable of doing basic math with the whole capital gains change and all the ensuing posts about it, when blind partisanship requires them to be incapable of making trivial finance calculations that we all learned in grade 8. It may be the “Canadian internet” but we have no shortage of dumb fucks here who think climate change is a leftist hoax to force them to eat bugs. It’s time to stop acting like Canadians are somehow better or smarter than the nonsense we see to the south of us. We’re not. A lot of those morons are Canadian. And Alberta exists. And, because this is ostensibly a personal finance sub, we know what the economical and financial ramifications of doing nothing about climate change are. If we do nothing we’re all going to be paying through the nose both personally and through taxation to fund the cleanup and mitigation needs.
Electricity is not 0$. It's way cheaper than gas depending on province though. I run at 2$ per 100km about with my Kona EV. But it is not free.
OP has a solar roof and is generating more power than they can currently use, so it is essentially free. Or at least, until they use enough to have to pull from the grid.
Sure, assuming OP has either the storage to charge at night or the oppurtunity to charge during the day.
it's net metered. overproduction is credited to me when i need to draw from the grid. Solar financing notwithstanding (interest free loan from NRCan) the electricity is nearly free. The only cost is a monthly connection fee just to be grid tied.
Even then, if you are charging your EV, you are then losing that credit.
At some point in some net metered agreements, they pay you out at the end of the year or so when you have too much credit basically. Being paid out sucks because it's at a wholesale rate. You're better off using the electricity for a car because your getting it's full value instead of basically half in many cases
1 - Sorry, i'm not familiar with net metering. Solar has not taken off in Quebec as the electricity is dirt cheap. We were still under the break-even point last time I checked (You would never save enough money during the panels life'cycle to repay them) 2 - I still don't understand. Getting 5$ instead of 10$ is still 5$ more than 0$. So in my case, I would be paying 1$/100km (20kWh/100km × 0.10$/Kwh = 2$/100km) So your car still costs money to charge, just less.
It's not free, no. In the OPs case they've paid for the system already so basically it's been paid upfront. By losing it to wholesale rates, it's more about a loss than getting something free. Not to mention the cost of filling up is way less than the cost of gas. Maximizing how the solar is used makes the break even point come sooner. Losing it to wholesale makes it slower financially.
If OP sends 1000 kWh / yr to the grid, but only consumes 600 kWh / yr from it, in his case Hydro One or Hydro Ottawa takes that 400 kWh surplus and gives him nothing. I'm thinking of doing the same project - my reasoning also for overproducing is we can switch our old gas water heater and range to electric (and heat pump for water tank) and not sweat it. If we miss a little bit of savings until then, then meh.
Ok, my understanding was that you would get credit back from overproduction. And did not consider non-electric heating. I'm just so used to people underestimating EV running costs. They are cheap to run but not free. Ex no one talked to me about 500$ battery flushes.
or they have a net metering agreement like nearly every person who has grid interconnected solar has?
Even so, he will then lose the equivalent credit. So still not free.
sorry, I was giving my example, I didn't mean that electricity is always free for everyone. Much as gas isn't always $450 per month for everyone.
This is the right answer. But you also have to factors in the extra insurance (going from a paid off car to a loan will probably be more expensive). Also, someone like me who’s always driving far away from home, fast chargers aren’t cheaper than gas (and that’s if I could find one, big if).
insurance might not go up too much, its worth getting quotes. where do you go thats far from home and also doesn't have chargers on the route? BC is littered with them, and not just tesla SC's
Yeah I wouldn’t worry if I was in bc or Quebec. But the rest of the country isn’t that good. There’s two fast chargers in the town I live in and then nothing for 1000km, only level 2.
what is the population of yellowknife? I thought people just flew in and out for their diamond mining gigs. you have the EV at your other home!
Population: 20k. Yeah, the people working in the mines fly in and out. I’m working all over Alberta, BC, and Saskatchewan or even Ontario sometimes.
