The transition

[Roamers]

m amazed it would be more expensive than fueling a gas F150, unless you're exclusively charging at expensive fast chargers

Didn’t pass judgement on more or less expesive than petrol model.

My brother has a Tesla and a Cadillac EV. My SIL commented, in the winter, their trip to CO from NY cost more to fuel the Caddy vs a similar size Honda something it replaced (this is pre-war gas prices). Plus takes several hours longer.

To each their own.

 

[Chargeride]

Theres going to be millions of 'senile' old Teslas roaming the country, their electronic brains not capable of running the latest software, failing capacitors, cameras fogged up.
People honking them to get moving as a plastic bag confuses their hallucinating minds.
Come on grand klanker, its just a picture of a cat.
Car inspections will have to include a dementia test.

Mechanics holding up pictures of a child, then a suitcase and someone laying in the road.

You get a call off the cops because theyve found your Model Y chasing young sports cars around the park.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

If you Do The Math, even the most expensive fast chargers (which usually are only expensive at peak times) top out around $0.70 to $0.80 per kwh. Which translates to fossil fuels at $5 to $6 per gallon.

More typical DCFCs will run $0.40 to $0.60 per kwh. But if you shop around (which is tough because nobody posts the price on a big sign or even at the charger) you can find it as low as $0.20 per kwh.

The real ripoffs are some 240VAC public chargers out there that charge $10 per hour or more, which can quickly add up to $1 or $2 per kwh.

Charging at home as much as you can is where you save real money. Which depending on local electricity rates can easily save you thousands of dollars per year over a dinosaur burner. What is costs me at home to charge works out to about $0.65 per gallon if I was burning dinosaurs.

It shocks me that so many people are willing to leave that much money on the table just because they like oil companies so much. Or something.

 

[jabberwocky]

Charging at home as much as you can is where you save real money. Which depending on local electricity rates can easily save you thousands of dollars per year over a dinosaur burner. What is costs me at home to charge works out to about $0.65 per gallon if I was burning dinosaurs.

It shocks me that so many people are willing to leave that much money on the table just because they like oil companies so much. Or something.

My brother isn't some green zealot, he just think it maths out for him. And the Rivian is genuinely a fantastic car; super comfy, nice inside, extremely fast (he had the quad motor which like 3s to 60; it outruns my dads M4 pretty handily). He does road trips several times a year and has preferred the Rivian even though he gives up some time for charging vs refueling the Bronco. He does like the Bronco a lot as well, but that seems to be a good weather top down or off roading car.

Hes a tech guy and does pretty detailed costs for his cars and over the past few years he has had both says the Rivian is like 1/3 the cost of the Bronco for total operating costs (charging and maintenance). His main issue is that he had some warranty stuff that had to be fixed and Rivians repair network is spotty. They have good service and take care of things, but he had a battery issue last year and it had to go to Richmond VA for repair (he lives in PA, so it was 3-4 hours away). But they seem to be investing and opening more service centers. Will be interesting how Rivian does with the R2 coming out, which is built and priced to be a lot more mass market.

 

[Roamers]

It shocks me that so many people are willing to leave that much money on the table

Our "around town" driving (thus charge at home) is about 6000 miles a year. With our current "around town" vehicle and current fuel prices, we spend less than $1k per year on fuel.

Based on a quick search, a similar sized EV starts at $55k, current model of our car starts at $42k. Pay now or later; to each their own. Checked records, at 6 yrs and 50k miles, we've had ~$600 in maintenance costs, not including a set of tires.

Some day an EV might make sense for us, but for now we don't want to change the way we travel. Realistically "a couple of thousand left on the table" is pretty insignificant in the big picture. (My HPE is up more than that today alone.)

Fortunately, we all still have choices!

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Rivians do not have a great reputation for build quality at this point. But a lot of people who own them still love them.

On the price difference, it is rapidly going away and already for all practical purposes nonexistent in some cases.

A Chevy Equinox is available as both a dinosaur burner and an EV. The EV version lists for about $2000 more. But dealers often give rebates and discount for the EV which brings the costs even closer. Yes, the Equinox is a POS and I kind of hate them. On the other hand, comparable Subaru models run about the same price for EV or non-EV versions. Because of all the trim variations it is harder to make a direct comparison there but generally the costs of comparable models are within about $3000, with EVs sometimes being cheaper. And again, dealers in a lot of cases still offer generous discounts for EVs.

As a personal example, the 2026 Subaru Solterra I bought in February listed for $39k. I got about $6k in discounts to take it off their hands. A comparable Subaru Forester lists at about $41k, although I have no idea what discounts they would give on that model.

 

[Roamers]

As a personal example, the 2026 Subaru Solterra I bought in February listed for $39k. I got about $6k in discounts to take it off their hands. A comparable Subaru Forester lists at about $41k, although I have no idea what discounts they would give on that model.

If one likes little cars they appear to be similar. Our around towner is an Ascent.

Viva la choices!

 

[jabberwocky]

Rivians do not have a great reputation for build quality at this point. But a lot of people who own them still love them.

His is a first year quad motor. He has had some minor issues and the one major one (my recollection is he was slow charging off a 120v connection at a vacation rental and the slow charge inverter had an issue and put the main battery into limp mode). They seem to be going down the same path Tesla did, which is that cars are hard to build and doing everything in house means learning lessons. Rivians support has been excellent; zero argument, they cover tow/rental vehicle/repairs. Hes unsure if he will keep it out of warranty though.

To be fair, he had a Tesla 3 before that and had a ton of issues with that, and Tesla support was pretty bad (they basically made every warranty repair a fight). The build quality on the Tesla was not good. Which less forgivable because Tesla has been at it a lot longer than Rivian.

My wife and I recently got a new car and as much as I was interested in an EV it didn't make sense. We live in a small town but our lot is urban so we don't have a garage and would be entirely reliant on public chargers. The town does have some new municipal chargers that are reasonably priced (about what we pay for house electricity) but we decided that it didn't really work so went IC again (2017 Explorer to 2026 Explorer). We tend to keep the main cars about 10 years, I'm guessing when it is time to replace it we will be going EV. The F150 will be around until it dies, it gets terrible mileage but we don't drive it much and its basic and reliable.

 

[Gionnirocket]

Does anyone own a shovel so we can put this dead horse to bed once and for good.
Beating him has shown to be some sort of intellectual arm wrestle of the obtuse

 

[Roamers]

Does anyone own a shovel so we can put this dead horse to bed once and for good.
Beating him has shown to be some sort of intellectual arm wrestle of the obtuse

Quick summary: choices are good, people have preferences, the other side is wrong.