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I don't understand why we are still comparing total cost of ownership of a cherry-picked scenerio of non-similar cars. A gen 1 Insight only seats 2 people. It's essentially a motorcycle with a roof and a little more storage space.
Conventional combustion engine vehicles are generally ready to be scrapped at 250,000 miles, and similarly, an EV should be able to achive that many miles given good battery managent practices.
As pointed out, the early Leaf had a poor battery design and suffers from accelerated battery degredation. The used car price for the early Leaf accounts for this. You can buy a used Leaf that is less than 5 years old for $8000. That is very cheap for a car that (range limitations aside) isn't likely to have other problems. Not only that, but it has many modern luxuries such as Bluetooth, heated seats, backup cameras, etc. What features does the gen 1 Insight offer? When you consider that other EVs have better battery management, that makes them all the more compelling.
I appreciate taking the sceptic's view on things, but it isn't accurate to say that ICEs always have a lower total cost of ownership than EVs, or vice-versa. Every family has unique requirements for transportation, and each geographic location has different prices for fuel and electricity that must be considered.
For me, electricity will always be cheaper per mile than gasoline. Considering my range requirements for a 2nd household vehicle is extremely small, just about any EV should work. The total cost of ownership for a vehicle that is about 4 years old and has many of the technologies I desire favors an EV. I know this because I have run the numbers in the Vehicle Total Cost of Ownership calculator that is in my signature.
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