How much does an electric car actually cost? - YouTube

Car companies are seriously into electric  vehicles right now.  

"With GM's new Ultium battery we're gonna crush  those lugers!"

"The new e-tron fleet vehicles are unlike anything you've seen  before."

[intense music, electricity noises] "It's time to plug in."

-- okay so this one is making EVs very  exciting, there's a person on a white horse,  

I'm not sure what the horse has  to do with it...

horsepower!

Looking at these ads, you might get the sense that  basically everyone is buying EVs. But in reality,  

only two out of every 100 new cars sold is fully  electric. In some ways that's not surprising.  

EVs, like most new technologies, tend to  cost more. But EVs can actually be cheaper  

than gas cars over their entire lifetimes.  To prove it... let's crunch some numbers.

Take for example two otherwise identical cars. We  have the Hyundai Kona and we have the Hyundai Kona  

EV. The Hyundai Kona is $20,500 at the dealership  the Kona EV is about $17,000 more expensive. So  

on its face that does not seem like the best deal.  But remember that electricity is cheaper than gas  

so over the lifetime of these cars the average  Kona EV owner will actually save around  

$11,000 just by avoiding the weekly  trip to 7-eleven. [Stranger Things]  

"you are gonna pay for those?" [Hopper belch]

Then there's maintenance. Electric cars have fewer  moving parts, they don't need oil changes, and  

they have regenerative braking, which cuts down on  wear and tear. That accounts for another $4,600 in  

savings over the lifetime of the car. And then we  have something called the federal EV tax credit.  

So anytime that you buy a new EV from particular  manufacturers the government will give you up to  

$7,500 off on your next federal income  tax bill. So it looks like once we take  

all these benefits into account the Kona EV  is actually cheaper than the gas version.  

Well, it is and it also kind of isn't. It turns  out, that like health insurance or buying a new  

washing machine, buying an electric car only saves  you money if you can afford it in the first place.  

Those reduced maintenance costs and fuel savings  only come in if you can actually afford to pay  

the price up front. And remember, that magical  $7,500 tax credit that's not free money. It's  

more like a one-time coupon from the IRS. To get  the full amount back you actually have to owe  

$7,500 in taxes, which means that you have  to be making at least $66,000 a year and not  

have any other major tax credits that you wanna  claim. You also have to be willing to wait until  

the following April to actually get your money  back. In fact, the beloved math nerds over at the  

Congressional Research Service have calculated  that 80% of the people getting the tax credit  

make over a $100,000 a year. In other  words, our nation's number one primary  

program to get people to buy EVs is out  of reach for basically half of Americans.

And keep in mind most Americans buy used  cars and right now there's no tax credit  

for buying a used EV -- unless  you live in Oregon which is...  

Oregon. And even if you're able to get your hands  on an EV there's the challenge of charging. It's  

harder to plug in your car at home  if you live in an apartment or a  

shared house. [Shannon at home] here is the  outlet... oh my god i'm tripping on things...  

through this fence... up the stairs into a  socket box... and then it connects to my car.

According to some numbers crunched by our very own  data journalist Clayton Aldern the more expensive  

your neighborhood in the U.S. is the more likely  it is to have a whole bunch of charging stations.

The good news is electric cars are going to  get cheaper to manufacture as battery costs  

fall, but we want drivers to transition  away from gas cars much much faster.

One way to do that is to revisit that annoying  EV tax credit. You already can't get the tax  

credit for Tesla or GM cars anymore and  lawmakers say that it's time to reimagine  

it. Two members of Congress have introduced  a bill that would apply the $7,500 credit  

right at the dealership which would slash the  sticker price of EVs for all prospective buyers  

regardless of what your income is. Another idea is  to build more charging infrastructure especially  

in neighborhoods where people might have a hard  time plugging in their cars at home -- there's  

actually a line that Biden has said for basically  the past year that's about exactly this -- we're  

going to invest in 500,000 -- 500,000 -- 500,000  charging stations. If those charging stations  

actually start being built that would  make new and used EVs more attractive.

If we want to avoid burning up the planet  we're gonna have to switch our gas cars  

for electric cars and public transit and to do  that we're going to have to make sure that these  

options are affordable and accessible to everyone  -- to everyone -- everyone. I'm Shannon Osaka,  

I'm a reporter for Grist and I mostly focus on  federal policy and climate solutions although  

lately i've gotten pretty interested in  EVs. If you have any questions for me  

or you want me to look into something for my next  article or video drop it in the comments below.