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Old 05-05-2021, 01:42 PM   #118 (permalink)
Isaac Zachary
High Altitude Hybrid
 
Join Date: Dec 2020
Location: Gunnison, CO
Posts: 1,985

Avalon - '13 Toyota Avalon HV
90 day: 40.45 mpg (US)

Prius - '06 Toyota Prius
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JSH View Post
Your complaint is pretty much only relevant to early Leafs with crappy batteries. There is a limited number of them and they will exit the vehicle pool in due time. There are plenty of other EVs out there that are getting cheaper by the day.

$665 a year is $55 a month. There are plenty of people paying $50 a week for gas to commute back and forth to work. Some of them might want a cheap commuter.

BTW, what is the break-down of that $665? The Wisconsin DMV says a plate is $85 and EVs have a $100 surcharge.
This illustrates an artificial incentive/disincentive. People are quick to justify or reject a decision from looking at only one tiny aspect of the whole picture. If you take road taxes out of the fuel and charge them some other way, that suddenly becomes the big reason why the vehicle "is so expensive." On the other hand, you tell people that EV's are 3 times more efficient than ICEV's and suddenly they think they're saving so much money on them because they get 100MPGe. The same thing with range. "After going 200 miles I have to charge for hours" turns people away because they think they drive trips of 200 miles all the time, when they probably only do something like that once or twice a year.

But what's the overall cost? How would the advantages and disadvantages actually affect you? That's what is needed to know if it's a good choice or not. But it's hard to see the whole picture and avoid little things here and there.

As another example, it looks like people might not buy these Toyota EV's simply based on "they don't like the headlights."
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