The United Kingdom (not so united these days, but that’s another story) is becoming a hot electric vehicle market, but it gets very little attention in the EV world. I’m going to postulate that’s because people drive on the wrong side of the road there. (Just sayin’.)
We’ve published numerous analyses of our own on the total cost of ownership of the Tesla Model 3 and Volkswagen ID.3 compared to top gasoline competitors. However, if you don’t trust research from CleanTechnica, perhaps you’ll find the work of a major international financial firm more palatable. A recently published report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) that was passed along to CleanTechnica dove into this topic for the UK.
A recent article on CleanTechnica, “BBC Click: Are Electric Vehicles ‘The Future Of Road Vehicles?’ EV Owners: ‘Duh.'” basically covered what CleanTechnica and other green energy websites have been saying for years, that EVs are superior to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles in more ways than one. This is not news to informed progressives, but it is very much news to the general public.
This week I read a series of tweets that inspired me to write this article on declining transportation costs and how they could fundamentally change the markets for personal transportation.
Editor’s Note: I’ve been planning to write an article about these two cars for a while, so it’s nice to get a bump from Loup Ventures, which has beat me to it! Check out Matt’s summary of the analysis below.
The most popular stories on CleanTechnica this past week were led by a McDonald’s story for the first time (or perhaps second — I remember a very popular McDonald’s story here in 2010). The second and third most popular stories were both about total cost of ownership comparisons — between the Tesla Model 3 and Toyota Camry and then the Chevy Bolt and Tesla Model 3 and Toyota Camry. Next in line were videos of Tesla Smart Summon (which went a bit viral on what the kids call “the Internet”) and a couple of pieces on how early concerns about the Model 3 and Gigafactory 3 became irrelevant.
I published an analysis the other day showing the Tesla Model 3 undercutting the Toyota Camry on a 5 year cost of ownership forecast. The plan for a while has been to update these cost of ownership comparisons since prices, tax credits, and other matters have changed in the past several months. I honestly did not expect the Model 3 to come out on top after all of the changes, but it clearly did so in the comparison with the Camry. With that comparison in mind, it’s pretty certain where a similar 5 year cost of ownership comparison with the Honda Accord is going to go.
It’s time for another roundup of the 20 most popular stories of the week. As proof of the fact that you don’t even need “Tesla” in the headline to have a Tesla story go viral, the top story of the week was about the Honda Accord & Toyota Camry while silently being about the Tesla Model 3. The second most popular story compared the Model 3 to two top sellers on the other end of its gradient of competitors, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Audi A4.
I was browsing Facebook a few days ago and I saw a member of the Southwest Florida EV group posted that Chevy Bolt prices were really low. The Bolt got a lot of publicity a couple of years ago as many made a big deal that it beat the Model 3 to market. Though, now that Model 3 production is ramped up and meeting US demand (although foreign demand is still unsatisfied in many places), we don’t hear much about the Bolt.
Here on CleanTechnica, we’ve had a number of stories showing how much cheaper, in total, owning a Tesla can be compared to common gas-powered economy cars. While the purchase price of cars like the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord are a lot lower than a basic Model 3, the costs of ICE (internal combustion engine) maintenance and fuel often end up adding up to more than what the Model 3 would have cost. Despite this, people keep buying the “cheaper” cars.
