The downsides of buying and owning an EV...a fully electric vehicle OR even a hybrid

Okay, so I want to ask you a question, and I want an honest answer.

Why do you think that the powers it be, when I'm talking powers, I mean federal primarily,

but also the media machine, why do you think they push EVs so hard, electric vehicles?

Now, in the real automotive world, not some of the media stuff, but the real world, where

the rubber meets the road at the new car dealership and the things are being sold, or attempting

to sell them, EV sales are pretty much dead in the water.

Now, if you listen to the media, you hear that EV sales have exploded in the last,

I don't know, 60, 90 days.

There's a reason for that.

The dealers couldn't sell them, so they were stacking up on their lots, then the Trump

administration comes in and says, no more EV tax credits, they're going away September

30th.

So everybody that had delayed to buy an EV went in to get them one before the tax

credit expires, $7,500, that's a lot of money.

It's a rebate paid by taxpayers.

So those of us who could care less about driving an EV are paying for those who want to drive

an EV, and that just didn't sit well with me.

Now, I sell EVs.

We have the Ford Lightning, which is an F-150, an all-electric F-150, it's amazing.

They are amazing, but there are downsides, and that's what we're going to talk about

today.

Here are you the real reasons why EV adoption went down the tubes, why it failed, why they

had to come up with a $7,500 incentive paid by the taxpayers to get people to buy the

things, and, you know, is it really getting any better?

Because I don't think it's going to get better.

I think that the reasons to not buy one are way more persuasive than the argument to buy

one.

As I said on this show many times, you're nuts if you buy an EV.

If you're going to get one, you better lease it because you don't want to be stuck with

that thing at the end of 36, 48 months, whatever the lease is.

You know, if you buy one, you finance it for 84 months.

Who knows what the status of the battery will be?

You know, as far as the value of it is concerned, even a year after you buy it, I mean, you're

going to be so far upside down if you finance it for a long term and don't pay much down

that, you know, you're stuck.

The only way out is bankruptcy.

Okay, off the tirade, we'll talk about those reasons for the failure of the

EV push here in just a minute, but on a brighter note.

So I have a 1965, sorry, I have a 1966 Mustang Fastback in my showroom here at Gateway Ford.

It's beautiful, completely restored to a very high level.

And just something moved me this morning when I came to work, I said, you know, I'm

going to pull out all that paperwork on that thing again and just kind of go through

it.

I like to do that occasionally on some of these old cars and just grab a history

book or something from my past, it just, it's a good way for me to start my day.

So I came into the dealership, I went to the closet where I keep all this stuff, pulled

the box out, pulled a notebook out that had all the information about that car.

It was sold new in 1966, it was ordered from a dealership called Bishop Hansel Ford.

Now that dealership still exists in Santa Rosa, California.

It's called Hansel, H-A-N-S-E-L Ford now, but the same family owns the dealership.

And so I went to my computer, I Googled it and there they are.

And I saw a phone number and I said, okay, it's like 730 or 7 o'clock in California, I

want to wait until it's 8 o'clock in California and then I'm going to call them.

And I was looking through the paperwork and I've got the original window sticker, $3,601.

And let's see what else, the bill of sale.

The guy was 24 years old, he went to that dealership, ordered the vehicle, it was built on the,

on the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, south of San Francisco in a place called

San Jose, California.

Ford Mustangs were built in one of three places in Dearborn, Michigan, San Jose, California

or in New Jersey.

So this car was built in San Jose, so it didn't have very far to go.

It traveled up the peninsula there, went through San Francisco, traveled across the

Golden Gate Bridge, went up another 20 miles or so to Santa Rosa, California where

an excited 24-year-old young man picked up his K-Code Mustang, four-speed manual.

He kept that car, folks, until he was in his 70s.

He used it every day, that was his daily driver, I talked to his best friend who ended

up with the car and he said, Lenny, that car used to have a trailer hitch on it.

Imagine that, a 66 Mustang fastback with a trailer hitch pulling a utility trailer.

