It's dubious to me that EVs will be cheaper than gas to run in the long run.
The reasons for that are fairly obvious:
1) Infrastructure is crumbling. We arent going P, but pennies on the dollar went to infrastructure in the last "infrastructure" spending bill. We arent paying for the infrastructure we need, and thus will be paying for the debt service and the incremental requirements again and again and again. The need for domestic infrastructure is going to increase, because the road and bridge bill will remain the same or increase, while the electric grid bill will increase substantially, and the green push for renewables is not an intrinsically low cost source.
2) Related, not all states take gas taxes and apply them to recurring road needs. They often go into the general fund, so they will all be looking for new revenue streams.
3) We havent yet started to see the inclusion of taxes on electric use for charging.
4) The battery is a guaranteed replacement. The prices of EVs arent really coming down. We have folks on here griping about a 100k timing belt service. We see cars that have minimal damage totalled because the repaint bill is huge. I anticipate that the battery replacement cost will effectively total a car.
5) The amount of energy required to push any normally designed vehicle through the air at 60, 70, 80 MPH is irrelevant to the type of propulsion system. Tesla and some others have pushed very aerodynamic shapes, but we are starting to see less efficient designs. Their numbers wont be as good... And ultimately the energy and its cost has to be factored in.
6) Unless long term standards (think the AA, C, 9V, D type alkaline batteries) for interfaces, cells, controls, etc. are developed, the battery packs will naturally make the EVs obsolete.
Good points, here is my response:
1) Agree about not going P here, so I'll just use the capital cost and on going replacement / repair cost of the infrastructure as an apple to apple comparison. Refinery / power plant / oil pipeline / electrical grid / charging lot / gas station / battery swap if popular / peak grid improvement / all lump together. So whether we have reduced refinery need because of fuel economy improvement / population decline (as seen in Japan) / oil price per barrel etc, we can probably expect them to be similar to what we have today, yet we are not building new refinery just enhancing the current one as we have seen so far, as a reference. Now on the electrical grid, it depends on whether we are going to go with flat price because we are all used to the tier / flat cost per kwh regardless of time, or whether smart meter now enable everyone to charge the on demand price like toll road charging different price by the hour depends on traffic. If EV can be cheaper to buy then it has to be justified in the long run with cheap charging, assuming tax are applied equally between gas and EV (although it is impossible, eventually it will either tip toward EV or being identical between EV and gas vehicles). EV has an equivalent fuel economy in the worst case today of about 40mpg like its gas counterpart (say Chevy Volt), let's also use hybrid instead of gas only vehicle to give it a better advantage. In the end if we can charge during off peak hours (exclude morning commute, evening commute is peak due to duck curve), we will likely have better energy cost to EV (if all goes well). The bigger problem with the grid is IMO going with heat pump instead of natural gas heating. If you can tackle that then EV charging is in theory achievable with a big battery (you wait 3 days if the price is high, or suck it up and pay a premium, just like filling your gas tank).
2) 3) This is politics, eventually they will apply to both EV and gas vehicle when all the insiders corruptions are done making money, which is why I was using only energy cost per kwh / mpge to compare between them in 1)
4) EV has a bigger portion of its cost in the battery pack, the powertrain is cheaper (motor and power electronics is cheaper than engine, fuel pump, oil pump, emission control, etc, and likely cheaper transmission cost as well). Body is the same cost. So, assuming an older but not worn out EV gets into a crash, it will like have a similar chance of totaling and its battery swap into another EV with worn out battery, just like a gas car with a good enough engine will be swap into another gas car with a bad engine when it get into an accident. I can bet the swap cost of battery pack is going to be cheaper than engine for sure. If you want to reduce waste of cars due to bad battery, the way to do it is to mandate warranty, gas powertrain or EV battery, but then people will start complaining about "big government" and "increase cost". We will need some good ole fashion competition like what Japanese did in the old days to get us to a better standard (maybe Korean will finally be able to make good on a 100k powertrain warranty, and make it 150k EV battery warranty).
5) EV does not require as much cooling, it also does not need the high center of gravity I4 and V6 engines need. These high center of gravity makes the front box of the car less aerodynamic, and a lot more air goes into the engine compartment to cool the radiator and the engine bay, this is a HUGE waste of energy in aerodynamics. The other thing about EV is the amount of flatness the bottom of the battery pack can be, this will be a good amount of improvement over the same design of gas car with a pipe going to the middle of the vehicle to the end, with enough clearance to not heat up the passenger compartment. Let's say you use the same design to save money, EV will be at least a few percent better (single digit percentage) than gas car due to smaller radiator opening and flatter bottom (insert to cover the exhaust from front to back, make it flatter).
6) Yes, but so will new vehicles make older engine obsolete. In theory hybrid battery will obsolete and you cannot find replacement when new design arrives, but we are seeing new replacement. Will we have the same problem with EV batteries? Depends on who you buy it from. I don't trust Nissan, I don't trust Tesla (they can't even make enough parts to repair their body damage in collision), but I will trust Toyota, GM, Ford, Honda, to make replacement parts that are compatible with old ones (i.e. an inverter and DC/DC converter firmware flash). It may not be perfect and it may not be as good as a completely redesigned powertrain, but IMO it will be possible. Again, this will only happen if you buy from a reputable company or if there's a law mandating it somewhere on earth (Europe hopefully, they mandate 2 year warranty on many items US only have 90 days warranty on).