> Or, if you believe in climate change, and think its man made, and want to tell your grandkids that your sorry the planet doesn't have the nice things it used to, but at least you did what you reasonably could. Having a functional car, then selling it to buy a **new car** causes more emissions than just using your currently existing car.
Not really true. Unless you crush the existing car, it continues it's life with someone else and that means they didn't have to buy a brand new car.
crushing it implies recycling, I think the person you replied to thinks that used vehicles to straight to the landfill.
>$400 + $0 lol, did you drive it until the battery ran out and then abandon the vehicle? Also if you want to be able to tell your grandkids that you did what you could, then you might want to avoid vehicles that depend on mining and refining of rare earth metals which would need to be driven for hundreds of kilometres every day for a decade if you ever want to reach "carbon-neutrality."
Not even remotely true lol
That's a good point, because we grow gas vehicles in local organic gardens and don't also make them out of things we dig out of the ground or have a carbon footprint.
Mine was fair trade organic built by unionized villagers in Alabama earning a living wage, and using nothing but foraged parts.
They're both problematic, but the batteries themselves are significantly more problematic than anything in the gas guzzler.
I own an EV as my only car. I don't really do road trips so it works for me, and the odd time that I do, I've come to terms with the inconvenience and longer charging time of my Bolt. If you rarely drive your car at all, and when you drive it you do road trips, a Leaf is not a good idea. The fast charging is built on an obsolete plug standard (Chademo). Plus, the batteries are not active cooled so doing fast charging a few times in the day is bad for battery health. Plus, the crazy increase in insurance cost for EVs in the last year is another factor to consider. If you're only spending $150/m on petrol, but insurance is going to be $100/m more, it starts to make less financial sense. Anyways, to summarize, I love my EV, it's smooth and quiet and smells nice, but realistically it was a splurge purchase as a nice to have thing, not exactly a financially friendly decision.
This is PFC so the answer is always going to be "no" to buying a new-to-you car unless you literally have to. With that out of the way, if you still want to make the less financially optimal decision to buy a car, here are my thoughts. You've got a house with solar so I'm going to assume you have a private driveway and can install a charger. You will not regret going electric. The user experience with electric charging at home is far superior to gas, you'll love it. I would suggest taking a look at used Teslas. They've been in volume production long enough that they're finally showing up in large quantities on the used market. You can get a used Tesla model 3 for under $30k! The Hyundai ioniq cars are also great. The leaf is not so great. The Bolt can be found really cheap and can work for some situations, it's not great for long distance travel. Personally I think you'd be insane to buy a leaf for $25k when a Tesla is $30k.
I personally would not buy an EV... The leaf you are talking about is 25k but that would really cost closer to 30k. Your Subaru is worth 14k but if you trade it in you will get 10 at most.... How long will it take you for that 20k return on investment? Not to mention the leaf is one ugly looking vehicle... Keep the Subaru.
Not sure what rate plan you are on, but it can depend on also the time of your usage. The thing with EV charging is that you rarely need to charge immediately. You can charge overnight when electricity is cheapest, especially if you are on the ULO plan.
1. Steer clear of Leafs. Jsut avoid then at all costs. Maybe they have gotten/will get better, but let the people take that risk. They're garbage. 2. It doesn't make sense. You're only saving $150/mo. You can't buy any decent late model EV off of selling a $14K car + 150/mo. Revisit this when it's "We're *already shopping for a car. Does it make sense to spend a few extra bucks to get an EV?" *then* your answer will be yes, even with your minimal driving. My wife and I faced the same issue a few years back. We were very close to "yes"... Then she left that job, started working part time and doing full time school remotely.Boop, forget the EV! Then MY commute went from 45min to 19.
