> it's far cheaper to keep my 4 door Japanese sedan another year
This is like saying it's cheaper to wait a year before contributing to retirement because you'll have more money in checking if you don't contribute to retirement.
Average lifespan of an ICE car is around 14.8 years. For an EV it's 22.2. They last longer, and break down less often, and fuel is cheaper.
Over a period of 20 years, it does not matter how expensive the EV was when you paid for it. After 20 years, there is more money in your bank account, with the EV. So buying or keeping a used corolla is pretty much guaranteed to leave you with less money after those 20 years. No matter how cheap the corolla is now, keeping ICE cars will add up to a higher cost. The longer you wait the more you lose in the end.
> Depending on how much you drive, two electric cars over 20 years might well be cheaper than one gasoline car lasting that long.
This might be true if it weren't for the fact that the price of a new car keeps going up as a percentage of median income rather than down.
I had two cars bought new from the late 1990's (one finally got totaled). The annual maintenance cost could be quite high (I calculated that about $4K per year would be the breakpoint) on those and it would still come in lower than the equivalent class of car (another used car doesn't reduce the maintenance much and you have a lump payment). I would have the discussion with my wife to get rid of one of them every year, and every year we would come to the same conclusion--replace them when they die and not before.
Now, some of this is dependent upon whether your car is your sole source of transportation and whether you can cope with your car breaking down (money, time, etc.). It was no big deal for me to lose a car and put it in the shop--someone else will have a different reliability calculation.
> This is going to shock people, but the days of buying a new car every 3-5 years is over.
The average age of a car on the road in the US is about 11 years. As that is the average age of a car on the road, it suggests the lifespan of a typical car is much longer.
I've look at the TCO of electric vehicles every year or two. The math always pencils out that it's far cheaper to keep my 4 door Japanese sedan another year, as I drive it less than 5,000 miles/yr and maintenance is minimal with that little use. I think most people trying to minimize their transportation costs would do better with a corolla, unless their drive more than average.
Of course, no one looking at minimizing their TCO buys a new car every 3-5 years.
> Between rebates, the cost of gas, and reductions in maintenance costs, we think that we save somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 on the lifetime cost of ownership over the life of this car versus an ICE car.
My wife wanted a new car (I'm stubborn and don't drive ;-) ) because the old one was getting pretty expensive to maintain. I crunched the numbers and we ended up buying a recent used Leaf. I live in Japan and Nissan has this deal where you pay about $30 a month and get unlimited recharges at public charging stations (essentially all Nissan and Mitsubishi dealerships, highway rest stops, major hotels, etc). I pay about 30 cents per KWh, so this is a pretty good deal. We should save enough money on various thing that the cost of the new car is negligible. We don't actually pick up the new car until November (lots of weird paper work in Japan and we're out of town for a few weeks as well), so possible I'll be singing a different tune in a few months, but I was really surprised at how the numbers worked out on paper.
> Come now, amortize what the eventual service costs will be...
I've been driving one since 2018, 80K miles. I've had to change tires probably 30-40% faster than ICE cars of a similar caliber (FWIW I also have become more careful on tires too). I've had exactly a cost of $1200 on it so far (not counting tires).
I think that's actually pretty decent. I think people also switch cars every 5-6 years too?
>He bought the car in 2015 so he’s lucky to get 8 year
I disagree with eight years being adequate for a modern car. I'd argue 10 to 15 years is more reasonable. I know it's unique system but even so it should last at least a decade.
Years ago cars were crap past three or four years. Any cars I had in the 80s as a teenager were bought used since cars four years old were very rough (rust, general wear and tear, electrical, carb issues, leaks). Anything 10 years old was ancient. Now my Mom had a 10 year old Toyota Camry and it's like a three year old car.
> The total annual cost of ownership of a 2-year-old Camry is far lower than a 10-year-old Camry.
Really? Maybe 10 years ago but cars have become remarkably good recently. I wouldn’t expect a 10 year old car to give you many problems beyond maybe the difficulty of sourcing parts.
> Show me one that someone has kept past 200,000 miles. Meanwhile, you can find Toyotas and Hondas well past that benchmark all day on Marketplace.
Even among gas cars, those who buy new rarely keep cars that long. The average is about 8 years. I've owned several Hondas and Toyotas, and I've never hit 100k on one. (even though I have no doubt any of them would still be on the road) (My current car is a Kia EV6)
> People used to buy a car with the expectation it last 20-30 years
I can't speak about all people, in all time periods, but most people in the 1960s/70s in the USA were thinking about keeping their cars for 10 years maximum. Cars were dizzyingly cheap in those days, and a highschool student could work part-time during a single summer and buy a new sports car.
To me, the only thing that has changed between now and then is the price of vehicles, not the expectation that they're disposable.
>people tend to keep shitty cars much longer than rational, because they cannot afford a better car - throwing away all the emission savings
Keeping an older car rather than buying a new one is often the more environmentally sound decision, because it takes a very long time for improved efficiency to break even on the massive environmental investment of manufacturing the new car.
> IMO, buying an economic new car and then keeping for most of the vehicles lifetime is close to optimal.
It sounds like you're adding the time searching, etc to your model (which is fine).
