Electric vehicles make no economic sense
– do the math
theAspenbeat.com,
by
Glenn Beaton
Original Article
Posted By: Big Bopper,
3/15/2026 3:49:36 PM
Electric vehicles are probably the vehicle of the future, but they are not the vehicle of the present. Let’s look at the numbers.
An EV uses about six cents of electricity to go a mile. That’s if you charge it at home with inexpensive residential electricity rates. It’s more if you use a charging station, and it’s more if it’s a large vehicle like a Rivian. And by the way, be prepared to leave it plugged in for several hours to get it charged.
Gasoline-powered cars use about thirteen cents of gasoline to go a mile, assuming gas is something over $3/gallon and you get something like 25 mpg.
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
DVC 3/15/2026 4:19:42 PM (No. 2080714)
Not the vehicles of the future, either.
21 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
jeffkinnh 3/15/2026 4:25:14 PM (No. 2080715)
If the break even point is about 13 years, just about the time you break even you need to replace the batteries and you're back in the hole.
But beyond all this, the raison d'être of the EV is environmental and the sad reality is that if you take a hard look at the manufacture and use of the EV, they are not all that environmentally friendly. Sure, they don't have exhaust issues. But the manufacture of the vehicle can have many harmful environmental effects. You end up trading one type of pollution for another.
And of course there is the nasty issue that the batteries can catch fire in an accident and be almost impossible to extinguish.
EVs may be useful to some people but we should not be subsidizing them. They should compete on their own merits. If they improve, more people will buy them.
28 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Mcscow sailor 3/15/2026 5:22:29 PM (No. 2080726)
I bought one. Local use, charging at home, takes less of my time (3.5 minutes per week) than filling my ICE car each week. The purchase was not virtue signaling, it was the reality that its assisted driving is safer for me on a highway than any other driving application. I do not care about long term depreciation…and the capital cost was at the midpoint of all new car sales.
7 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
bpl40 3/15/2026 5:34:12 PM (No. 2080729)
A ‘modern’ lithium battery doubles the amount of energy stored in an old fashioned zinc battery. Which is what made EVs feasible. But the same volume of gasoline when burned produces 43 TIMES that energy. Not only the economics but the physics isn’t there.
12 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Mcscow sailor 3/15/2026 6:08:51 PM (No. 2080736)
Comment 4. The ratio by kWh is 12-13x more gas energy per cubic whatever than a Tesla y battery pack. A gallon of gas will go about 25 miles, a gallon of battery more like 50. So the effective space ratio is closer to 6 to 1, not 43 to 1. That said, adjustments also have to be made for engine, drivetrain, muffler, radiator electric motor (s). And you sre right overall, even if the numbers are arguable. My very spacious y has about 2/3 of the operable range of my former, similar size, Rex.
3 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
msts 3/15/2026 7:13:06 PM (No. 2080744)
It was all control. With electric vehicles, the government could shut down power and so travel at will. If there was a serious thought, all vehicles would be hybrids
6 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
stablemoney 3/15/2026 7:40:06 PM (No. 2080750)
EV's are heavier, and tires wear out much faster. The insurance cost is also up to 50% more, as any damage to the battery in an accident renders them totaled. Then, half the country are renters. I don't think they would want to spend their weekends waiting for their vehicle to charge at a charging station.
4 people like this.
From a bigger-picture perspective, let's take the 25 miles that gallon of gas will transport an ICE vehicle. Now, burn a gallon of distillate fuel in a commercial power plant to generate the heat to drive the turbine to generate the electricity that then gets transported over hundreds of miles to reach a charging station and that EV will roll something far short of 25 miles. There's already concern about feeding the server farms needed for all the coming AI wizardry that will be part of everyone's life - POV's would best be served by internal combustion.
6 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
mc squared 3/15/2026 7:54:09 PM (No. 2080757)
Does anyone know the value of a 10 yr old EV? Probably less than ICE scrap value because of the lithium batteries. Do they event last that long?
4 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
davew 3/15/2026 7:58:13 PM (No. 2080758)
If you live in California, as I do, the math is a little more favorable. I needed a new car, and I could spend $40,000 on a nice ICE SUV, or spend $50,000 on a Tesla Model Y. Gas is at least $1.60 more in California than anywhere else in the country. Right now, a gallon of unleaded is $5.99 a gallon. I also spent $20,000 on a solar electricity system with a Tesla Powerwall. SoCal uses a time rate system that charges $0.43/kWh between 6am and 4pm, and $0.57-$0.60/kWh for peak times from 4pm to 9pm. The national average is about $0.14/kWh.