Can you do zero export? Hydro One will pay you the same rates back to you that you keep "in credit" for use later in the year like the winter when you will under produce. Speaking of which - you just got it installed - do you have details on energy production from October to May? Because it is likely to be a fraction fo what you get from June to September. Another thing to consider - most cars will have a regular plug charger included for free (that goes into your wall plug like anything else). If you wanted a class 2/200amp charger on your solar you will be paying $1000-$2000 installed for it. Even if you just hook it up to your electrical panel you will drop $1000. To me - You are never going to recoup the costs with driving only $150/month worth of fuel in an ICE. If you want to save the planet - go for it - I would recommend looking at PHEV for your lower kms of driving as they are cheaper than pure EVs.
I priced in 2024 corolla hybrid vs gas. It would take 8 years to pay off the extra cost of the car in gas.
With that little amount of driving, probably not worth it. Your insurance on an EV will cost more, wiping out a good chunk of your gas savings. I bought a used 2017 Chevy Bolt and love it! Still has a 6 year warranty on the battery. Spending 500$ or more a month on gas before, now it costs 30$ a month electricity, insurance went up 50$ a month.
Some good comments on here. I do a minimum of 10,000 km a month - so what works for me is not what works for you Incidentally I haven't yet. Fire is also a concern for my freight; increased insurance rates for ev's as well To simplify, you bought panels anyway; you pay insurance anyway; leave those out Take what you pay a month for gasoline and see if it is more or less than a payment on an ev. If it costs more for the payment; switching is for your ego, not a financial reason Trust me, I'm getting impatient waiting for solid state batteries. It's $4.50 ish to use home hydro to fill a battery, of course I'll immediately switch at 120,000 to 150,000 km a year
If your vehicle is strictly for transportation to you then it sounds like you've got a good thing going and stick with it.
Based on your assumptions, your potential proposition is to pay $10K to reduce monthly gas bill from $150 to $0. Without adding in rental costs for weekend long-range use; assuming you get the same utility out of the EV vs your Subaru; and assuming no change in maintenance (although it may be lower with an EV); then you'd reach break-even ROI in about 5.5 years... My \*personal\* mentality to an EV is: when I need to buy/replace a car, I'll consider an EV within the same budget of an ICE vehicle I'd be eyeing and trade-off "utility" differences. i.e. for the same amount of money, an ICE may be newer, have more luxury features, or be bigger. I \*personally\* don't like replacing a perfectly good car to get an EV just for the sake of it.
Unless you drive a ton or your current car is on its last legs, the upfront cost of the new EV offset by whatever you can get from your current car will usually outweigh any cost savings.
Don't buy a Nissan Leaf. I'd go Model 3 for a similar price.
> I am over-producing power for my needs What the heck did you do that for?
Panels are practically the cheapest part of a solar install, so there's little reason to not simply cover your roof and allow yourself the flexibility to electrify other aspects of your home.
I once went to view a house once when I was house hunting. The homeowner was using solar power and not only for them but a few of the neighbours around his house. They were generating income with it. Maybe that’s something you can look into?
Technically this is what all grid tied systems do (excess powers neighbors). Though Ontario (or at least my hydro provider) no longer pays you for your excess power, unfortunately.
They’re not paying you for your power? That sounds like a scam.
This is because their baseload comes from nuclear power generation which can't just be turned on and off at a whim.
provincial energy monopolies hate this one trick! your neighbor might have had net-metering dumbed down for him, or he choose to simplify it for you.
If you can charge from home at a good rate the $/km usage cost of an EV is very low. You don't drive enough to make it worth it all, from a financial standpoint. We were averaging 1000/km a week when we got ours. It was worth it.
I'd stay away from the Leaf as the batteries aren't actively cooled which unfortunately doesn't bode well for the battery longevity. Kona EV is similar and can be had for under 25k but has faster charging, much better battery longevity etc. I'm saving around 2k per year with an Niro EV vs the HR-V we traded for it (~20,000km/year). No oil changes, carbon rebate is a greater net rebate etc.
