In December, EV and hybrid vehicle sales hit another record (this happens regularly because the numbers keep growing.) 8.9% of all vehicles sold in the use were battery electric and 10.6% were hybrids. EV skeptics sometimes will brush aside those numbers saying that people are dumb once but won’t be fooled twice. But check out this study of over 23,000 EV owners which states that 92% of battery electric vehicle (BEV) owners would buy another one and 4% would switch to a plug-in hybrid. Now, I take that with a grain of salt given that this group specifically exists to promote EV ownership, but we can at least take away that maybe there are a lot of people who really do love their EV and would not want to go back to a gas engine.
I often think about this for our situation. We’ve already put 55,000 miles on our Model Y in just 2.5 years of ownership and it is a perfect fit for our situation. In these posts, I repeatedly refer to making the switch because it was going to save us money over a Ford Escape. I do not mean to imply that it would automatically save everyone money over a Ford Escape, but in OUR situation, it’s a great fit. I would definitely replace it with another EV and it would probably be another Model Y. The price has come down since we bought it so the math is even easier. The only difference is that if we replace it after our son moves out then I might consider downsizing to a Model 3 instead of the Model Y, but we’ll probably want to replace it before then anyway given the 20,000+ miles/year that we’re putting on it.
But we also own an F150. Would I replace that with an EV if it died? Probably not. It is still nice to keep one foot in the gas world. We drive it very infrequently and only use it when the other person is already using the car or when we need the utility of the truck. But it’s still nice to know that we could use it if the EV wouldn’t quite work yet. For example, we’re planning a trip to Yellowstone, and it has been nearly impossible to find a convenient AirBNB with a good charging setup. I’d have to rely on the supercharger right outside the park. With the amount of driving we’ll be doing in that giant park, that might still be a place where we prefer to have the truck with us.
I suppose the skeptics would disagree, but I believe that the EV scenario is only going to get smoother and simpler from here on out. We intend to keep that truck for a very long time so maybe in 10 years the pro/con list will look a little different, but as of right now, we’re already in the “yes, we’d replace our BEV with another BEV” camp.