From a purely financial perspective, I do wonder. I think the key phrase is "keeping it for most of the vehicle's lifetime". If I look at the used cars I've bought, the total I've paid is $17000 in today's dollars over the last 19 years.[1] If you throw in various repairs, it adds a few thousand more (I'm too lazy to look up the actual numbers, but you can find it if you dig deep in my comment history). And that number includes routine maintenance everyone has to do (oil changes, replace brakes, etc).
A comparable new car today would cost more, but you get the benefit of having a modern car instead of old cars that I've driven. The down side is you're stuck with that car for a long time, whereas you can keep getting newer model used card every so many years.
[1] I didn't get lucky or find fantastic deals. These numbers are representative if you follow a few simple rules of used car buying.
> I suppose the problem is that, if you're not a car enthusiast, a $30k Toyota hybrid is still a better deal, even if it drives like shit.
I'd buy a used $5k piece of shit over that any day. I'm as interested in cars as I am in hammers, as long as it gets me from a to b I absolutely don't give a shit.
$30k is like 5+ years of saving for a lot of people, even in the west. That's a lot of money for a liability.
For the price of a modern EV you can buy a flat in many region of the developed world too...
> Generally, a cheaper car costs far more to maintain. The total annual cost of ownership of a 2-year-old Camry is far lower than a 10-year-old Camry. But to get that lower cost, you have to temporarily convert more of your money into that car asset.
That’s a poor example, since a Camry is notoriously reliable and needs minimal maintenance. And ten years really isn’t that old. The depreciation on the two year old car would outweigh the maintenance on the ten year old car. I believe that 5-10 years old is the sweet spot for TCO.
> it’s far cheaper, and more importantly more predictable, to have a new car
It can never be cheaper to have a new car. Do the math objectively and this is clear.
It can be more predictable, if you value that. Lease a new car, you know exactly what you're paying every month and for how long. Sure. But it'll be a lot more than an old car.
> You can believe that if you want
I don't believe, I have all my car expenses tracked since the early 90s so I know what I spend. In those 30 years I've mostly had cheap reliable old cars and a few new cars. The new cars have their joy, but they are a huge money pit. Currently my newest car is 17 years old and the oldest is 33 years old.
No new cars for me ever again, I let others pay the depreciation so I can get nearly-free transportation.
If you wanted cheap transportation, there's nothing cheaper to own than a ~$3K-4K used Honda/Mazda/Toyota. You obviously cannot have 1K/year in depreciation on a car that cost so little. New cars will be guaranteed to depreciate way more than that though.
The strategy for cheap transportation is buy that reliable car for 3-4K, drive it for ten+ years with minimal maintenance, insure for liability only. At the end of the years you can sell it for pretty much same as the buy price if you kept it clean. You can easily verify this by looking at craigslist prices for, say, a Honda Civic from the 90s to the 00s. A clean running car will only depreciate to a certain point and no more. If you buy it at the bottom of the depreciation curve you won't lose any money in depreciation. For some models, if you hold them for a while, it'll actually appreciate.
A Citroen is not a Honda/Mazda/Toyota. With an esoteric car like that, I don't doubt parts are expensive and reliability is low.
Well no, because the new 40K car doesn't evaporate after 10 years. You can sell it for some money or just keep using it longer to bring your yearly average down.
Also nobody needs a new 40K car. If you can afford it want to enjoy that, have fun. But if you're trying to bring transportation costs down, buy a used 10K car and drive that one for ten years.
> if you take a look at the numbers above it's not that bad and we drive a new, safe, no issues (free servicing) car every 3-4 years.
Driving a new car every few years is incredibly decadent.
If you bought a car, paid it off in 5 years and drove it for another 10, you’d be saving thousands every year. Repeat that cycle every 15 years and invest the savings, and you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in trade-off costs over the course of a lifetime. That might be a reasonable trade-off for folks who are in great shape financially (I’ll certainly be doing it once retirement is funded!), but it’s pure foolishness for the average household.
> He bought the car in 2015 so he’s lucky to get 8 years
Well now I understand why manufacturers say transmission has lifetime oil in there... because some people think that 8 years old car is... an old car that could as well be done?
I could afford buying new car and paying xxx/€ per month, but I choose to buy ~10 year old car and if I'm lucky it has <200k km on odometer. But then I'm debt free.
If I'd be paying xxx/€ per month and having a broken vehicle after 8 years, I'd be very disappointed to say the least.
>> You’d have to be mad to buy any of these new. A realistically priced lease would be the way to go if you want new
> EVs in the ~5 year old bracket, they may be slightly better, but you still have to consider that in another 5 years it's basically going to be unusable and unsellable.
I'm just talking about the cost of ownership. If you want to own from new, it's more expensive to buy these models then sell at X years old than it is to lease from new.
We've seen similar with ICE too though, it's a peculiarity of the current UK market that it can be cheaper to lease a brand new Nissan Qashqai for 3 years than it is to buy a used 3 year old one and sell it at 6 years. That just should not compute but the market is skewed.
This is like saying it's cheaper to wait a year before contributing to retirement because you'll have more money in checking if you don't contribute to retirement.
Average lifespan of an ICE car is around 14.8 years. For an EV it's 22.2. They last longer, and break down less often, and fuel is cheaper.
Over a period of 20 years, it does not matter how expensive the EV was when you paid for it. After 20 years, there is more money in your bank account, with the EV. So buying or keeping a used corolla is pretty much guaranteed to leave you with less money after those 20 years. No matter how cheap the corolla is now, keeping ICE cars will add up to a higher cost. The longer you wait the more you lose in the end.
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