My gf wants me to spend $40k on an electric car

[paulkienitz]

...tomorrow.

~~ UPDATE: we bought the car and then returned it. See comment 33.

This seems like a big hurry, but we've done enough research to verify that the car in question — a base-trim Ford Mach E — is clearly the best fit for us of the available models, and Ford seems to be doing well at getting on top of issues as they arise. I had been thinking about shopping for a used hybrid or something, and this is way more than I was imagining I would spend, but she is very particular about safety issues and would rule out 90% of other cars.

The thing is, there's nothing wrong with our old car — or rather, nothing wrong that wasn't wrong with it and its siblings as they left the factory. At 110k miles it doesn't look as nice as it once did but everything basically works like new. We (especially her) are just very tired of the discomfort of the old car — the harsh ride, the tight doorways, the struggles with visibility, the harsh ride, the limited practicality, the small back seats, and especially the harsh ride. These things were okay when we weren't senior citizens, but we are now, and she has a bum neck that hates speedbumps. The Mach E is certainly no land yacht, but it's heaven next to a decade old Mazda 3.

We do really like the car and it will clearly improve our quality of life, but suddenly being asked to cough up that much cash is a shock... and environmentally it'll probably take quite a while to come out ahead of the Mazda, which on road trips can actually get the rated 40 mpg.

Our plan, basically, is to see if we can make this Mach E last twenty years. Since they switched to LiFePO batteries, it's apparently possible for a dealer to pull out individual bad cells without replacing the whole pack, so maybe that's doable without an aging battery totalling the car.

My best friend is very doubtful of rushing into this. I just hope I'm not doing something kind of foolish in a cloud of blind infatuation, seduced by plush seat cushions. What do you think?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I think your gf is right on!

But I may be biased. Almost 2 years ago, my husband bought me an electric Audi. It did cost more than the car you're looking at, but that's not the point.

I'd been driving a hybrid Toyota Camry for 17 years and it was wearing out. Plus no camera for when I was backing up. Plus the high price of gas and smog checks.

I was more than ready for my Audi!

So I'm avoiding the high gas prices, the smog checks, the oil changes and so on. My understanding is that the car will pay for itself in about 2 years, but I'm not sure.

Best of luck! Remember that the fewer the number of gas-burning cars on the road, the better your air quality will be.

[Ms. Toad]

2. I just bought a 12 year old hybrid (Prius)

for $11,000. It is very comfortable and is getting an average 50+ mpg. It has around 50,000 miles on it. If it lasts as long as the one it is replacing, it will keep me going until I am close to 90

(I bought the Honda Insight it is replacing in 2008 (IIRC) for $19,000 with 40,000 miles on it. It was still getting around 47 mpg when I donated it to Goodwill at 265,000 miles because it couldn't pass e-check without about a $1,000 investment. They were able to sell it for $1300.)

You won't find me spending $40,000 on a car. It was hard enough for me to spend $19,000 seventeen years ago.

[CentralMass]

4. ☝️

[paulkienitz]

10. I'm thinking $19000 17 years ago isn't that much less than $40000 now.

[Ms. Toad]

16. It's around $28,550 in today's dollars. n/t

[paulkienitz]

20. Inflation calculators always underestimate

because they go largely by consumer goods, which keep getting cheaper. Things like housing or hospital stays or college educations or infrastructure projects give you a hint of how much more inflation is hidden under the official numbers.

The official rate is probably pretty good for tracking car price changes... but less good when comparing car prices to the incomes of people buying them.

[Ms. Toad]

25. Well, my income in 2008

was about 4 times what it is today.

[Doodley]

3. Hard to comment, not knowing your financial situation, cashflow or if you own your own place. My wife and I share a

Lexus at 120k miles. It's 14 years old, and apart from a new battery and brake replacement, it is reliable transport, even with a few dents and scratches! I have no intention of changing it! My quality of life would be better with 40k of vacations.

[LittleGirl]

5. Listen to her!

We are going to buy a Ford EV model that you’re looking at. We have owned Prius for 20 years, but with the tariffs and needing a SUV, we picked that model. We rented one last year for a month and fell in love. The huge screen was great when we’re navigating a new city. Unfortunately, we can’t get one for a few months so good luck!

[paulkienitz]

14. They told us factory orders take three months currently.

My brother is a two or three time Prius owner. One time his ex was coming to visit us and her Prius stranded her when its battery decided to sit in a corner and pout. It gave her no warning at all. I'm hoping that today's apps and monitoring are good enough that we should be able to svoid abrupt surprises like that. Since Furd switched to LiFePO chemistry they should be less fragile than before, and the only consumer complaints we've found about this kind of trouble were with the old batteries.

