Quote Originally Posted by Gman View Post
I read this kind of statement and have to wonder how long is "long term"? The model S only started shipping in late 2012.

The additional cost of electric vs. ICE often takes many years (sometimes around 10) to ever recover the purchase price difference. Now that the US is a net exporter of oil, gas prices are remaining reasonable. A Nissan Leaf avg. sale price is $28,683 and an ICE Versa is $13,932. At $2.50/gallon, that's about 5,900 gallons (546 fill-ups) worth of cost difference.

Oil changes/filters are not what they used to be with modern synthetic oils (often annual/10K miles).
Cost per mile with electric is still cheaper than gas, even at $2.50, assuming you aren't super charging, which you won't do for 95% of the time. I'm not sure where you're getting 10,000 miles between oil changes. I can tell you that my car is supposed to get them every 3,000, and the idiot light on the dash comes on promptly at 5,000.

On top of that, with an EV there's no need for all of the regular maintance that shows up at 60k, 120k, etc. miles. There's no valves or spark plugs or any of that other stuff. Brake jobs are much fewer and far between due to the fact that the brakes see much less wear due to regenerative braking.

The other thing I have to wonder is what is the comparative mileage on the Teslas vs. ICE vehicles? I could see the mileage limitations and charge times of EV keeping average mileage lower. There's also likely much more down time for repeated recharging vs. annual ICE servicing.
Charge times aren't an issue for any situation outside of a long-range trip. Most EV owners have a charging station installed at home and they just plug in the car when they get home from work and it charges overnight, so it's not like the average EV owner is standing around waiting on their vehicle to charge. I would expect that most EV owners spend way less time waiting around at a super charger than an ICE owner spends standing around at gas stations in a given year for this very reason.

EVs are often heavier than ICE due to the batteries. The electric motors also have quite a bit of torque. What is the delta on tire wear between EVs and ICE?

Would love to see some real statistics that aren't coming from the Church of Tesla.
I've seen no indication that EVs have faster tire wear than ICE vehicles. I would expect that as long as you aren't launching from every red light in Ludicrous mode that tire wear between EVs and ICE cars is probably comparable.