The costs of operating electric cars dramatically exceed those associated with operating internal combustion cars, a comprehensive study finally says

It is absurd for someone to point to the economics of running electric cars as their advantage, while ignoring amortization. The iSeeCars study doesn’t do that, and the sad truth came out right away.

I vividly remember how the once loss-making Česká dráhy made money by the fact that they lost billions per year, but if they didn’t include amortization, they would be in profit! A person with a certain economic awareness must be confused by such a statement, because the depreciation associated with the acquisition of assets necessary for securing the company’s services is simply impossible to ignore, without them the company could do almost nothing.

For a company of this caliber, such thinking is a surprise, although I understand this form of presentation of results from a marketing point of view, but many people own it quite naturally. Just remember how many times someone told you something stupid like: “I won’t take a bus for 250 CZK, if I can get there for 5 liters of diesel, it’s cheaper.” Yes, according to Czech Railways, it will be like that, but in reality it is true that during the same trip you will also use up part of the tires, brakes and actually every part of the whole car, which is reflected in a decrease in its value. So it’s nice that even today you can pay only 2 kroner for fuel for 1 kilometer of driving, but if you can get the total costs under 8 to 10 CZK per kilometer for any newer and more capable car, you will be the king of efficiency. And 1,000 CZK instead of 200 CZK per 100 km suddenly looks quite different.

But let’s not ask ordinary people for deep economic considerations, even in this particular case they should be able to do so for their own good, but we would expect them from the authors of studies that examine the costs associated with the operation of that particular car. The loss of value is historically the largest part of them, yet it is possible to come across absolutely absurd constructions according to which the Tesla Model 3 is the cheapest to operate, because it does not need so much electricity and needs even less servicing. This is incredibly misleading.

So with skepticism, I set about reading the new iSeeCars study, which looks at how expensive different types of cars are to run over a 3-year ownership horizon at their average mileage. These are new cars with relatively small mileage, so you should expect substantially higher amounts than the 8 or 10 CZK per km, precisely because iSeeCars did not neglect the loss of value.

This is the highest percentage for electric cars, moreover, it is calculated from the absolute highest average prices. And when you break it down to 1,000 miles driven per year, the situation gets worse for EVs as they have the smallest average mileage (play surprised), so the highest drop in value is spread over the least number of km. It is therefore not surprising that statics come out dramatically worst for electric models. The specific averages of operating costs for 1 year for every 1,000 miles, i.e. 1,609 km driven, are as follows:

Hybrids: USD 3,056 (71,177 CZK, i.e. 44,485 CZK/1,000 km, 44.85 CZK/km)
Combustion cars: USD 3,123 (equivalent to CZK 45.44/km)
Plug-in hybrids: 4,351 USD (63.31 CZK/km)
Electric cars: 5,108 (74.33 CZK/km)

Electric cars are thus 65 percent worse off than internal combustion cars, and plug-in hybrids are also doing very poorly based on the statistics – again, unsurprisingly. Those amounts per kilometer may seem high to you, but if you buy a new car, don’t drive it much and sell it in a few years with a huge financial loss, it just works out. If you drive 100,000 km per year and not the 10,151 km driven by iSeeCars, for example, Porsche Taycan owners, the statistics will look completely different, but the macro data is like that and is guaranteed to be closer to reality than those that ignore the loss of value.

In short, it is mainly about her and you need to calculate with her. It’s not like you spent the money on the car and it’s no longer yours, so you can care less. No, you spent them, “you have them in that car” and your economy of its operation is not determined by the initial expenditure, but by the difference between the purchase and sale price, when you send the car on again. When you buy an expensive electric car, which in the end you might sell for next to nothing and you won’t drive much, you’re making a big mistake. If you buy, for example, a diesel Octavia for the same money, for which your hands will be torn off in the bazaar, and you drive it, for example, 80,000 km, which still does not discourage buyers and provides you with your needs, you can easily pay a tenth or less for each kilometer. That’s the way it is, and ignoring the facts will not change reality, at most it will set an inaccurate mirror to it.

Such a Škoda Enyaq will essentially be a decent economic suicide, like practically every electric car today. It is just necessary not to ignore the loss of value. Photo: Škoda Auto

Source: iSeeCars

Peter Miller

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