This allows me to generate all the electricity I need for my house and car from the sun using the Tesla Charging on Solar function and exporting surplus power to the grid to offset my costs on those rare cloudy days in SoCal. Without the solar power and EV, I was spending roughly $300/mo on electricity and $200/mo on fuel. So, for my $30,000 investment ($20,000 + $10,000 additional cost for EV), I am effectively generating $6000/yr in addition discretionary spending, which gives me a 20% return. You can't get that kind of rate in a bank. This doesn't include the lower maintenance costs of the EV and the satisfaction of looking at my Tesla app and seeing I am 98% self powered and off the grid.
3 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
kono 3/15/2026 8:10:38 PM (No. 2080761)
The math never justified EVs; but the zealots cared nothing about the math. And their "zero emissions" ruse never admits the emissions from generating the electricity to recharge them.
6 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Californian 3/15/2026 8:15:47 PM (No. 2080762)
9, I sold my 7.5 year old model 3 with 65k miles on it for 17k. I paid 50k for it new 8 years ago.
I replaced it with the current model 3 which has longer range and some other quality of life improvements. 50k.
Math: $33k / 7.5 years is about $4400/year = $367/month.
I could have kept it longer as there was nothing wrong with it but I wanted the new one.
I charge at home off my solar. Net meeting here is only 3 cent/kwh so I'm losing almost nothing from the net meeting loss vs my other car with gas running about $4.50/gallon and getting about 20mpg combined average.
The regular car is 8.5 year old but has had about 10k in repairs, new tires, etc.
The Tesla cost me about 2k in tires and repairs over its 7.5 year life.
The regular car also cost 85k after taxes, rebates, shipping, etc, etc vs 50k for the model 3.
It's just math.
The reasons for buying an EV or not are about your life style and driving requirements. If you can't charge at home or your home electricity is at California rates then an EV is probably not for you. If you drive very long distances fairly often, not for you. But for people who own a home, have reasonably priced power and mostly drive the typical 10-30 minutes commute, etc, an EV is a reasonable choice.
4 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
DVC 3/16/2026 12:32:59 AM (No. 2080797)
Re #8, good analysis, but my Accord ICE, normally aspirated 2.4 liter car gets 35-37 mpg tank average at 65 mph.
2 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
mifla 3/16/2026 6:26:44 AM (No. 2080841)
The marketplace always has the final word.
0 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
former lurker 3/16/2026 6:54:50 AM (No. 2080849)
I bought my Tesla FSD after the subsidy expired. Had I known how much it would have enhanced my life I would have paid more. The car itself is a wonderful vehicle, the FSD puts it in a category of its own. An absolute game changer for all of who are getting older and leery of venturing too far from home on multi lane roads. Love it!
2 people like this.
It is insane when you have states that cannot muster enough power for a crisis like cold weather.
The power grids cannot support as much EV use as the government was pushing us to attain.
1 person likes this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
DVC 3/16/2026 11:11:41 AM (No. 2081013)
#10 shows that the Dem plan to make gasoline so expensive and grid power so expensive that an EV and solar system start to be economically competitive.
In the real world, out here in Free America where there is a thing called Winter, and gas is $2.89, and electricity is 17 cents per KW/hr, and the sun doesn't shine every day, and we do travel long distances regularly, not of that works. I knew many people during my working years who commuted 45 minutes or a hour one way to work because they loved living on rural acreage. Their fuel costs were even lower because they were outside the metro area.
Yep, Dems artificially pushing up gasoline prices and making electricity costs crazy is a great strategy to twist the economics so that "EVs make sense". In a freer and less distorted economy, they do not make sense. An Mr. Winter makes EVs even less fun when the batteries lose much charge due to low temps and a large portion of the energy in the battery is used to heat the vehicle rather than move it. ICE vehicles use waste heat to heat the vehicle. That waste heat for EVs happened at the power plant, not available to heat the car.
0 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
joew9 3/17/2026 11:13:26 AM (No. 2081456)
With the limited range and high cost of charging when away from home an EV is pretty much limited to local community driving. You need an ICE car for long trips, >100 miles. And since those long drives are common for family vacations or visiting grandad you need a SUV to hold everyone. So now you have two cars in your driveway. EV and SUV. But you also need a small truck. And because they keep making all cars bigger and longer you need to expand your garage another 3 feet. And you need 3 bays. Whereas an ICE car could do everything. But now you need cars for each specialized use case and your driveway starts to look like a used car business.
0 people like this.
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