This young man was a general contractor throughout his whole life and his friend said, Lenny,

I remember seeing the car without the trailer on it, the trunk up and the whole back end

full of tubal force just going down the road and this would be in the 80s or the 90s when

he would see this.

And folks, this car is not easy to drive, manual transmission, heavy clutch, no power

steering and no air conditioning, but it's pretty and it was his and he loved it and it

became a valued friend to him, obviously.

He lived on a boat, folks, yeah, in Sausalito, California, just right on the other side

of the Golden Gate Bridge, he had a little sailboat and that's what he lived on and

the car sat in a parking lot there at the marina and then he would go out and remodel

people's bathrooms.

I mean, that's just what he did.

So he got sick, sold the car to his friend, his friend was going to restore it.

This guy was a Pebble Beach judge and a Pebble Beach restorer, so I mean, this guy was

highly qualified, he used to restore Packards and really expensive cars from the 30s and

he was going to restore this car, but he just, he just ran out of time and he was getting

older and he just decided not to.

So he sold it to somebody in the middle part of this country, I can't remember exactly

where it went next, but whoever he sold it to, they restored it to a very high level.

You know, obviously they were trying to win some type of competition because it even

has the markings that they would put on it from the factory when it was shipped

to the dealer.

It was like the thing just was unloaded off the truck and that's the level that it was

restored to.

Somehow it ends up in the inventory of a used car dealer and basically an online used car

dealer, he operates out of a warehouse and it was listed on this website that I use

all the time called bringitrailer.com.

That's where I saw it and I was tracking it, it's a seven day auction and I was

tracking it just to see what was going to happen to it and somebody made some kind of

a negative comment about a dent that it had on one of the, when it's a unibody vehicle

but it has these frame supports, these body supports.

And there was a little dent in one of those supports and somebody made a comment, well

you know if they restore the whole car, why didn't they fix that dent?

Well the bidding just stopped.

It was like they just slammed on the brakes and it was way too cheap so I started bidding

and it was just me and this other guy and then he jumped off and I ended up with a great

buy in that car and now it's on my showroom floor and it's probably worth $30,000 maybe

even more than that, more than I paid for it and I feel good about that.

But I wanted to share it with somebody from that dealership in California so I called

and some young fellow answered the phone and I told him who I was and that I was a Ford

dealer and he said, oh so you're a Ford dealer?

You own a dealership?

I said yes I do and I said I'd love for you to get in touch with Mr. Hansel and give

him the information about this car.

I'm not trying to sell it to him because I really don't want to sell it but I think

he needs to know that it exists and I'll send him all the paperwork and you know

it has signatures from people that were working at the dealership back in the 60s.

I just thought it would be cool and he said, I agree with you, please email all

that information as much as you can to me and I will make sure that he sees it.

So I'm just kind of waiting, I'm excited to see if they do respond.

Okay I'm going to take my first break, I'll be back in just one minute.

Okay so what's going on with EVs?

Why are, well basically what are the downsides of electric vehicles because

that is what's driving down sales and I mean so we have this surge,

it's an artificial surge and they're going to fall off the face of a cliff after that.

This dealership that I was talking about, Hansel Ford,

I was just looking at his inventory in California right now.

He's got 37 Mach-E's in stock, I mean that's a you know for

a pretty good sized dealer in the eastern part of the, well it's the

heartland of America, that's probably a five year supply of Mach-E's.

You know I'm glad I don't have one in stock because I don't know who I'd sell it to.

I better sell it before, well if I had one, it'd have to go before September 30th

because after that it would probably become a permanent member of my family

or my car collection, an unwelcome one at that.

So the downsides of EVs, this is why selling EVs is a problem.

Number one, limited driving range.

You know when I fill up my F-150 it says that I can go about 670 miles

before I need to fill up again.

Most EVs, you know if they reach 300 miles it's a miracle.

So people have range anxiety even though EV ranges are improving

and they have improved a lot.

