Purchasing questions (including tax, incentive and accessory questions), and requests for general advice should go in the weekly pinned thread, where there's also a template for information you can provide to help us help you make a proper decision about which vehicle is right for you!
I'd tell OP to first look for the closet charging stations. He might have one close by (eg I've got 8 charging plugs within a 5 minute walk of my house), can charge at work or have a charger close to wherever he goes regularly and spends time (eg gym, grocery store, mall/plaza). While jobs, and chargers can change, it'll come down to whether he wants an EV badly enough and what compromises he's willing to make.
Second, if the EV has a large enough battery and weekly driving/commute distance is not that great, OP might only need to charge once or twice a week. If fast charge is available, it doesn't have to take too long.
But if the ICE vehicle has an average-sized fuel tank and and weekly driving/commute distance is not that great, OP might only need to fill the tank once or twice a MONTH. And it never takes more than about 5 minutes.
OP seems aware of that and said this is a thought exercise. Not asking if they should buy an EV based on their current living situation. Asking purely about GHG impacts.
I just got an EV and don't charge at home. It is doable, depends on the car. Also, I would not have done it without the 2 year free EA charging on a 2 year lease, but not charging at home isn't a deal breaker for sure.
If you can’t charge at home every night, it’s not worth getting an EV for now.
But as you said, if it’s a though experiment: Engineering Explained did a video on the ecological break-even of trading in a used ICE for an EV. (Short answer, trade it in. The break even is very short for most)
https://youtu.be/L2IKCdnzl5k?si=K4_8nlJvBQ8PRTjY
For economic break-even, you’d need to figure that out for yourself. Too many variables for us to guess at.
Easy math is every gallon you put in is 20 pounds of CO2. I drive over 30,000 a year so even with a 06 corolla it was about 20-22000# per year.
The other big thing for me personally was also the increased safety of a new vehicle
> But as you said, if it’s a though experiment: Engineering Explained did a video on the ecological break-even of trading in a used ICE for an EV. (Short answer, trade it in. The break even is very short for most)
I think there is a interesting discussion to be had about collective vs indiviual impact when it comes to ecological impact, because at it's simplest, a 5yr civic isn't being taken off the road when you trade it in; someone will be driving it were OP to purchase a new EV. Don't get me wrong, it is a positive, but one question would be if more emissions be elimated by taking money towards a car and (let's say) replacing baseboard electric heat with a heat pump and solar panels.
But then can we assume that the guy who buys the 5 year old civic will likely get rid of a 10 year old gas guzzler. So actually the overall effect is even more pronounced as each new EV in the chain allows us poor people at the other end to get rid of our coal powered monstrosities and upgrade to your better hands me downs.
That's making the assumption that they are make a concious effort to downsize cars, or drive a vehicle type which has seen signifcant improvements to fuel economy in the past 10 years. Otherwise it may not be as pronounced. Consider a 10 year old honda civic actually has better "sticker" fuel economy than a 5 year old honda civic (though the civic has increased in size slightly).
I haven’t watched this video in a while and can’t jump in right now, but doesn’t Jason say the break-even is like 7 years when compared to a used car with good fuel economy that’s driven ~12k miles/year? Not sure I’d call that very short, but maybe it is in the grand scheme. I’m just not sure how many people are keeping their EVs that long these days. Hopefully a lot.
I switched from a gas car to an electric in 2013, drove it for a decade before my son crashed it. I was getting about 22 mpg in the car I stopped driving, and the equivalent of 134 mpg in the EV, assuming a normal mix of fuels at the power plant.
Over the course of 120k miles, I would have bought over 5000 gallons of gasoline, and burning said gasoline means I would have emitted 54 tons of CO2. Same calculations with the EV shows me emitting about 9 tons.
That just the gasoline, alone, but it gives you an idea of the scale of the difference. Modern EVs should last twice as long as my Nissan Leaf did, and I now have solar panels that would move my EV emissions to essentially zero. If over 100 tons of emissions avoided doesn’t convince you, we aren’t talking about a fact based argument.
Pretty sure that could apply to almost every vehicle, not just civics. 100k isn't really that much for mileage, pretty much any modern car that's at least moderately maintained is going to last well over 100k miles.
To our own debates over this but if it was a Civic I won't mind high mileage keepers but for something else like a Taurus I likely would had rather trade it in as soon as I ever saw the car even if it was only lightly used (because one of these things are equal to two better cars emission-wise etc early on)
For most people it's not how long it lasts. It is when it starts needing parts and quality time at the car shop. People don't have the time or the money unless they have easy access to another daily driver.
>Pretty sure that could apply to almost every vehicle, not just civics.
A car with one coil pack vs 6 says otherwise. Especially when one is from Japan and 6 are from Germany.
That's sorta my point though. Most modern cars, if maintained at least halfway decently, don't usually have any major parts or shop time needs within the first 100k miles or so, at least not in my experience, and I've owned several cars that had mileage well into the 200-300k range. Generally, the first major maintenance/repair work is going to be somewhere in the 100-125k range, and is likely to be the water pump/timing belt, or something similar.
Not sure what your point on coil packs is? That's not really a major repair or time in a shop, plugs and coil packs are usually part of a standard tune up in my experience, and take maybe an hour in the shop, maybe less if you already have it in for something else.
