> By the time you factor in the increased price of the car, increased price of insurance, and increased price of tires,

What car did you buy and what would you pick now?

I've had the opposite, EV had a cheaper price, more horespower, nicer interior, better acceleration, cheap insurance, tires are mostly the same prices (bought winter tires recently)

On top of that...

- no more getting ripped off at garages with ice maintenance

- gas would be 3-4x what i would pay in electricity if i didnt have solar panels.

- no worries having catalitic converter stolen...

- no more polluting the neighborhood (main reason initially)

I would find it impossible to justify going back to ice.

> There is just nothing, zero, zilch, that is better in an EV.

You dont kill your kids with the exhaust.

Interesting. Have you not owned it long enough to notice a difference in the level of maintenance and repairs required? There is certainly no need for oil changes and less need for brake work, etc.

But you do have good points. The main thing is the cost has to come down. And china has a lead in that respect.

A counterpoint, aside from the acceleration, I love how I can just plug in my car at home. No more trips to a gas station, brake pad changes, oil changes, etc.

I have home solar, so my "gas" is free, although I have 300kw of Electrify America charging that came with my lease.

I've driven an ID4 since 2021 and won't be going back to ICE.

counterpoint: i had a 2014 bmw i3 (electric, no range extender) for just shy of 8 years, 80,000 miles, charged at home or at work, and some hard data: cost per mile is about 1/5 of efficient ICE (which i also have had), total expenditure on maintenance was about $ 150 over 80,000 miles, not counting new tires which lasted about the same as my ICE cars' tires.

I think EVs can be excellent fits for many commmuting patterns, and certainly for people who learned driving manual transmissions and who have had high performing cars.

it's, to the parent comment's point, sort of personal preference.

I think it really depends on your use case, your commute, and lifestyle.

For me an EV has been great, but it’s not my only car. I can charge at work for free, or at home with solar. Even if I’m paying 30-60 cents/kWh, it’s way cheaper per mile than my gas cars.

Maintenance… there’s none. Just consumables like washer fluid, tires, wipers.

But that said you need to be able to charge at home, and your range needs to be right sized to your commute/lifestyle. When correct it’s better than a gas cars- it’s always full and ready to go. If the range is wrong or you can’t conveniently charge it, it is a chore.

Personally an automatic transmission does nothing for me, I’ll take the unrelenting acceleration of the EV over that any day. But a 6spd is more fun!

EVs often have great acceleration, so I would think it would be a natural fit for the sports car market. Even the ordinary ones are a lot more fun to accelerate on a freeway onramp than an ordinary 4- or 6-cylinder gas engine.