When the Nissan Leaf first came out, the first commercially viable EV on the market

was called the Nissan Leaf, LEAF.

The range was 75 miles.

The new Leaf that's coming out this year will have a range of about 300 to 315 miles

which you know, good for them, that's a great improvement.

But they can still travel fewer miles than an internal combustion engine can.

And plus, charging.

Fast chargers can replenish 80% of a battery in somewhere around 30 to 60 minutes.

But home level 2 charging, which you have to get set up at your house,

takes about 8 to 12 hours to charge one, which isn't a problem.

If you drove it all week, you come home, you park it in your garage,

you plug it in, you know, by that evening it'll probably have a full charger the next day

and then maybe you can drive the next full week if you don't drive more than 300 miles.

So is that the way you want to live where you can't make it to the beach

and you're driving along and you get off of an exit and you've got 15 miles of range left

and you can't find a charger anywhere or the one that you pull up to doesn't work.

This has been a problem.

Another reason or another downside is battery degradation, replacement cost.

So over time lithium ion batteries lose capacity over time, reducing range and performance especially

when it's hot or when it's very cold.

And then it is expensive, folks.

We had to replace a battery in a Ford Transit EV.

That's the big van, big commercial van.

The retail price on that battery was $29,000.

Now granted, if you buy a gasoline engine vehicle and the engine goes bad after 150,000, 200,000 miles,

I mean what's that going to cost?

It's not going to be cheap.

It's a diesel engine that could approach $20,000 total.

But you know, most gas engines you can replace for anywhere from $7,500 to $10,000.

Still a lot of money.

But most people don't do that because they just, they don't wear out.

You know, you don't have to replace them.

Most people trade before them.

But we don't know what EVs are going to do and that secondary market is just not good

because the people in the use car market, they don't want to buy a car

and they don't have to risk putting a $20,000 battery in something.

It just doesn't make sense.

Okay, another reason, charging infrastructure limitations.

You know, you have limited driving range.

It takes a while to charge.

And then if you live in a rural America, you can't find chargers.

Now they just put some men over here at a restaurant next to us on the front of the chargers.

They are level three chargers and they're the fast chargers,

which you're not supposed to use except occasionally if you own an EV

because it can damage the battery over time.

But you know, we've got those chargers here,

but they're the only level three chargers in a town of 16,000 people.

A county of 65, 70,000 people.

There's probably more in Johnson City or Knoxville and different places like that.

But again, you don't know where they are and you don't know if they're going to work.

Now Tesla has a pretty substantial network,

which most manufacturers are allowed to use now.

Tesla has opened the door for Ford and Chevrolet and Honda

and all the different manufacturers to be able to charge using their network.

But what does that cost?

Well, it costs almost as much, about 75% as much on a fast charger

to get a full charge as it does to fill up your tank with gas.

Unless you have a really big gas tank.

I mean, what's the point?

And if you do happen to run into a situation where your EV won't hook up to that particular charger,

those kind of compatibility issues are, well, they can be frightening,

especially if you're about to run out of juice.

And there's no way to rescue you.

I mean, most record companies won't come and pick you up.

Your car won't budge.

You can drag it up onto the rollback and once they do get it to a service department somewhere,

it could be after hours, they're closed, their chargers are turned off.

You just don't know what you're going to run into in those types of situations.

Now the big argument on the left was, well, we don't want to damage our environment any more than it already is.

We've got to reduce global warming.

When you consider that EV batteries require lithium, cobalt, nickel,

and they all involve environmentally damaging mining, and there's a lot of geopolitical concerns.

I mean, right now, we have a pretty good supply of rare earth minerals in our country.

We just don't have the companies to process them. China does.

And China is restricting the flow of those materials to the United States now because of the trade wars,

probably for other reasons other than that.

But there's a tremendous amount of damage done to the environment through mining.

And these EVs require those rare earths to be able to manufacture them.

And then most of the electricity is powered by coal or natural gas,

so the carbon footprint of an EV may not be as clean as advertised.

