Turn off a light, plug in your car.

[Ryland]

the last price I got for batteries was around $900 for a full pack, and that should last 400-500 cycles depending on depth of discharge, 10 miles per day is light useage, so 15,000-20,000 might be possible if I am really good to them, but even 10,000 miles is less then $.10 per mile battery cost, and s I said, low depth of charge and they should last much loner then that, so this comes out to half the operating cost of my current car of $.24 per mile.

[TomEV]

I use the example of all the minor maintenance (oil changes, smog checks) costing about the same as a battery pack over time.

4 "typical" $50 oil changes - 200/yr
smog test - 50/year (if nothing wrong)

I realize the oil changes can be cheaper if you do it yourself, but $50 is a reasonable average for quik-lube places (19.95 always ends up being 50.00 there...)

[Thalass]

I'd like to aim for a minimum of 50km range on my EV - so I can get to work and back on battery power (I'm thinking of further converting it into a series hybrid later on). And I'd prefer lithium batteries, which increases the battery cost like a crazy thing.

[roflwaffle]

Even assuming the 30 mile per person per day average, something like the Aptera for all three trillion vehicle miles per year would only require an extra 5-10% increase in electricity production. Coincidentally, all the money that's been spent in Iraq could have bought enough generating capacity, ideally a mix of renewables and nuclear baseload, to fuel an efficient fleet of private EVs in America, including electricity costs, for the next decade.

In fact, since Americans spend about $2000/year on gasoline alone, if small one-two person Aptera like vehicles could be produced en mass with a 60-100 mile range for about $11-12,000, instead of spending $2000/year, and likely more in the future, on gas, they could spend it on new vehicle payments with more or less free fuel for the duration of the payment.

But dammit, if we did that we would end America's dependence on foreign oil, while creating jobs for Americans and strengthening the economy, and we wouldn't get to see our troops get blown to bits on the other side of the Earth.