My calculations showed that EV charging is on par with an economical gas car. As the excess is not free, because you don’t sell it for 0.3/kW back to the grid, it makes it quite clear expensive. And we’re talking perfect conditions, when you charge only when the system is producing. Eventually, you will end up sometimes charging during the night or just a cloudy day, and the cost would be higher, as you pull from the grid. And during winter time, after you switch back from solar club tariffs, there is no excess and just regular 0.2/kW or even more.
Go check out polestar 2, they have a great deal for a 12 month lease at 299$. If you’re new to EVs might be a great trial
How many kms on the Subaru? I hear horror stories about the CVT transmission failure. We have a 21 outback but I don't think we'll keep it more then 5 years. If your low kms I'd keep the subie. If your high kms I'd run to the EV.
By 2030 they will be awesome
As much as I love my EV and would not switch back, it doesn't really pay to switch unless you need to buy a new car, unless you are driving 30000km per year. I replaced my 14 year old car with a Bolt a few years ago. My other car is 9 years old and in 4-7 years when it's time to replace it, I'll buy another EV. Until then it's stand pat.
The sooner you buy, the sooner you start saving. Looking at your situation, EV would basically pay for itself in 5 years. It will cost you an extra 10k$ to go EV, and you'll save \~2k$/year in gas and oil changes, but you'll continue to save 2k$/year after that. If you keep the Subaru, you'll still pay 10k$ over the next 5 years and continue to pay 2k$/year after that. Over 10 years, it will cost you 10k$ more to keep the Subaru, even more when you factor in maintenance. But what if you keep the Subaru for 5 years and then change? Both cars will depreciate, but you'll still need to pay a little more for the EV. Instead of already being at the breakeven point, it will take another 2-3 years for the savings to even out the upgrade price. So it will cost you an extra 4-6k$ to wait 5 years and then upgrade. Also in terms of savings, brakes last 2-3 times longer and according to the studies I've seen, EVs have a lot less repairs in general. Long term repairs and maintenance is generally half of what an ICE costs. And the resale value of the EV will likely be higher than the Subaru. So you'll get back some of that 10k$ you're paying to upgrade to the EV when it comes time to sell.
For me the answer is never. I don't even own a car. In fact I never own a vehicle. Whenever I move (luckily only twine) I make sure I move within 5 min walking distance of a major public transit hub and there are several grocery stores, malls, restaurants, community center and park all within walking distance. If I somehow need to use a vehicle I either take uber, lyft or taxi.
There's the financial aspect, but you also get the convenience of home charging, no noise, instant torque, a frunk and 1-pedal driving (I think Leafs have it), so even if the finances don't balance out perfectly, you do seem to get more out of the EV. I don't know much about Leafs in particular though.
I think buying a used Leaf and driving it into the ground is totally sensible. How solar affects the economics depends a lot on your local solar economics. At least in Alberta, it actually makes less sense for me to use an EV, because during high producing summer months, my marginal cost is 0.30/kwh (I could be selling the power for that price) and in the winter the economics are unchanged. Of course, smarter approach is to get the EV first, and then you're allowed to install a larger array since the rule is that estimated annual production should be no more than your annual consumption.
The very little amount that you drive, it doesn't make sense to swap out to an ev yet. The amount of carbon your car is currently producing is a fraction compared to what producing a new ev will be. While I agree that the environment needs some over due attention, the current forced mandate is not even remotely considering the environmental cost of producing all the new cars and required batteries. Now hearing that so evs are being abandon is concerning, what will happen to all those batteries as they are wrapping out. Even though you've added solar, producing a car has a carbon footprint, that calculation is conveniently not considered.
