this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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xkcd #3214: Electric Vehicles

Title text:

Now that I've finally gotten an electric vehicle, I'm never going back to an acoustic one.

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Source: https://xkcd.com/3214/

explainxkcd for #3214

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[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

It depends where you live. We have cheap gas and I live in an area with one of the more expensive prices for electricity (and there are worse), but “filling up” at home is much cheaper than “filling up” my ice car.

However

  • yes, we only have expensive EVs here. You can make up an extra $5k of purchase price with money saved on operations, but $10k or more is much harder
  • trip chargers are already in a race for exploitation, profit seeking. Except for Tesla, prices are high, maintenance is low, and they compete for trapping customers more than attracting them
  • since EVs became political we are currently off balance between supply and demand, so used cars are over supplied and lost much value. The quickly changing technology just makes it worse
[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

so used cars are over supplied and lost much value

Perfect time to buy one then

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

Yes, I’ve argued that too. While there is the factor of fast changing technology, I think used EVs are a great buy right now.

I’m not in the market for an additional car although I’ve actually been tempted anyway …. I have two college kids sharing my old Subaru and it would prevent a lot of fights if I had another old vehicle for them

Then again my older kid just applied for a summer job with like 90 miles each way commute so may not be appropriate for limited or unknown range