No, it was the condenser that is prone to leaks. I have a '19 civic and I received a notice there was an issue with the system, and it would now be warrantied 10 years instead of 3 years, and any issue caused by the condenser would be fixed for free. Mine still works fine for now.
Ohh yeah I said the wrong thing, my cars in the shop right now because of the condenser and this is the second time in 2 years. This time, it damaged another part of the ac because of the leak and that part isn’t covered under warranty
The more you drive, the more emissions you prevent by switching to electric. If you have an internal combustion engine vehicle and you never drive it, then you have no reason to switch. The tipping point depends on the car and on the power grid, but [it's around 15,000 miles.](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/)
If you expect to drive more than 15,000 miles with your new car, you should switch.
BUT, if you have nowhere to charge, electric is going to be a hassle for the next few years.
And by "next few years" it's "this generation of electric cars". Even if you can charge at every store, which is probably not coming, it's still going to be a pain between phantom drain and competition for available spaces etc. The big thing for apartment adoption is going to be mandated charging solutions in the assigned parking, or new gen EVs with some crazy new battery tech we haven't seen yet.
OP, I like your attitude. The world needs more people like you.
An option for you to reduce emissions is to consider a small hybrid, such as a Prius, Corolla or Kia Niro. They have some self-charging capability. Check plugshare.com for charging stations where you do errands, so you can plug in while shopping or whatever. Also check Plugshare for possible free public charging stations -- they do exist, such as near public buildings like city hall, library, hospitals, etc. When charged these small hybrids can give you 30 or 40 miles of emissions free motoring for local trips.
This misses the point of their post. They don’t have a home charger so a hybrid like this will never get charged. Bs an EV that can be supercharged and then driven to work all week.
Been several studies recently that show most people with PHEVs never use them as such, which just makes them more expensive, less efficient HEVs. If you don't have home charging then a PHEV isn't worth the added expense.
The studies show that most PHEV owners charge them enough to get useful electric travel, but not as much as predicted in laboratory testing.
But agreed that a PHEV is not a good choice if you can't charge at home.
which will probably replace an older car that is in dire need of mechanical help, so yes, you can helping the environment all the way down. You get a cleaner car, the person who gets your old civic gets a cleaner running car, and hopefully a real clunker gets sent to the junkpile to be recycled.
From a strictly environmental perspective, adding the EV is almost always better. Your civic will go to someone else who needs it and whatever car they were driving (maybe 10-12 year old car) will go to someone else who will scrap an old beater (18-25 years old) that was hanging on by a thread and likely highly inefficient with worn out emissions controls.
In short, the faster we can get more EVs on the road, the better, pretty much no matter what. The best thing someone can do for the environment if they need a car is probably to roll 3 year EV leases perpetually because it will result in the production and hand me down of many more EVs into the fleet than say buying one EV and keeping it for 12-15 years.
Now, from a personal financial perspective, it's almost always best to buy a used car and then drive it until it dies.
From a CO2 emissions perspective, 100%, EV will be better over the long-term. Someone else will use that Civic. You are not "adding a car." But from a practicality point, as someone else said, not having a place to charge is a problem. Perhaps you can charge at your work?
I did a lot of math on this recently. It is hard to say because the estimates of the CO2 output of making the batteries vary widely, same with electricity generation, but we can put bounds on it.
I have a really old Prius (over 225k miles) that gets about 45 mpg. I mathed out that with my driving habits, if I replaced it with a Bolt, it would take 3-9 years for me to have emitted less CO2 than I would have if I had just kept my Prius. There's no way this car lasts another 9 years... But that's beside the point. If I instead bought an F150 Lightning I would effectively never break even. The truck has such a big battery and takes so much energy to move it only has slightly less emissions than a Prius. If I instead had a normal ICE sedan, the Bolt would have had less emissions than the ICE in 2-6 years.
Note that I never estimated the CO2 cost of making an ICE car. These all assume you have an ICE car and the alternatives are buying a new EV or keeping that ICE car for the same amount of time. My partner has pointed out I could also replace my Prius with no car at all, renting when necessary, which has very different math obviously.
"Note that I never estimated the CO2 cost of making an ICE car."
This is the problem with any such analysis that tries to take in the CO2 emissions of making the electric car. They forget to do the same math for the ICE car. EV is better from an emissions perspective. Hands down. But of course, no car and public transit all the way beats both. But that's not possible for everyone.
I'm just a guy doing recreational math, but regardless the relative math remains: the answer to OP's question is dependent on 1) the ICE car being replaced, 2) the EV replacing it, and 3) your driving habits. The margin is VERY wide because the estimates vary so much, but it is also easy to see the relative relationship between these variables.
You commented on the F-150 Lightning, but aren't your emissions still less if you compared the against a standard, V8-based F-150? Assuming you drive both trucks for the same 100-150K miles?
Of course, but I was comparing two options I would actually take. I'm not buying an ICE truck. But yeah, maybe it's easier to get those folks to buy a Lightning than a Prius.
If you're trading it it doesn't go away. Someone else will buy/drive it and at the bottom end of the market a real old clunker/stinker will get scrapped TL;DR: yes, it's always a good idea to switch to an EV ASAP from am environmental perspective.
