> 03 Pontiac Vibe GT

So a Toyota :)

I have a car over 20 years old. I don't spend much money on maintenance. I don't have a car payment, taxes are very low, and insurance is decently cheap. Had it for a few years, have replaced brakes and some minor things. Didn't spend much on the vehicle, either.

Having a car payment would automatically be more expensive than my current vehicle. More taxes, more money each month, and so on. For electric cars, I won't get the incentives here in Norway for much longer, as they are being (mostly) phased out in the next few years.

To be fair, though: I walk a lot. I have a 5-10 minute walk to work (depending on snow). Driving takes longer. The car is used a few times a month. Realistically, my car is a luxury item and I'm lucky to live in a place that makes it so.

> You'll likely spend thousands less on maintenance on an EV.

I don't spend many thousands on maintaining an ICE to begin with.

I've kept track of all car expenses since 2008 for 3 different cars. My average per year is $445. This is repairs and maintenance.

I'm not a gearhead. I know little about cars. I do whatever repairs my mechanic suggests. Things just don't break down much with reliable ICE cars.

TCO calculators are, in my experience, off by an order of magnitude. Ignore them.

> The few oil changes on my recently out of warranty 2021 Toyota

Are you doing them at the dealer? You're likely paying too much. And are you doing them on the manufacturer schedule or have you fallen prey to the "Every 3 months or 3000 miles" propaganda?

Most cars need it every 6 months. And unless your car needs some high quality oil, it's typically about $40 to get a regular mechanic to change it. So $80-100/year.

Range is often a hard requirement, it isn’t optional. The TCO is infinite if your vehicle can’t take you where you need to go.

The people you're discussing with most likely change the oil on their own.

> The warranty doesn’t suggest the battery will be at 70.00001% on the first day of year 9. It says if it goes below 70% it will get replaced.

The point is that they're not confident enough to say it won't be in that range. Put another way, why don't they just make the warranty 80% instead of 70%?

If Tesla's not confident in it, I definitely am not.

> That 8 year old Toyota you bought came with a 6 year/60k mile warranty. If you are comfortable driving that to 2.5x the initial warranty then a used Tesla should be good to 250k and 20 years.

We hope so, but we don't know, which is the point. Toyota has a track record. Tesla hasn't been around long enough to have a track record.

That aside, the real point is that ICE cars don't have any particular component that costs that much to replace. How much will a new EV battery cost me? Sure, on occasion you may have to rehaul your whole engine, but that's really rare. I've only known one Toyota owner who had to do that, and it cost (in today's dollars), about $6K.

When I buy an 8 year old car, I don't expect perfection. I know things will break - soon. I buy it with the confidence that repairs will not be too expensive, and even after all the repairs I'll still save a ton of money.

The other blocker is the private party market. So far I've never bought a car from a dealer. I always go private party. The standard procedure with that is you take the car to a trusted mechanic who will examine it and inform you of any potential problems. With electric vehicles, those mechanics can't do much. I've asked them. They can look at a few things like the brakes, but stuff related to the engine is beyond their ability. So whereas I may be comfortable spending a lot of money buying an ICE car from private party, I'm not for EVs.

Batteries don't work like that and you know they don't.

I have a 2013 CRV with a EPA combined mileage of 25 mpg (AWD):

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2013_Honda_CR-V.shtm...

I get combined mileage of 26 mpg. That's a short daily commute and a couple trips a month to a town ~70 miles away.

I haven't taken particularly stellar care of it.

> the end result is the same.

Absolutely not.

This completely ignores the relatively high initial range of ICE (especially hybrid), and the poor real world state of the EV charging infrastructure, compared to petrol.

A 30% drop in range would be an extra 5 minutes at the nearest gas station, almost guaranteed to be within a couple miles.

And, that 30% is usually cheap to get back, usually just by some combination of changing the spark plugs, running a bottle of carbon removal/fuel system cleaner through, or changing the fuel injectors.

I have an electric, but I also understand why people are avoiding electric, and why 96% of people with EV also have an ICE car [1] (including me, with my newest being ICE)!

[1] https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2023/11/10/the-stat-that-say...

> Fuel efficiency on an ICE can drop up to 30% after 10 years.

Source? Both of my first 2 cars got a good 38 mpg on the highway (no AC) after their 10 year mark. 38 mpg is the same as brand new.

"Fuel efficiency on an ICE can drop up to 30% after 10 years"

Complete nonsense. Every 15+ year old ICE car I've known or owned was within 5% to 10% of original fuel economy, the reliable brands actually maintained their original fuel economy or surpassed it as fuel economy improves as engine wear in completes at the 20k-40k mile mark.

If your ICE car dropped by 30% then share the brand and your maintenance history.