[LittleGirl]

17. it wasn't the rechargeable batteries was it?

just the battery that runs the lights etc, right? We've had a couple of Prius drain our battery when the latch to the hatch didn't close and the inside light ran the battery down. We don't drive everyday so didn't notice the light in the garage. We've had to replace the batteries a couple of times because of that. The Prius we're driving right now is a borrowed car from in-laws but we will get the Ford one this fall that's on the car lot.

My spouse is a researcher and we were going to get another Prius but the tariffs turned us off the price. He bought the first Prius and I had to read the manual before I could drive it comfortably but loved it. We are getting solar panels on the house this summer so that's why we are looking at an EV in the first place. Hubby researched the Ford models and decided that will be our next vehicle so we can give back this Prius to my in-laws.

Good luck!

[paulkienitz]

21. It was the big battery that failed for her.

But the twelve volt accessory battery is the most frequently failing component in both electric and fossil-fuel cars. Now that it doesn't have to turn a starter motor, we should probably stop using lead-acid cells for accessory batteries.

[LittleGirl]

27. That's the first I've heard

We bought one new in 2010 and the others were used. One is an 07 model and it’s got 100k miles but going good.

[NBachers]

6. If you're getting one, this seems to be the time to do it, before the tariffs kick in. Low price for an EV, good range,

and good reviews.

So the question is: Will there be a point in the future where you'll say, "This was money well-spent?"

[LittleGirl]

18. We felt that way driving a Prius

those cars are built to last. Once a year oil maintenance and doing the recommended warranty service at 25k, 50k miles etc were important investments in the life of the car. We consider the 3 Priuses we bought were a great investment for transportation needs.

[IronLionZion]

7. That model has great reviews

my coworker has one and likes it. Charging on road trips can be a challenge but otherwise it's a great car.

[paulkienitz]

11. Not many road trips in our lives nowadays

Most years the farthest we go is across the central valley to the Tahoe area, which at most would need one charge stop each way.

Now that I don't commute anymore we'll probably only need level 1 charging at home 90% of the time.

[Figarosmom]

8. Isnt ford running employee pricing now?

Last edited Thu May 8, 2025, 05:11 AM - Edit history (2)

And some other bonus I think . If you're going to do it now seems like the time. Maybe no interest loans for 2 years or something.

[paulkienitz]

12. Yeah we got that offer

but the better deal they came up with was some set of rebates that apply to leases, so instead of $42+k up front we'd pay $20k now and $20k in three years, which helps soften the financial blow.

[modrepub]

9. Consider No Money Down Lease

The biggest depreciation of any car is the minute you drive it off the lot. Take your down payment and park it in a high interest savings account for interest and set aside payments as needed. I.ve looked at Mach E prices after 3 years since you should have an option of buying the car at the end of the lease term to see how much I could have saved, which is the total of the lease payments plus the car price. It was about 10k on the premium version with the extended battery (not lithium).

On the minus side, the best time to buy is at the end of the year if there are old models left. But the 24s were more expensive and they didn't come with the heat pump, which is really only helpful if you're in a cold climate since the battery is less efficient in the cold.

That said, the price points on the 25s are better than the older versions. You get a heat pump, which could be a plus and blue cruz is supposed to be great for trips. Ford was offering a 2k bonus earlier in the year to go towards installing a home charger, but I'm not sure they're still doing that now. You're also not paying a premium at the moment. I've heard folks were paying 2-4k above MSP only a few years ago on the base models.

Best of luck on your new purchase. I'm in the market for the same car but will probably go with a used (23 or newer) premium at some point. They are fun from what I've heard (and test drove). Consider joining the MachE forum if you haven't already.

[paulkienitz]

13. Yeah, just signed up for that forum.

[NNadir]

15. If your issue is which kind of car is least odious for climate...

...you probably want to look at the carbon intensity of electricity on your grid. If it's over 300 g CO₂/kWh accounting for embodied energy of the components, a hybrid car is less odious than an electric car. On high intensity grids like PJM where i live, an electric car actually has higher carbon intensity than a pure gasoline car. People tend to forget that most electricity is generated using dangerous fossil fuels, and that carbon based fuels play a huge role in the mining, isolation and preparation of battery components. In general most people do not pay attention to the laws of thermodynamics. Electricity is thermodynamically degraded when it comes out of the wall socket.

There is also a moral cost, the cost of cobalt slavery.

I drive a Toyota Camry hybrid. In mild weather it gets close to 60 mpg, in winter about 50. It is not free of either moral or carbon costs, but the costs are minimized.

[paulkienitz]

22. I'm in California where the grid has plenty of solar,

and most of the remaining electricity is from natural gas, and Furd switched from cobalt batteries to LiFePO a couple of years ago, so I think I'm pretty okay.