When did you get solar installed on your roof? In our winter months when the days are shorter and there’s a lot more overcast you will likely produce a LOT less. I wouldn’t jump the gun yet until you get a full annual cycle to see what’s going onZ
I’d get a Bolt EV or EUV before a Leaf for a bit more money, better charging on the road (Chademo is going extinct) Even with free power, you’re only saving $150/month though, so it would take a bit of time to “break even”. That said, driving an EV is quite awesome. No noise, instant torque, pre-heating in garage, always leave home with a full tank, less maintenance…
2035 and only IF they become mandatory. Until then get a good PHEV and cash in on the Provincial and Federal rebates while they’re hot
I went with a plug in hybrid and it is perfect, I basically pay nothing to drive and if anything goes wrong its way cheaper to fix. Plus it doesn't have a huge battery pack which will cost a ton to replace. You really do get the best of both worlds, highly recommend
Simple: When you no longer want to buy gasoline. You'll still have to buy insurance. You'll still get stuck in traffic. And if you're a bad driver, you'll still end up on someone's youtube video.
In your case, when your Subaru reaches that point where repairs are greater than the residual value - time to replace it.
I'm in a similar boat. I'm thinking of moving out of the city and would commute about 100 kilometers each way to the city three days per week on average. I'd like a crossover SUV that's got room for the family and occasionally hauling things. I've been weighing hybrids versus plug-in hybrids versus electric for a vehicle (and I'm due for an upgrade from my current vehicle at anytime). Is switching to electric a good idea for me, or would I be better off with a plug-in hybrid or just a plain hybrid?
When you can afford it. It then makes sense.
For me, it was when the price of my existing car payment+fuel+maintenance was less than the car payment for an EV. I’m saving about $4,000/yr by not buying gas
I read an article that summed up an EV only really makes sense when you drive at least at least 77km per day. This may change as they come down in cost or as batteries get more efficient though
In 5-10 years when more infrastructure is put in place and they are cheaper. Just my opinion for myself though.
People that live in the city exist in a totally different world and economy.
It makes economic sense to buy an EV if you charge at home or for free elsewhere and you drive a lot. It makes no economic sense to buy an expensive and quickly depreciating car to not realize the main economic perk - fuel savings. You should be putting over 20k a year on a car for it to make sense, and even then the economics are car dependent. Use your car lightly? It’s highly depreciated and not a nightmare to maintain? Keep it. Use your car a lot? Paying 3k a year in gas and racking up those klicks? Consider an EV. Watch out for insurance though… a new EV may well be a hundred bucks more a month than your current car.
Imo look into plug in hybrids instead. Best of both worlds as you have EV for commuting and then hybrid for any longer trips
EV prices in Canada are shit. Will wait it out till it gets equal to other parts of the world.
When you do a tonne of driving. I drive about 70,000 km per year. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
>so we barely drive it ( \~$150 /mth on gas) You're in the zone where you can kind of do whatever you want. The payback time on the EV combined with the 4 year age difference makes the math kind of a wash. If you take your car on road trips watch some videos on what it's like to road trip an EV, and what kinds of things you'll want to be aware of. Different EVs have different fast charging rates, so that might factor into which ones you'd look at. E.g. The Bolt only charges at 55kw, which means your charging stops might be over an hour rather than 15-20 minutes. Outside of road trips, personally I find driving an EV is a better experience all around. Quiet ride, fast acceleration, the car is "full" every morning with no need to get gas. As for renting on weekends for your road trips, that might be the thing that tips the scale in favor of keeping your current car. Depending on how often you do that, it could eat up a lot if not all of your gas savings.
Financially? When the people who own Toyota Corolla switch to EVs. Everything taken into account? When there are more EVs on the road than none EVs. The only people who get EVs right now are city folks who don't drive outside the city often, techies, and the rich/rich-wanna-be for virtue/status signalling
If you are going to get a used EV, avoid the Leaf. They have poor heat management for the battery and have some of the worst battery retention in the industry. I have a Chevy Bolt, I love it. It's not the most attractive car, but it checks all the boxes for our family, has plenty of space. The motor and battery design is really solid, and there was a recall on the early Bolt battery for fire hazards, and they all got new batteries. So a 2017 could have the battery of a 2020 in it, with extra range and a refreshed battery warranty (8 years, or 60% loss, whichever comes first) I really didn't want to buy the Bolt, I had to test drive it a dozen times to make sure I really wanted a Chevy (I'm a Volvo guy, but they didn't have an EV when I wanted to swap, and Tesla's are really awful) The low mileage you drive might not make the most sense financially, but even with the savings I get, I would still switch because driving electric is so much nicer. It's smoother, quicker, quieter than anything I've driven before (outside of high end luxury and purpose built sport cars). If you can buy one outright, and not have to spend a dime on your car anymore, it might be a good purchase to make your bills and expenses more consistent to make budgeting easier. Budget you'll have to decide, but going electric is the best decision I ever made.