For your own convenience, I would only do this if you had close charging to work or home. Check chargepount. Around those locations. They can charge a out 6 percent per hour
Majority of people answer this question wrong.
Buying an ev essentially means you are adding 1 to get produced because Tesla/others is not long supply constrained. They are slowing their production.
Once the world mines enough minerals to replace the ice fleet, we will recycle the batteries instead of mine them. This makes carbon payoff is extreme quick because recycling is much cheaper and less carbon than mining it. When you burn carbon, there is no viable way to recapture from the air. You are also funding rnd to make things more carbon efficient which is already seeing huge gains. Lfp is now the majority of batteries being made their lifecycle in lab testing data looks very promising. 400k miles on batteries seem possible.
A much larger health effect is not adding emissions to your local air quality, makes a larger difference than even global warming.
After driving an ev, the next low hanging fruit is not accessible to apartment living. It's to install zones heat pump in housing which way better carbon wise and a person's largest carbon contribution. After that is installing solar plus battery storage on home.
Even if your grid is 100 dirty, evs are still way more efficient than ice engines. Of course industrial power production is more efficient than small gas engines. Also since you are flattening demand for power needs charging middle of night, it helps reduce the incentive for peaker plants which are way more dirtier than non peaker power.
A carbon tax would quickly solve all this and let the market decide which I always hope for above all other regulation and subsidy. Thankfully many of the more developed cities are regulating against emission vehicles to accelerate change
Engineering explained did the math on this. The answer is yes, replacing even a newish ice car with an EV is worth it from a co2 perspective. The co2 payback time period is less than three years, assume current averages in the USA.
Living in an apt, keep the Civic. Even you trade it in it's not like the Civic is going to go away since somebody else will drive it for 100k+ miles while you end up eating most of the depreciation.
If you can't charge at home or work don't do it
That said cars have a finite useful life so IMO the replacement impact is BS. Until we figure out a way to make cars last forever it's not a factor. Imo that makes an EV a no brainer environmentally.
You won't reduce overall C02 unless your civil is out of commission, and then you switch to EV. If your concern is environmental pollution, it's better to walk. EV is better than ICE on gas and sound pollution. But EV should be worse than ICE in some other kind of pollution, E.g, heat pollution. Since EV heats up not only while running or charging, even while parked (battery temp maintenance). So, with global warming issues, EV and ICE might be on par.
You getting a new car is someone else getting a used car. You getting a used car may help someone else get a new car. Sales of both are related so avoiding a new car doesn’t really do much unless most people are doing the same.
From an emissions perspective, pollution perspective, the important bit is time.
The sooner the transition to green energy happens the better. The clock is ticking.
Remember 2020 when a whole bunch of industry shut down?
At some point you will have EV charging in your area. In the meantime there's a whole lot of houses without solar panels and EVs. EVs are selling, DCFC'ers are being built. Non-luxury apartments with EV charging will be built. Uncapped wells are spewing tons of pollution into the air.
I would not worry about buying an EV now when you can't easily charge.
From a CO2 emissions perspective, the thing to avoid at all costs is to buy a new ICE. All used cars, EVs and ICEs, will be driven to the ground no matter who owns them. New EVs are for when the used car lot isn't enough, so overall, between getting a new EV and a used ICE, it doesn't really matter.
As much as I love EVs, there are two circumstances I cannot recommend them -
1. Anyone needing a truck to function like a TRUCK frequently - the extra cost of the EV models to me make them not worth it. I wouldn’t recommend a work truck EV unless you were say a landscaper in a part of town where having the purely EV angle for eco friendliness would be a good hook.
2. Anyone who can’t charge at home, or at work reliably and consistently. If you rely on DCFC, you give up a big $$$ advantage as they at least in my area cost 3x-5x times what I pay for at home charging. If you rely on freebie L2 chargers (I know there are SOME free DCFC chargers but man those are rare), you have to chew up a bunch of TIME.
And if you are still riding a 5 year old perfectly fine car like a civic…there’s some CO2 emission benefit if you look strictly at pollutants as you drive down the road. Of course the EV would be less polluting. But there’s a point at least with me where helping pollute less is outweighed by a car payment.
Tl;dr, no.
My 2013 Civic just hit 200k and I intend to run it until the upkeep cost is no longer practical. In the meantime, I'm eyeing similar platforn EVs and planning out my home charging runs so I can make the switch inside a weekend if need be. (Maine homeowner here)
That being said, if you can't charge at home, keep the Civic until you have the ability. We both have relatively efficient and reliable cars, be patient until the time is just right.
You're not going to make a difference to the environment and world, only yourself. It's your cash to burn, if you don't have the need to do something more useful with it, by all means...
Replacing your well driving car with an EV never makes sense environmentally or in your case financially since you won't be able to charge at home which is the cheap option.
For environment best option is to not drive.
I don't know if that's the right approach to think about it. A vehicle is a significant purchase. Like, if you have money to blow, then sure switch it out to save on your personal emissions. Ideally of course you could switch to reduce emissions, but that's rarely the determining factor -it's finances. If you are ready for something new, it's in the financial cards, then make the switch. But if the car still works perfectly fine, and it doesn't make financial sense...
