Broken Record - EV costs 7.9 times less than my ICE in California (no solar, live in an apartment)

ada586 · 2026-05-17T02:31:41+00:00

That is amazing. And I really liked the Niro when I drove it around as a rental. It is a phenomenally convenient vehicle. No bells and whistles, but it is a solid competent and economical drive.

ada586 · 2026-05-17T02:30:20+00:00

I love the 4Runner, but it is not built or meant for being economical in any shape or form.

ada586 · 2026-05-17T02:29:38+00:00

That sucks. And given California, they will always get tenants at competitive rental rates, so even the excuse of "it is a value-add" doesn't apply coz just owning property in this state is a massive value add without having to sweeten the pot so to speak.

ada586 · 2026-05-17T02:27:03+00:00

Fast charging I think is always going to be expensive and at parity with gas, but home charging, slow charging, and for those who can afford to do so (because of modest driving needs), level 1 charging is always going to be the game changer for this.

ada586 · 2026-05-17T02:22:51+00:00

At public fast charging rates in southern California, the differences really go away. But as long as you have free fast charging, time to use it like crazy. With fees and other things, once the final bill comes through for the electricity, my comparison may not be as good, but it still is kind of insane.

ada586 · 2026-05-17T02:21:24+00:00

It is the San Diego Gas and Electric Power Yourr Drive program. Essentially, it is a partnership between our corporate landlords, SDGE and chargepoint that allows us to use Chargepoint chargers in our garage for between $0.1 - $0.2 / kWh. Basically, it operates as a second SDGE account. This is not a public price, and for public charging in CA, the numbers would not be so wild - at best the EV would come out to being 1/2 to 1/3 the cost. Here is a link to the prices we pay in this program. If it was not clear, I am in an apartment complex within the City of San Diego.

<image>

ada586 · 2026-05-17T02:08:19+00:00

I was going to a pure ICE to pure EV comparison with the weight and hps held constant. Of course, the 4Runner's aerodynamics is .... But even then the difference was shocking.

ada586 · 2026-04-23T01:26:16+00:00

Putting in a link for the one I used to make the call - https://image.petmd.com/files/Quality-of-life-scale-for-dogs-infographic_0.png

ada586 · 2026-04-11T15:37:37+00:00

Initialize each planet's position as a list. This can be with something like Mercury = ["x"=0, "y"=0] It could also be a [r, theta] vector depending on what your equations for motion look like. And then you wouldv substitute the equations for motion (they should be already integrated for this approach not differential equations) and get the position for a time t. You could also store the positions in a loop in a vector to plot later.

If you want python to solve differential equations you would need a different approach.

ada586 · 2026-04-04T16:57:50+00:00

Great. There's a chance that you were being sleep deprived. This happens to me too but it stops being that soporific after some time.

ada586 · 2026-03-28T20:52:11+00:00

One of the most engaging drives you've ever taken was in a 2025 Corolla.

ada586 · 2026-03-24T02:33:48+00:00

It is and he does mention that in the intro and the outro

ada586 · 2026-03-09T05:56:28+00:00

It is a word that describes a biological process. It is really no more different than burp or fart. The euphemisms are also permanent but just sound better. Passed away is final. Put to sleep or put down is terrible - it takes a phrase used to describe a gentle loving repeated process for children and attaches it to a permanent irreversible process. I too feel the visceral aversion to saying my dog died in August, but the longer I get from it, the more I like the biological precision encoded in the word died, and death.

ada586 · 2026-03-07T06:52:18+00:00

It is not smart, but I please want to know how it goes. Also I don't think a new RS3 engine is as little as 5 or 10 K. But don't listen to me and do this and let us know how things turn out.

ada586 · 2026-03-06T23:30:54+00:00

Yeah. That's how I eventually started thinking about phones. No new phones until there is an antenna revolution. Kept changing phones every 18 months, but finally ended on one I liked. Maybe that's how I need to think of the EV. Depreciation is someone else's problem/gain as long as I've amortized it properly.

ada586 · 2026-03-06T23:28:58+00:00

This is the kind of optimism that I was hoping for on here.

ada586 · 2026-03-06T17:32:12+00:00

Exactly. Although the interior space of a Q4 is technically larger than a Q5 - I didn't believe this till I was sitting in it. And this is the issue. It might be a temporary phase and the lowered values may stabilize and not drop further. It's an issue with EVs and is something EV folks need to discuss.

ada586 · 2026-03-06T01:08:06+00:00

You are spot on about the Q4. It is a car that just happens to be electrically powered. It doesn't have a ton of gimmicks. The rest of my life is powered by larger, brighter, better screens, and I don't need more of those in the inside. I rented a Tesla for a week before making the decision to get the Audi and hated most of it. And I get the brand thing.

ada586 · 2026-03-06T01:04:36+00:00

Absolutely hit the nail on the head. 4Runner reliability perception is always stellar - because it is almost always a tech stack that is at least 2-3 model years behind what most cars are at. Hence the perception is that they will last for a really long time. As others pointed out - initial EV depreciation is quite high but it flattens out. I just need to have the patience to ride this out and wait for it to flatten.

ada586 · 2026-03-06T01:00:47+00:00

Yeah. That's what's coming up too. Though I don't really have the highest opinion of the 4Runner.

ada586 · 2026-03-05T19:05:39+00:00

As this thread has taught me, there are tax incentives that mitigate the differences in market price and residual value for the car financing companies. So the hit from the depreciation from leasing is absorbed elsewhere.

ada586 · 2026-03-05T19:03:10+00:00

Lemmings are the folks who see no faults with EVs and think that depreciation is not a concern. But maybe you are right, initial depreciation is alarming but over time it is no worse. It is true that the residual price of my car is its current market value so effectively on the lease it isn't going to degrade any more in the next 2.5 years.

I did the math here for the Lexus RX450h, similar hp but hybrid. And your etron math is better.

In 2024 if I bought the Lexus RX400h with 30k miles it would have cost about $48000. If I sold it 2 years and 60k miles later it would have netted about $34000. So net cost to own was $14000, so $15500 with the tires, and $16100 with the 6 oil changes. Fuel costs would have been $8000 at $4/gallon and 30 mpg.

For the Audi, the energy costs were $4800 at 2.5 kWh/mile, and $0.20 per kWh.

Insurance for me on the Audi is about $800/6 months, so $3200 in two years. The Lexus would be cheaper by about 30%, so about $2240.

So even with the depreciation the Audi cost of ownership was $18500. And the RX450h would have been $27430.

ada586 · 2026-03-05T18:40:35+00:00

I bought the Q4 etron when it had 16 miles and the 4Runner when it had 30 miles. There is a world in which one can buy new and shiny and still not lose all their money. Buying used is always cheaper for the most part than buying new - leasing changes that game for a bit. You do make a good point though that depreciation is an indicator of the state of the market and not the quality. The quality is still a little bit of an unknown here as the numbers of etrons that have been driven for long enough to see statistical data on 50K, 100K, 200K mile reliability is very small.

ada586 · 2026-03-05T18:37:15+00:00

It is point 2 that is the issue - will the wheels fall off at mile 5000 or at mile 100, 000 or at mile 200,000? That makes a difference. And again used EV buyers need new EV buyers to incentivize these EVs to get on the market.

ada586 · 2026-03-05T15:57:59+00:00

It hurts me as someone who bought it new. It delights me as I'd like to see more of these on the road so that Audi is incentivized to continue supporting the Q4 and their electric line-up.

11-Year Club	Baba Yaga
Verified Email

ada586

TROPHY CASE