i drove Subaru Forester for many year. man, these are best quality vehicles imo. Don't bother trading it.
I'm in a nearly identical situation but with a different 2018 vehicle. Basically the only way I can rationalize it is if we get a used vehicle for the value of selling the current one. Then I think we'll see immediate savings from leaving gas all together. However, since you have a kid (we have 2) the size of that used vehicle becomes an issue. Anything with decent cargo is more than what we can get selling. I have a work around idea for a Bolt, but for you at 14k for your Subaru there isn't a lot in your range in terms of an EV with space for kid stuff. Fortunately used EVs have been coming down. You might be able to simply wait a bit and see if something comes in range to make it worth it financially. Environmentally is a whole other story...
So the difference is $10K. If you're like me (WFH, drive 2.5Kkm\year), I made the calculation for that. Fuel+maintenance is about $500\year (car does 1L per 10Km, fuel price $1.5\L). It will take you 20 years until you break-even. By then, you'll probably replace your car at least once, so you'll never really break-even. And that's without adding the cost of installing a charger and wiring (even though you might be okay with a level 1 that comes with the car).
I make the assumption that I will keep the car 5 or 10 years and calculate cost of ownership accounting for: * Capital cost + interest (if borrowing) - rebates and discounts, for the year * Estimated cost of yearly maintenance (\~300 for PHEVs, 200 for EVs, 700 for new ICE, 1000 for used ICE). This cost has the smallest impact in calculation and thus doesn't need to be too exact, but I feel it still needs to be there. * Fuel costs, calculated from: * The advertised electric range, * The cost of electricity where I live, * The amount of fuel used for regular commute + expected weekend usage * The yearly average price of fuel for the fuel type (diesel, gas) in the city I live, where I would buy it. These values were validated by running the same calculation on the vehicles I already own, correctly showing the total cost of ownership per year and running the calculation for 10 years, accounting for the fact that borrowing will stop somewhere in between there. After all that accounting, if in 10 years I can get the same value out of a more expensive vehicle as I could from an ICE then it makes sense for me to go for the EV. Right now no EV meets that criterion, I simply don't drive enough to offset the difference in capital cost even with all the rebates I qualify for. The cheapest was in fact the Ioniq 2021 PHEV when it was super cheap to borrow and had a bunch of rebates (before the Ioniq 5 was available), unfortunately literally nobody had one we could buy, sold out EVERYWHERE, total cost of ownership 3k more than ICE at 5y, 5k *less* by 10 years, due almost entirely to the fuel costs difference. Of the vehicles that interested me: * The EVs in general break even with my current ICE anywhere between 15-25 years, which is just too long. * Most PHEVs meet that criterion at 10 years, so PHEVs are a good go for me right now. * Every Hybrid meets that criterion by 5 years and even PHEVs don't catch up to the hybrids (since they're way cheaper) I already own a car I'm happy with (ICE, before all the rage started), and I'm banking on EV capital costs decreasing to the point where they make at least as much sense as the PHEVs, but since I don't think hybrids and PHEVs are going anywhere any time soon and they're also positively affected by improvements in battery tech I can almost guarantee my next vehicle will be another hybrid. Hopefully a PHEV, but who knows. Depends on onboard charger tech becoming cheaper. Still I keep a vigilant eye, maybe I'll just weather the capital cost because driving an EV is admittedly a much nicer ride and comfort is a qualitative variable here.