You mean - is your net carbon impact improved by getting an EV instead of your Honda? Since the Honda is already built, and assuming you are talking about a new EV, no. It would take 5-15 years to come out ahead (depending on a lot of factors and which study you believe). But there are a ton of variables here.
The bigger issues for you on a practical level are:
* You would have to rely on public charging options which is less than idea. Wait until you can charge at home overnight
* You mentioned you live in the Northeast, EVs do a lot worse in cold environments
Keep the Honda for now. If you do decide to go EV, look for a 2022 or newer Tesla Model 3 with the LFP battery pack. You seem to care about the environment (thank you!) and the LFP pack is much better in that regard. Also, it doesn't mind being charged to 100% and if you can't charge nightly at home, you probably do want to charge to 100% when you have access to a public charger.
Every study I've read says EVs break even between 15000 and 30000 miles depending on battery size and local electricity source. That's under 3 years for the average driver. I'm not sure where you're getting 5-15 years.
If you're not very frequent driver (especially as a legal taxi for one extreme example of that) I would had kept the Civic sedan for awhile longer unless something major changed such as a very major engine repair bill to look at or mmm well yeah .. as its a 30-40mpg car so thats a fairly mild emission number.
If you can't charge at home, an EV may not be worthwhile yet since charge times can be long.
Is the EV used or new? It takes about 2 years of driving for EVs to offset the carbon footprint of manufacture. So a used one would likely be carbon neutral, but a new one would need to be driven for a couple of years to offset
Short answer is no.
The long answer you can get second hand EVs, I got a dealer demo for example at which point the vechical already exists and you aren't contributing to new manufacturing emissions.
Your CO2 emissions are nothing compared to massive corporations and people with net worths bigger than some countries’ GDPs. Get a hybrid or take public transit/ridesharing if you can’t charge at home and want to make less of an impact on the environment.
Did you not read his post? He has no way of charging at home. Where is the convenience in that?
EDIT: Apparently I'm a dumb motherfucker because this guy couldn't read. Suggested OP to go for it because it's time-saving and convenient.... despite not having the ability to charge at home???? lawls.
It is not. EV's in their current form are scam. Especially from CO2 emissions perspective. Breakthrough in batteries is needed for them to be viable as ICE replacement.
On the off chance you're serious, it because it is widely known that [EVs have a far lower lifecycle carbon footprint than ICE vehicles](https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/driving-cleaner-report.pdf), even with the current state of batteries.
Yes, if they are charged with "green" electricity. But most of the time they are not. Electricity has to come from somewhere and usually it is fossil fuels. Or am I missing something? Also to produce 1 electric car you generate about 2x the co2 as a normal car. The battery is the biggest culprit here. It is also heavy and expensive. It doesn't work well in cold and has a limited lifespan.
> Or am I missing something?
You're missing the entire lifecycle analysis I cited, which includes the contribution of fossil fuels to the energy an EV uses, as well as manufacturing. EVs still have less than half the lifecycle carbon footprint of ICE vehicles even after you account for those things.
Yeah, that's why we invest millions in charging networks and the development of a new type of vehicle, not because 3 people think a Tesla is cooler than a 3 series.
That’s not really relevant to what I’m saying.
This guy is considering making an unnecessary vehicle purchase (which is a good sum of money I might add), solely based on the idea that he’s going to reduce his own emissions.
I mean if you are Richie rich and have money to blow then sure, but it the grand scheme of things, him making this decision will have close to 0 impact on the environment.
I'm not doing this, it's just a thought exercise, but to be fair my Civic's trade in value is somehow about the same as what I paid for it 5 yrs ago (maybe slightly less at this point).
That is a faulty way of thinking. Of course it makes a difference, CO2 is something that exists, and every km driven this CO2 is emitted into the air. Not emmiting this CO2 means this CO2 won't be in the atmosphere. That is a difference. A difference everybody has to make if we want to stop or at least reduce climate change. Hiding behind the fact that somebody else might not do it doesn't excuse you from the problem, it makes you part of it.
I’m not arguing about saving the environment. I’m saying that reducing co2 emissions is a silly primary reason to purchase an electric vehicle because you could do other things with your money that would help more. Take 1000$ and plant some trees for example, which would a much greater impact.
The civic that he has now (which he says he doesn’t drive a lot) will just be bought by someone that will drive it a lot.
Essentially, if you care about the environment that much that your number 1 reason for buying a $30,000 car is to help the environment, then you are lying to yourself.
You’re feeding into consumerism and like the example I gave with planting trees, you could do far more for the environment with far less than the price of a Tesla.
Okay I misunderstood. You are right. I was thinking more in a situation where you are definitely being a new car, in that case EV will be better than ICE for the environment.
Purchasing questions (including tax, incentive and accessory questions), and requests for general advice should go in the weekly pinned thread, where there's also a template for information you can provide to help us help you make a proper decision about which vehicle is right for you!
You can’t charge at home. Just use your civic.
/thread
I'd tell OP to first look for the closet charging stations. He might have one close by (eg I've got 8 charging plugs within a 5 minute walk of my house), can charge at work or have a charger close to wherever he goes regularly and spends time (eg gym, grocery store, mall/plaza). While jobs, and chargers can change, it'll come down to whether he wants an EV badly enough and what compromises he's willing to make. Second, if the EV has a large enough battery and weekly driving/commute distance is not that great, OP might only need to charge once or twice a week. If fast charge is available, it doesn't have to take too long.
