A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation (which is a proxy for repairs and maintenance - brake pads, oil changes etc). You're probably going to come out ahead of the fixed costs of licensing, insurance, and registration on gasoline savings alone.
The parking spot may or may not be an issue. If you can charge an EV at home, you likely have a garage or driveway. If not, then sure this doesn't apply.
The bonus: with 2 vehicles you can use exactly as much car as needed for each trip.
The EV can be a smallish hatchback or sedan with low-to-medium range. You aren't going too far and won't carry much stuff. It's enough for 90% of your miles driven.
The ICE can be a minivan or SUV, since you'll likely need more space for road trips. You aren't pointlessly driving that hulking PHEV SUV on milk runs.
> A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation (which is a proxy for repairs and maintenance - brake pads, oil changes etc).
Only in the USA. In the rest of the world, taxes and parking fees are also significant. Americans are really spoiled when it comes to low car ownership costs.
> A car's ownership costs are dominated by fuel and depreciation. You're probably going to come out ahead of those fixed costs on gasoline savings alone.
Depends how much you drive. If you don't drive much to start, and then having two vehicles cuts that in half, your effectively-fixed costs go up - e.g. you start having to replace your tires because the rubber is getting too old long before the tread wears out, insurance doesn't scale down linearly for low-mileage drivers, etc.
Depreciation, sure. If you’re buying new of course.
Fuel is very much use dependent. I drive very little so having one large nicer (3 years old off a lease return) made the most sense to me when I had to watch the bottom line. Both financially and quality of life.
I filled up the tank on that thing once every 2-3mo at most. Tires cost more due to simply aging out and the rubber compounds not being as spry as they once were. Other than that it was an oil change once a year. It was a Honda so I think the only repair work I did was a $20 relay that failed I was able to self diagnose, over the 13 years I owned it.
Yeah that’s the extreme end - but there is a lot of middle ground before you get into it being cheaper to have a second vehicle. I do now, but that’s due to owning a ridiculous dream weekend car. Maintaining two cars, insuring them, dealing with less space in the garage for other stuff, etc. really is a giant expensive hassle even if both were cheap(ish) used vehicles.
The math switches once you get to “beater” level cars - but I am far removed from the time of my life where I want to deal with actual car repairs due to things breaking unexpectedly. The used car market also isn’t like it was when I was 22 and broke either. Deals are much harder to come by. I value my time and mental energy far more these days as well.
Different strokes for different folks!
If I went back to a single car I’d likely be looking at a PHEV Lexus or similar class vehicle for a bit of luxury plus reliability. I still rarely drive though so it’s a silly expense either way.
it depends, but for the average driver who in the US is doing about 14000 miles per year the savings will be less than $200/month. that barely covers insurance and taxes leaving little for the rest.
Insurance and taxes are about $100 on my 25 year old truck. I replaced it (fuel tank rusted off) a month ago so I don't know what it is on a 20k car yet. There isn't much you can maintain for $100 a month. That 20k car is several hundred a month and mowt people replace them when paid off.
I don't have the physical space for 2 cars. In terms of comfort and reliability I can't imagine 2 20k cars would have the same quality of life that my 1 new car has (less than 40k). I traded up from a ~20k gas SUV that was extremely expensive to maintain.