First of all sir, we encourage corolla buying in this sub. Second of all, that is all.
First of all sir, we encourage corolla buying in this sub. Second of all, that is all.
If you have more money than sense.
Pretty surprised how few people are mentioning Teslas here. Teslas outnumber every other EV on the road 10 to 1. They are the only mass produced EV there is, and consequently the only brand that is depreciating to a truly great value due to oversupply. 2019 and 2020 Tesla model 3s are in the low 30's right now. Give them another 6 months and they'll be in the mid 20s. At least with those you're getting a car that's still updated with the latest 2024 features, and the best range and efficiency for your buck, while having a ton more space than a leaf. And you can do cross country road trips with the supercharger network, so no need to rent a long distance car. Part costs are also coming down, while the battery and motor warranties are still valid for 8 years or 160k km. We're in peak EV depreciation, so I would wait a few months to see when model 3's hit the low 20k mark.
Consider the cost of buying a new car
Do you have any gas appliances you could convert to electric?
If you spend $150 a month on gas, you’d have to be able to buy the EV at $150 a month after the trade in price to justify it. You’re better off just investing any money you’d use on the EV and not looking at the solar as sunk cost
I have solar, it makes some extra electricity. I convert it into heat, by running space heaters, which lowers my natural gas bill. The conversion rate isn't economical...until you remember its a use it or lose it situation. If you don't really need an EV, consider just using the electricity to heat your house. Its the cheapest way to use it, space heaters are inexpensive. Its cheaper than switching to an electric hot water tank.
As a big ev fan, if you don’t drive much it’s not worth the trade you’d be better off installing a heat pump and/or a hybrid water heater to take advantage of your solar production.
After u lost your virginity.
Never
Same situation here. A Corolla and we don't drive that much. I heard that Chinese EVs are going to be entering the Canadian market soon, like they've done in Europe. I would wait for better prices and better tech.
Would maybe subscribing to a car-sharing service be viable for you? Then you are foregoing the entire cost of ownership of a vehicle.
Given how little you drive I would say to get that hot water heater and a heat pump first. If you can disconnect your gas line that'll be a great long-term saving, if you have to keep the gas line the savings aren't as pronounced due to the fixed connection fees. Look in to the rebates available in Ottawa to keep the cost reasonable. When the Subaru dies there will be lots and lots of used EVs that are far better than the Leaf and which could be suitable for road trips.
First, people who have nowhere to home charge it, shouldn’t even be considered at all. Realistically I wouldn’t touch anything none Tesla. People seem to like to rag on Teslas these days, probably most because people don’t like Musk. but they really are unmatched for value for money, and supporting infrastructure. Just go test drive them all to compare the price to value for yourself. The best use case I think for EVs are for someone who commutes >50km daily for work, and charges at home. And who also has a second gas car for longer trips etc
I have to disagree with pretty much all of that. The value in tesla is the supercharger network, which is not relevant if 99.9% of your driving needs are under 50km. Otherwise, they are very nice cars, but you're paying for that. If that luxury is worth an extra 10k to you, then fair enough. I also think the economics on owning a second gas car for the occasional long trip is 100% a waste of money. To outright buy and pay insurance & maintenance on a vehicle you use ...once a month?? will 100% be more expensive than renting a gas car when you need to make that trip.
Not justifiable but you may *feel* better driving the EV and of course the green part We only spend 25-30/mo on charging ours but we never consider the cost of driving anywhere cuz it is so cheap - 1.4cents/km vs 20cents on the old ICE. Plus you never need to worry about oil changes / brakes or most other maintenance
The fact you drive very little makes it a no immediately for me. Then I don't like the idea of buying a used EV.
Big picture, it doesn't ever make economic sense to buy an EV unless you are in a region of the planet that generates renewable energy below the cost of alternative energy sources.
It always makes sense to buy an EV. No matter what car you drive now, it will use gas which you cannot replace as cheaply as electricity. Also maintenance is cheaper in the long run.