[NNadir]

23. I'm not a fan of California's grid, solar energy, and definitely not natural gas.

What solar energy has done for California as is the case everywhere else it's worshipped, is to entrench the use of fossil fuels, in this case natural gas. I favor the complete phase out of all dangerous fossil fuels, including natural gas.

Are you going to commit to only charging the car when the sun is bright or the wind is blowing?

[paulkienitz]

29. No.

California has plenty to complain about — there are good reasons why Pacific Gas and Electric is the most hated corporation in the west — but it's still better than most places one can plug in a car. (It looks like Vermont & New Hamshire are better, and Washington state, maybe due to nuclear plants.) And since we plan to keep it running for decades if possible, it'll easily pay off the hefty environmental penalty of its construction.

I am looking at some solar options, but there are constraints in our neighborhood, and the main use would be to apply it to air conditioning the house, which is our other biggest energy draw.

[NNadir]

31. You will often be driving a car powered by natural gas after exergy destruction.

If one monitors the CAISO website as I often do, or simply opens the data pages of the California Energy Commission, one can learn about electricity in the State. My view is that it's unnecessarily ugly.

I lived in California for many years, and if I have an opinion of PSGE it is one of sympathy for operating in a very difficult culture.

People want to complain about the transmission line fires after making sure that more wires than required in a sane system are laced to link redundant and unreliable systems, the most egregious being solar and wind industrial parks carved out of virgin wilderness. I will not applaud chainsaws taken to Joshua Trees to build solar plants advertised as "green," for just one example.

Solar PV energy is not sustainable precisely because of its low energy to mass ratio, and surface area requirements. That trillion dollar fantasy has played out with the result that the planet is in flames.

[paulkienitz]

32. Solar is no fantasy.

Solar is now cheaper than fossil fuel and only getting cheaper. It doesn't need to occupy tons of land because it can and does go on land that's already in use, like rooftops and parking lots. Advanced cells have twice the power output of cheap ones, so they are far from done improving.

I have no sympathy whatever for PG&E. The whole company should be dismantled. Remember the Enron crisis? PG&E was complicit, made billions, and never faced any accountability for it. They split the company in two and declared bankruptcy for one half while pocketing those billions in the other, then successfully stuck the ratepayers with bailing out the first half. It may be the grossest misuse of bankruptcy court in history, and they set a world record in the amount they paid their lawyers to get that outcome. Come the revolution those sick fucks can share a guillotine with Peter Thiel and Marc Andreesen.

[flvegan]

19. I'm with your best friend on this one.

First and foremost, I love the MachE. Yeah, yeah, "not a Mustang" whatever, shut up. I've owned several Mustangs, and I'm fine with it.

It does seem like you're (literally) rushing into this. I don't know your financials, but you're here asking, and finances are a part of it. So first question, why would you buy one new (from what you've written, it sounds like you're taking that route)? These things depreciate like an exotic. In my area, a new MachE GT (the one I want) is between $56-60k. I'm looking at one that's a year old, Ford certified, all the options I want, and it's $38k and been sitting on the lot. I can probably take it home for $34-ish.

Girlfriends can be very convincing, but you folks need to be smart. Want v need is a very difficult argument unless finances just don't matter.

Lastly, at the very least, get a blue or red (or Grabber Yellow!) one and have a splash of color in your life!

Best of luck and happy car shopping!

[paulkienitz]

24. we looked at used prices

and weren't tempted. The lower trims don't depreciate like that GT, especially not around here where EVs in general and Mach E's in particular are very popular. Besides, the three year old ones have several shortcomings that the new ones have fixed. Like, the old batteries were more fragile.

[Groundhawg]

26. cheaper to get a new GF.

[NBachers]

28. GF, GT, what's the difference?

[paulkienitz]

30. we bought it...

Last edited Sun May 11, 2025, 10:24 AM - Edit history (1)

It's in the driveway now. We now have to urgently get rid of the gf's leaky old Geo Prizm which has been sitting with a dead battery. If nobody wants it as a fixer upper, the junkyard offered $80.

[paulkienitz]

33. WE BOUGHT IT... FOR TWO DAYS.

We actually took the car home and then took it back. The gf had tried to look up complaints about the car at the NHTSB, and thought that it came back pretty clean, but after we got it home she tried again and this time found the reports she had missed. And some were scary. Changed the picture of what we thought we'd been buying. Also, the honeymoon period with the new suspension was very short — it's still nowhere near smooth enough. Fortunately the dealership had given us a three day window, and was gracious and didn't argue. They weren't high pressure dicks at any point. We guess it may be because they serve a lot of commercial and fleet customers who need long term support and are repeat buyers. The lot has plenty of identical white trucks and vans for them.

So we're going for the second best environmental option, which is to keep our old car, which does get good mileage. I'm going to start shopping for a suspension conversion to soften it as much as we can reasonably get away with. And an add-on backup camera.