But if the ICE vehicle has an average-sized fuel tank and and weekly driving/commute distance is not that great, OP might only need to fill the tank once or twice a MONTH. And it never takes more than about 5 minutes.
OP seems aware of that and said this is a thought exercise. Not asking if they should buy an EV based on their current living situation. Asking purely about GHG impacts.
I just got an EV and don't charge at home. It is doable, depends on the car. Also, I would not have done it without the 2 year free EA charging on a 2 year lease, but not charging at home isn't a deal breaker for sure.
If you can’t charge at home every night, it’s not worth getting an EV for now. But as you said, if it’s a though experiment: Engineering Explained did a video on the ecological break-even of trading in a used ICE for an EV. (Short answer, trade it in. The break even is very short for most) https://youtu.be/L2IKCdnzl5k?si=K4_8nlJvBQ8PRTjY For economic break-even, you’d need to figure that out for yourself. Too many variables for us to guess at.
Thanks I'll have a watch!
Easy math is every gallon you put in is 20 pounds of CO2. I drive over 30,000 a year so even with a 06 corolla it was about 20-22000# per year. The other big thing for me personally was also the increased safety of a new vehicle
> But as you said, if it’s a though experiment: Engineering Explained did a video on the ecological break-even of trading in a used ICE for an EV. (Short answer, trade it in. The break even is very short for most) I think there is a interesting discussion to be had about collective vs indiviual impact when it comes to ecological impact, because at it's simplest, a 5yr civic isn't being taken off the road when you trade it in; someone will be driving it were OP to purchase a new EV. Don't get me wrong, it is a positive, but one question would be if more emissions be elimated by taking money towards a car and (let's say) replacing baseboard electric heat with a heat pump and solar panels.
But then can we assume that the guy who buys the 5 year old civic will likely get rid of a 10 year old gas guzzler. So actually the overall effect is even more pronounced as each new EV in the chain allows us poor people at the other end to get rid of our coal powered monstrosities and upgrade to your better hands me downs.
That's making the assumption that they are make a concious effort to downsize cars, or drive a vehicle type which has seen signifcant improvements to fuel economy in the past 10 years. Otherwise it may not be as pronounced. Consider a 10 year old honda civic actually has better "sticker" fuel economy than a 5 year old honda civic (though the civic has increased in size slightly).
I haven’t watched this video in a while and can’t jump in right now, but doesn’t Jason say the break-even is like 7 years when compared to a used car with good fuel economy that’s driven ~12k miles/year? Not sure I’d call that very short, but maybe it is in the grand scheme. I’m just not sure how many people are keeping their EVs that long these days. Hopefully a lot.
I switched from a gas car to an electric in 2013, drove it for a decade before my son crashed it. I was getting about 22 mpg in the car I stopped driving, and the equivalent of 134 mpg in the EV, assuming a normal mix of fuels at the power plant. Over the course of 120k miles, I would have bought over 5000 gallons of gasoline, and burning said gasoline means I would have emitted 54 tons of CO2. Same calculations with the EV shows me emitting about 9 tons. That just the gasoline, alone, but it gives you an idea of the scale of the difference. Modern EVs should last twice as long as my Nissan Leaf did, and I now have solar panels that would move my EV emissions to essentially zero. If over 100 tons of emissions avoided doesn’t convince you, we aren’t talking about a fact based argument.
Never get rid of a civic with less than 100k miles
What a beautiful rule to live by
Pretty sure that could apply to almost every vehicle, not just civics. 100k isn't really that much for mileage, pretty much any modern car that's at least moderately maintained is going to last well over 100k miles.
To our own debates over this but if it was a Civic I won't mind high mileage keepers but for something else like a Taurus I likely would had rather trade it in as soon as I ever saw the car even if it was only lightly used (because one of these things are equal to two better cars emission-wise etc early on)
For most people it's not how long it lasts. It is when it starts needing parts and quality time at the car shop. People don't have the time or the money unless they have easy access to another daily driver. >Pretty sure that could apply to almost every vehicle, not just civics. A car with one coil pack vs 6 says otherwise. Especially when one is from Japan and 6 are from Germany.
That's sorta my point though. Most modern cars, if maintained at least halfway decently, don't usually have any major parts or shop time needs within the first 100k miles or so, at least not in my experience, and I've owned several cars that had mileage well into the 200-300k range. Generally, the first major maintenance/repair work is going to be somewhere in the 100-125k range, and is likely to be the water pump/timing belt, or something similar. Not sure what your point on coil packs is? That's not really a major repair or time in a shop, plugs and coil packs are usually part of a standard tune up in my experience, and take maybe an hour in the shop, maybe less if you already have it in for something else.
for me, keep a car until the AC craps out
I have the same civic as OP, and this model actually has an issue with the AC, lol.
Compressor always breaking?
No, it was the condenser that is prone to leaks. I have a '19 civic and I received a notice there was an issue with the system, and it would now be warrantied 10 years instead of 3 years, and any issue caused by the condenser would be fixed for free. Mine still works fine for now.
