Not to beat a dead horse, but you have seen the gas prices out there, right?
Yep, they are high for sure which seems to have signaled the left’s call for Americans to start purchasing electric vehicles.
Social media has been flooded with posts telling people that electric cars are so much better than your regular car that runs on gas.
These cars will actually save you money since you are not having to pay for gas on a daily or weekly basis.
Now, on the surface, that does sound great.
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Who wouldn’t want to just pug in their car like our cell phone overnight and just drive off, right?
Gas prices already have reached over $5.00 a gallon in most areas with no end in sight.
That has prompted the calls from Biden and other leader heads to push electric cars as a cost-effective replacement for gas-powered cars, but are they really better?
Fox Business recently noted, a one-to-one comparison of the cost of charging an EV versus filling a regular auto with gas showed that EV charging appeared cheaper. But many other factors need to be included in the math to make a true analysis — factors that many EV advocates are desperate to ignore.
“According to the EPA, the national average for a kilowatt-hour of electricity is 13 cents, including at homes where most electric car owners charge their vehicles with 240-volt Level 2 chargers that typically take eight hours or more to fill them up,” Fox reported on Wednesday. “Many of these are also available in public settings like office and shopping center parking lots, where they are known as destination chargers.”
On the surface, it seems like a plausible solution for everyone in America.
Biden’s Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is even pushing EVs and their savings, but that has to make you think.
On Tuesday, Buttigieg told Americans to buy an EV, so they don’t have to worry about gas prices.
“Clean transportation can bring significant cost savings for the American people, as well,” Buttigieg said. “Last month, we announced a $5 billion investment to build out a nationwide electric vehicle charging network, so that people from rural to suburban to urban communities can all benefit from the gas savings of driving an EV.”
However, charging your EV comes with its own set of pricey problems.
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The costs are rising per kilowatt-hour when using public stations, and using a home charger offers the biggest savings. However, owners also have to shell out between $700 and $2,000 to install a Level 2 home charging unit, Carvana reported. This might tend to make the first year’s savings for not buying gasoline a wash.
Worse, if you want to install a Level 3 charger in your home, you’ll be hit with costs of up to $50,000 or more — including upgrading the electrical system in your house to power the thing.
Few people will be able to afford such a costly installation for supercharging their EVs, meaning that the largest number of Americans who buy EVs will be stuck with systems that take half a day to charge their vehicles. This makes their EV of more limited use than a gas-powered car that users can jump in and use at will.
Furthermore, repair costs are higher for EVs than for gas-powered cars, Road Show News found. This is because the whole EV market is still so new that parts are more costly, and so are labor costs. Add in the fact that only a select few mechanics are even trained to repair EVs, and drivers will find the selection of repair shops fewer and farther between, and the labor costs higher due to supply and demand. Presumably, this would even out in the coming years, but right now it is a costly concern.
Also, a major source of expense for EVs is battery pack replacement. Depending on the car, battery packs can last between 5 and 20 years, but the replacement costs might make keeping the car prohibitive. Some experts say that the average battery life is eight years or 100,000 miles, and depending on the model, battery packs cost between $5,000 and $20,000 to replace — not including labor.
This high cost is also a warning to anyone buying a used EV. After all, if you buy a 10-year-old EV that still has its original battery, you might be forced to fork out another $10,000 to replace a dead battery pack shortly after putting as much as $25,000 to purchase the used vehicle. This is a cost that few average Americans can afford.
Another issue is a geopolitical concern.
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Many of the rare earth minerals — such as lithium — and the manufactured batteries and parts are made in China, and the costs for these materials are also skyrocketing.
Indeed, in December it was found that the cost of lithium had surged more than 250 percent over the year. Not only are these materials rising in expense, but we are enriching China in the process.
Electric vehicles do have their selling points, it is true. But they simply are not yet practical for every American. If one thing is sure, they are not a panacea, and consumers should really take the time to review their options when considering them.
So, when you look at all those factors, it doesn’t seem like that good of a tradeoff in the end, right?
