I believe this is a good marketing technique and one that is more substance
than hype.
I bought a brand new Honda Insight back in 2001 which has averaged 54 mpg over
all the ~220k miles driving I have put on it since then. The rest of my cars
average at or below 20 mpg during that same time, so the Honda easily paid back
the entire $19k I paid for it when compared to driving any of the rest of my
fleet. With the cost of electricity here in the Pacific NW an EV can save you
even more per mile than a really high mpg vehicle. For my Insight I figure the
saving was almost a 1/3, but my EV's usually work out to only a 1/4 the cost of
gas per mile driven or better.
Of course, the big unknown with an EV is when/whether you will have to replace
the traction battery and how much that cost will be compared to the maintenance
costs of a normal ICE over the same time frame. An expensive battery
replacement could easily eat all your savings in gas. I'm afraid only time
will tell, and we are not far enough into the current EV wave to know yet.
Just as an FYI. I did replace the small NIMH battery pack in my Insight at 170K
miles, but I was able to buy a lightly used one on Ebay for $400 and did the
work myself so that was not a huge expense. Maybe by the time EV packs need
replaced there will be comparatively inexpensive options for the DIY crowd.
damon
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