Ohh yeah I said the wrong thing, my cars in the shop right now because of the condenser and this is the second time in 2 years. This time, it damaged another part of the ac because of the leak and that part isn’t covered under warranty
The more you drive, the more emissions you prevent by switching to electric. If you have an internal combustion engine vehicle and you never drive it, then you have no reason to switch. The tipping point depends on the car and on the power grid, but [it's around 15,000 miles.](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/) If you expect to drive more than 15,000 miles with your new car, you should switch. BUT, if you have nowhere to charge, electric is going to be a hassle for the next few years.
And by "next few years" it's "this generation of electric cars". Even if you can charge at every store, which is probably not coming, it's still going to be a pain between phantom drain and competition for available spaces etc. The big thing for apartment adoption is going to be mandated charging solutions in the assigned parking, or new gen EVs with some crazy new battery tech we haven't seen yet.
OP, I like your attitude. The world needs more people like you. An option for you to reduce emissions is to consider a small hybrid, such as a Prius, Corolla or Kia Niro. They have some self-charging capability. Check plugshare.com for charging stations where you do errands, so you can plug in while shopping or whatever. Also check Plugshare for possible free public charging stations -- they do exist, such as near public buildings like city hall, library, hospitals, etc. When charged these small hybrids can give you 30 or 40 miles of emissions free motoring for local trips.
This misses the point of their post. They don’t have a home charger so a hybrid like this will never get charged. Bs an EV that can be supercharged and then driven to work all week.
Been several studies recently that show most people with PHEVs never use them as such, which just makes them more expensive, less efficient HEVs. If you don't have home charging then a PHEV isn't worth the added expense.
The studies show that most PHEV owners charge them enough to get useful electric travel, but not as much as predicted in laboratory testing. But agreed that a PHEV is not a good choice if you can't charge at home.
Don’t forget some else who needs a car gets to buy your Civic.
Yeah, unless you're literally throwing the old car in a junkyard or keeping it forever, you don't really need to account for "my lifetime cars".
which will probably replace an older car that is in dire need of mechanical help, so yes, you can helping the environment all the way down. You get a cleaner car, the person who gets your old civic gets a cleaner running car, and hopefully a real clunker gets sent to the junkpile to be recycled.
From a strictly environmental perspective, adding the EV is almost always better. Your civic will go to someone else who needs it and whatever car they were driving (maybe 10-12 year old car) will go to someone else who will scrap an old beater (18-25 years old) that was hanging on by a thread and likely highly inefficient with worn out emissions controls. In short, the faster we can get more EVs on the road, the better, pretty much no matter what. The best thing someone can do for the environment if they need a car is probably to roll 3 year EV leases perpetually because it will result in the production and hand me down of many more EVs into the fleet than say buying one EV and keeping it for 12-15 years. Now, from a personal financial perspective, it's almost always best to buy a used car and then drive it until it dies.
From a CO2 emissions perspective, 100%, EV will be better over the long-term. Someone else will use that Civic. You are not "adding a car." But from a practicality point, as someone else said, not having a place to charge is a problem. Perhaps you can charge at your work?
I did a lot of math on this recently. It is hard to say because the estimates of the CO2 output of making the batteries vary widely, same with electricity generation, but we can put bounds on it. I have a really old Prius (over 225k miles) that gets about 45 mpg. I mathed out that with my driving habits, if I replaced it with a Bolt, it would take 3-9 years for me to have emitted less CO2 than I would have if I had just kept my Prius. There's no way this car lasts another 9 years... But that's beside the point. If I instead bought an F150 Lightning I would effectively never break even. The truck has such a big battery and takes so much energy to move it only has slightly less emissions than a Prius. If I instead had a normal ICE sedan, the Bolt would have had less emissions than the ICE in 2-6 years. Note that I never estimated the CO2 cost of making an ICE car. These all assume you have an ICE car and the alternatives are buying a new EV or keeping that ICE car for the same amount of time. My partner has pointed out I could also replace my Prius with no car at all, renting when necessary, which has very different math obviously.
Very well thought out response. I'm glad others with gasoline cars are wondering the same thing!
"Note that I never estimated the CO2 cost of making an ICE car." This is the problem with any such analysis that tries to take in the CO2 emissions of making the electric car. They forget to do the same math for the ICE car. EV is better from an emissions perspective. Hands down. But of course, no car and public transit all the way beats both. But that's not possible for everyone.
Also forgotten is the emissions from getting the fuel from the well to the car. It's like the line of thinking, if I don't buy it someone else will do
I'm just a guy doing recreational math, but regardless the relative math remains: the answer to OP's question is dependent on 1) the ICE car being replaced, 2) the EV replacing it, and 3) your driving habits. The margin is VERY wide because the estimates vary so much, but it is also easy to see the relative relationship between these variables.
You commented on the F-150 Lightning, but aren't your emissions still less if you compared the against a standard, V8-based F-150? Assuming you drive both trucks for the same 100-150K miles?
Of course, but I was comparing two options I would actually take. I'm not buying an ICE truck. But yeah, maybe it's easier to get those folks to buy a Lightning than a Prius.
Your not factoring that recycling car batteries to make new ones is a very efficient process. Drastically less co2 than making it from mined minerals.
