Drew Dowdell

Yeah, $1200 a year is too high. I'll just pocket the money and keep building it up in the maintenance and repair fund I have that part of our expense checks go into. I'm going to leave it active till about September or October and then kill it. The car has largely been solid, but we did have some major repairs for a differential and an internal oil leak. The warranty did pay for itself there and I'm sure is a factor on why they raised my plan so much this renewal. I'd honestly buy another one if I wasn't set on an EV. For a long distance comfort cruiser, it's been a great car for the $23k we paid for it. We did a getway over the holiday weekend out to Columbus, Ohio and managed 29 mpg out of it. I've driven the Wagonner S a couple times. It's on the list because it's around 300 mile range and it's the size and shape Albert wants. He wants the Acura more though. I want the Lyriq more. I want the G80 EV the most, but I'd have to put the Avalanche into storage for that because he still wants a crossover for himself.

I don't think old tech / new tech is going to matter to him on the charging front. He's going to charge at home on Level 2 mostly and spending a lot of extra money to charge 7 minutes faster a couple times a year isn't a good ROI. He's gonna kill the vehicle on mileage, so by the time his kids are bigger it will be time for a replacement vehicle anyway.

Yeah, it sounds like it's purely a spreadsheet decision for you plus having a few niceties. I'm very much in the same boat right now. Chrysler just increased the monthly payment on my extended warranty to $100/m from $60/m. We own the car outright, but now that warranty is getting to be too high when you consider it's also a $250 deductible for a repair claim, so we're gonna start shopping soon once some respective job changes settle down. I'm looking hard at used Lyriqs for now because I would really love having Super Cruise for all the highway travel I do. He won't be driving much at all anymore because his new place he can get to by bus. He likes the look of the ZDX and Wagoneer S. I want to like the Mach-E but I'm meh on the interior. He doesn't want something EV9 or Ioniq 9 sized. There's no equation for us that makes buying an EV financially better than keeping our 300C, but it's got 105k miles on it and that's typically when we start looking to trade. That said, I've been banking 50% of both of our monthly mileage checks for a while now so between the trade in value and a sizable down payment fund, we should be good when the time comes.

Yea, at those numbers an EV9 doesn't break even. It depends on what kind of capability you're looking for if you need that kind of hauling capabilities. I think your Prologue / Blazer idea is pretty sound and you might even pull off a slight monthly savings that way if you can find a deal on one and drop the Navi.

You both have points kinda. The Kia is going to depreciate, but with the mileage you're doing, everything is going to depreciate. You're gonna get killed on whatever you buy or you're gonna get killed fueling the Navigator. If you're making payments on the Navigator, you might end up netting out to the same monthly on an EV9 after subtracting fuel costs, but having a substantially newer vehicle. That said, $25k for a near full-size crossover in this economy means it's gonna have 75k miles or more if you find an amazing deal, so at $40k, you're just buying lower mileage regardless of how it's powered. A Kia Telluride with 15k miles is... $42k. A Kia EV9 with 15k miles is... $43k.

When you have an hour, go test drive one. Put it into sport mode and beat on it a little. You'll be surprised. Yeah it's only like 220hp or whatever, but the torque is instant.

Keeping the Navigator brings me back to the 2016+ Volt idea. https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicle/784272025 And I know they're not the best looking, but they ride great and they're remarkably fun to drive. https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicle/784844959 Or, if you want a bit of style: https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicle/766048516

I was just looking for an affordable commuter scooter that would save more than your gas bill per month in the Navigator.

Undetermined at this time. Just that BMW trademarked it.

https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicle/782297241

They have the X7 and eventually an X8.

I'm old enough to remember when there were Xes on the eyes of cartoon characters, that meant they were dead.

That brings up another good point. This may seem obvious, but the calculus for an EV works better the worse the mileage of the equivalent gas vehicle is. I remember a while ago people trying to compare the Hummer EVs to a Corolla and saying it didn't make financial sense for the Hummer. But the real comparison is probably something more like an Escalade. A Hummer EV may not be a great savings compared to a Corolla, but it blows away an Escalade.

To many variables to be able to make a blanket statement. Are you in a cheap gas state or a cheap electricity state? Are you in a state that has big differences in car insurance? Are you going to charge at home on Level 2 or are you using Superchargers mostly? You'll save money on oil changes by driving the Tesla, but you'll pay more in tires every 5(?) years simply because the Model 3 has bigger, more expensive tires. Are you buying a RWD Model 3 or an AWD Model 3? Are you buying the standard Corolla or the hybrid? My bet is that if you're in a situation that makes an EV make more sense (cheap electricity to charge at home) and you drive a lot of miles, the savings on gas wipes out the difference in insurance pretty quickly It's a full pros-cons spreadsheet. I asked Claude to calculate it for us. So it looks like as long as the difference in insurance is less than $900 a year, the Model 3 wins. Personally, even though I loath Tesla, I would probably pick the Model-3 over the Corolla for my use-case scenario just to have the self-driving feature. Having a less exhausting journey for myself is helpful being a consultant. That wouldn't necessarily be something I can quantify in a spreadsheet. My travels, currently, are also through mountainous areas that kill fuel economy in my gassers but could be advantageous for an EV for regen. It's a weird "uphill both ways" scenario that I could use to my charging advantage if I was careful. (I'm tempted to rent a Tesla just to try it now)

Eh, I think the Tesla would still end up being cheaper, but pretty much any other EV would be cheaper still due to the Tesla insurance issue. I think comparing an Ioniq 6 to a nicely equipped Sonata 2.5T is a closer match and likely similar insurance rates. the BMW i4 v BMW 440i is one where the performance gets pretty close and the price difference is a rounding error. In the end the i4 will be cheaper because of fuel economy and not needing premium gas. Ionic 9 v. Tahoe is another as long as you're not trying to tow 9,000 lbs and it is just doing family hauler duty, the pricing between the two models is very close.