So those arguments fall flat for most people.

And as I mentioned earlier, higher upfront costs because of the loss of the $7,500 tax credit and depreciation.

You know, sticker price EVs cost more than comparable gas vehicles despite some of the tax credits and incentives.

And you know, I'm just curious how banks and credit unions look at financing EVs,

especially if somebody's going into it with no money down,

because if they fail to make the payments and the vehicle ends up getting repossessed,

where the bank is going to lose a bunch of money when they take it to the auction,

of course they can turn around and sue the people for defaulting on the loan,

but there's no guarantee that they'll be able to pay it.

They may just file bankruptcy and it's all over with.

But I think the biggest single risk to you as a consumer if you buy an EV is going to be depreciation risk.

So that could be caused by a number of different things.

Rapid improvements in the technology of batteries could make your battery and your vehicle obsolete.

If they figure out ways to make the range better on the newer models coming out,

then again, you're obsolete and there's no market for your vehicle.

And if the new EVs offer a whole combination of things, including faster charging,

then that makes matters even worse for your resale value.

So to me, that's the biggest risk that EV owners face.

That's why you need to lease it if you're going to get one at all.

Okay, I'm going to take my last break. I'll be back in just one minute.

What about hybrids, Lenny?

Well, hybrids are fine.

I mean, still, there's a lot of tech.

There's a lot of extra weight on that vehicle.

Do they get better gas mileage?

Yes, they do.

But how much extra do you have to pay to get a hybrid?

Just go to a Toyota dealership.

Tell them you want a hybrid.

Watch what you have to pay for it.

SRP plus whatever add-ons that they have onto the window sticker.

Well, you've got to buy this package.

Well, what's that package?

Well, if you want the car, you've got to buy the package.

Well, that's not fair.

Well, no, it's not fair, but that's the way it is.

Well, what if I buy one of those without a hybrid?

We'll discount the whiz out of them and you get a rebate as well.

What's the price difference, folks?

Are you really buying it to save money?

Because you can save money on the front end.

You can save money now instead of saving money over the next few years with gasoline savings.

Think about it.

It makes no sense to go hybrid.

Plus you have a whole lot more complexity in your vehicle.

And that vehicle runs out of warranty and you've got to replace the hybrid motor.

You've got to replace the battery.

There's a whole lot more expense there that you're going to have to worry about.

If you have a problem, now, if you're under warranty for an extended period of time

or you buy a service contract that will protect you for an extended period of time,

then that's part of the equation, but the rest is how much extra you have in the bank.

Now you're having to buy a much more expensive extended service protection.

You're paying more for the car.

You're $5,000 to $8,000 more for this hybrid experience.

Then you would have been if you bought just a gasoline engine.

And you could use that extra money to buy a timeshare.

Do people still buy those?

I don't know.

I hear all these commercials of all these companies that will help you get out of your timeshare.

It makes me not want to get into one.

Maybe you should think about not getting into an EV or a hybrid.

Just something to think about.

Thanks for listening to this edition of My Car Guru.

Don't forget the My Car Guru guidebook is available to you that will save you literally thousands of dollars

if you take the advice to heart and you use the strategies that I offer

when you go in to buy a car or you go in to get automotive service

or you go to a body shop to deal with an accident and get that repaired.

I mean, there's just so many ways to get taken advantage of

and if you follow just my negotiation strategy, it's so easy.

Just read it and do it.

And you will save thousands of dollars on the purchase of a new vehicle.

Just send me your email address to 552, sorry, my cell phone, 423-552-2020.

I'll send you the guidebook for free.

If you don't have a cell phone, then just have somebody send me your address

or you can send me your address and I'll print it out and I'll mail it to you.

How's that for a deal?

Well, thanks for listening to this edition of My Car Guru and I'll see you next time.

The downsides of buying and owning an EV...a fully electric vehicle OR even a hybrid

Ford F-150 Lightning

Ford Mustang

Nissan Leaf

Dodge Charger

Ford Transit

About this episode

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