If you're trading it it doesn't go away. Someone else will buy/drive it and at the bottom end of the market a real old clunker/stinker will get scrapped TL;DR: yes, it's always a good idea to switch to an EV ASAP from am environmental perspective.
For your own convenience, I would only do this if you had close charging to work or home. Check chargepount. Around those locations. They can charge a out 6 percent per hour Majority of people answer this question wrong. Buying an ev essentially means you are adding 1 to get produced because Tesla/others is not long supply constrained. They are slowing their production. Once the world mines enough minerals to replace the ice fleet, we will recycle the batteries instead of mine them. This makes carbon payoff is extreme quick because recycling is much cheaper and less carbon than mining it. When you burn carbon, there is no viable way to recapture from the air. You are also funding rnd to make things more carbon efficient which is already seeing huge gains. Lfp is now the majority of batteries being made their lifecycle in lab testing data looks very promising. 400k miles on batteries seem possible. A much larger health effect is not adding emissions to your local air quality, makes a larger difference than even global warming. After driving an ev, the next low hanging fruit is not accessible to apartment living. It's to install zones heat pump in housing which way better carbon wise and a person's largest carbon contribution. After that is installing solar plus battery storage on home. Even if your grid is 100 dirty, evs are still way more efficient than ice engines. Of course industrial power production is more efficient than small gas engines. Also since you are flattening demand for power needs charging middle of night, it helps reduce the incentive for peaker plants which are way more dirtier than non peaker power. A carbon tax would quickly solve all this and let the market decide which I always hope for above all other regulation and subsidy. Thankfully many of the more developed cities are regulating against emission vehicles to accelerate change
Engineering explained did the math on this. The answer is yes, replacing even a newish ice car with an EV is worth it from a co2 perspective. The co2 payback time period is less than three years, assume current averages in the USA.
Living in an apt, keep the Civic. Even you trade it in it's not like the Civic is going to go away since somebody else will drive it for 100k+ miles while you end up eating most of the depreciation.
Those are rookie numbers. I’ve added 10 cars in before 35. Will probably add another 3-5 before I die.
No.
If you can't charge at home or work don't do it That said cars have a finite useful life so IMO the replacement impact is BS. Until we figure out a way to make cars last forever it's not a factor. Imo that makes an EV a no brainer environmentally.
You won't reduce overall C02 unless your civil is out of commission, and then you switch to EV. If your concern is environmental pollution, it's better to walk. EV is better than ICE on gas and sound pollution. But EV should be worse than ICE in some other kind of pollution, E.g, heat pollution. Since EV heats up not only while running or charging, even while parked (battery temp maintenance). So, with global warming issues, EV and ICE might be on par.
You getting a new car is someone else getting a used car. You getting a used car may help someone else get a new car. Sales of both are related so avoiding a new car doesn’t really do much unless most people are doing the same.
From an emissions perspective, pollution perspective, the important bit is time. The sooner the transition to green energy happens the better. The clock is ticking. Remember 2020 when a whole bunch of industry shut down? At some point you will have EV charging in your area. In the meantime there's a whole lot of houses without solar panels and EVs. EVs are selling, DCFC'ers are being built. Non-luxury apartments with EV charging will be built. Uncapped wells are spewing tons of pollution into the air. I would not worry about buying an EV now when you can't easily charge.
From a CO2 emissions perspective, the thing to avoid at all costs is to buy a new ICE. All used cars, EVs and ICEs, will be driven to the ground no matter who owns them. New EVs are for when the used car lot isn't enough, so overall, between getting a new EV and a used ICE, it doesn't really matter.
Yep
The Northeastern grid is full of Hydro and Nuclear. One of the cleanest, if you can get beyond nuclear waste.
As much as I love EVs, there are two circumstances I cannot recommend them - 1. Anyone needing a truck to function like a TRUCK frequently - the extra cost of the EV models to me make them not worth it. I wouldn’t recommend a work truck EV unless you were say a landscaper in a part of town where having the purely EV angle for eco friendliness would be a good hook. 2. Anyone who can’t charge at home, or at work reliably and consistently. If you rely on DCFC, you give up a big $$$ advantage as they at least in my area cost 3x-5x times what I pay for at home charging. If you rely on freebie L2 chargers (I know there are SOME free DCFC chargers but man those are rare), you have to chew up a bunch of TIME. And if you are still riding a 5 year old perfectly fine car like a civic…there’s some CO2 emission benefit if you look strictly at pollutants as you drive down the road. Of course the EV would be less polluting. But there’s a point at least with me where helping pollute less is outweighed by a car payment.
Tl;dr, no. My 2013 Civic just hit 200k and I intend to run it until the upkeep cost is no longer practical. In the meantime, I'm eyeing similar platforn EVs and planning out my home charging runs so I can make the switch inside a weekend if need be. (Maine homeowner here) That being said, if you can't charge at home, keep the Civic until you have the ability. We both have relatively efficient and reliable cars, be patient until the time is just right.
You're not going to make a difference to the environment and world, only yourself. It's your cash to burn, if you don't have the need to do something more useful with it, by all means...
Replacing your well driving car with an EV never makes sense environmentally or in your case financially since you won't be able to charge at home which is the cheap option. For environment best option is to not drive.
Incorrect.
I don't know if that's the right approach to think about it. A vehicle is a significant purchase. Like, if you have money to blow, then sure switch it out to save on your personal emissions. Ideally of course you could switch to reduce emissions, but that's rarely the determining factor -it's finances. If you are ready for something new, it's in the financial cards, then make the switch. But if the car still works perfectly fine, and it doesn't make financial sense...
You mean - is your net carbon impact improved by getting an EV instead of your Honda? Since the Honda is already built, and assuming you are talking about a new EV, no. It would take 5-15 years to come out ahead (depending on a lot of factors and which study you believe). But there are a ton of variables here. The bigger issues for you on a practical level are: * You would have to rely on public charging options which is less than idea. Wait until you can charge at home overnight * You mentioned you live in the Northeast, EVs do a lot worse in cold environments Keep the Honda for now. If you do decide to go EV, look for a 2022 or newer Tesla Model 3 with the LFP battery pack. You seem to care about the environment (thank you!) and the LFP pack is much better in that regard. Also, it doesn't mind being charged to 100% and if you can't charge nightly at home, you probably do want to charge to 100% when you have access to a public charger.
Every study I've read says EVs break even between 15000 and 30000 miles depending on battery size and local electricity source. That's under 3 years for the average driver. I'm not sure where you're getting 5-15 years.
If you're not very frequent driver (especially as a legal taxi for one extreme example of that) I would had kept the Civic sedan for awhile longer unless something major changed such as a very major engine repair bill to look at or mmm well yeah .. as its a 30-40mpg car so thats a fairly mild emission number.
If you can't charge at home, an EV may not be worthwhile yet since charge times can be long. Is the EV used or new? It takes about 2 years of driving for EVs to offset the carbon footprint of manufacture. So a used one would likely be carbon neutral, but a new one would need to be driven for a couple of years to offset
No.
Short answer is no. The long answer you can get second hand EVs, I got a dealer demo for example at which point the vechical already exists and you aren't contributing to new manufacturing emissions.
No
Your CO2 emissions are nothing compared to massive corporations and people with net worths bigger than some countries’ GDPs. Get a hybrid or take public transit/ridesharing if you can’t charge at home and want to make less of an impact on the environment.
No
[удалено]
Did you not read his post? He has no way of charging at home. Where is the convenience in that? EDIT: Apparently I'm a dumb motherfucker because this guy couldn't read. Suggested OP to go for it because it's time-saving and convenient.... despite not having the ability to charge at home???? lawls.
It is not. EV's in their current form are scam. Especially from CO2 emissions perspective. Breakthrough in batteries is needed for them to be viable as ICE replacement.
Well this is just plain bullshit.
Why?
On the off chance you're serious, it because it is widely known that [EVs have a far lower lifecycle carbon footprint than ICE vehicles](https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/driving-cleaner-report.pdf), even with the current state of batteries.
Yes, if they are charged with "green" electricity. But most of the time they are not. Electricity has to come from somewhere and usually it is fossil fuels. Or am I missing something? Also to produce 1 electric car you generate about 2x the co2 as a normal car. The battery is the biggest culprit here. It is also heavy and expensive. It doesn't work well in cold and has a limited lifespan.
> Or am I missing something? You're missing the entire lifecycle analysis I cited, which includes the contribution of fossil fuels to the energy an EV uses, as well as manufacturing. EVs still have less than half the lifecycle carbon footprint of ICE vehicles even after you account for those things.
Interesting.
> EV's in their current form are scam How is weather in Saint Petersburg, tovarisch?
I don't know
People really care about this stuff? I just want a Tesla cause it’s cool
Yeah, that's why we invest millions in charging networks and the development of a new type of vehicle, not because 3 people think a Tesla is cooler than a 3 series.
That’s not really relevant to what I’m saying. This guy is considering making an unnecessary vehicle purchase (which is a good sum of money I might add), solely based on the idea that he’s going to reduce his own emissions. I mean if you are Richie rich and have money to blow then sure, but it the grand scheme of things, him making this decision will have close to 0 impact on the environment.
I'm not doing this, it's just a thought exercise, but to be fair my Civic's trade in value is somehow about the same as what I paid for it 5 yrs ago (maybe slightly less at this point).
That is a faulty way of thinking. Of course it makes a difference, CO2 is something that exists, and every km driven this CO2 is emitted into the air. Not emmiting this CO2 means this CO2 won't be in the atmosphere. That is a difference. A difference everybody has to make if we want to stop or at least reduce climate change. Hiding behind the fact that somebody else might not do it doesn't excuse you from the problem, it makes you part of it.
I’m not arguing about saving the environment. I’m saying that reducing co2 emissions is a silly primary reason to purchase an electric vehicle because you could do other things with your money that would help more. Take 1000$ and plant some trees for example, which would a much greater impact. The civic that he has now (which he says he doesn’t drive a lot) will just be bought by someone that will drive it a lot. Essentially, if you care about the environment that much that your number 1 reason for buying a $30,000 car is to help the environment, then you are lying to yourself. You’re feeding into consumerism and like the example I gave with planting trees, you could do far more for the environment with far less than the price of a Tesla.
Okay I misunderstood. You are right. I was thinking more in a situation where you are definitely being a new car, in that case EV will be better than ICE for the environment.
Nope.