Recently, the adoption of electric vehicles has been gaining more and more traction. With many car companies adding fully electric vehicles to their line-up as well as new car companies coming to Singapore such as the popular Tesla. You might be wondering whether you should get an electric car too. Today, we are here to discuss if you should buy one too!
Electric Charging vs Petrol
Everyone knows that Electric Vehicles are better for the environment however is it really better for your pockets? Seeing that there is an additional cost of about $29,000, we calculated how much mileage should you clock every year to make it more beneficial to change to an electric vehicle.
Using the two vehicles above, we managed to calculate that at roughly 77,000km a year would be the breakeven point. For comparison, an average driver only drives 17,500km a year.
*(Do note that this calculation is solely based on the difference in cost of petrol vs electric charging compared to the cost of the car. Potential savings from other sources (e.g vehicle maintenance / road tax) has been excluded as to give a simple example.)
Additionally, if you are not staying in a place where electric vehicle charging is readily available, this will be inconvenient as it takes at least an hour to charge and up to several hours to fully charge. On the other hand, an internal combustion vehicle only takes five minutes to fully fuel your vehicle. This might be someone that you should consider.
It would seem hard to fully utilize an electric vehicle if you are not staying in a landed property where you can install your own charging station or if you are unable to charge it overnight while you are resting as you would be spending additional time driving back and forth just to charge a vehicle.
We recommend you have a sheltered carpark as similar to phones batteries, hot weather conditions can have a negative effect on your electric car’s battery life and in Singapore it is almost year-round that we have immensely hot weather.
Other benefits to driving an electric vehicle
Well as stated above, if you are not heavily using your vehicle and have charging readily available, it may seem that buying a petrol vehicle might be the move. However, there are still plenty of reasons to purchase electric vehicle.
There is no price tag you can put on saving Mother Earth and you can play your part by purchasing a fully electric vehicle as it produces zero emissions and significantly reduced noise pollution.
Some electric vehicles seem like a steal in terms of price to performance and if you enjoy a spirited drive, perhaps you can consider the Tesla Model 3 Performance. Rated at about 506bhp, costs about $210,000 after COE compared to it’s petrol guzzling competitors, such as the BMW M3 or the Mercedes C63, it is almost at a 50% discount! This will definitely bring joy to your face when you are driving it. It is also a technologically advanced vehicle with many features that come in handy.
Currently, the prices of electric vehicles still come in at a premium and if cost is your only concern, vehicles that use petrol may be the way to go. There are also concerns that drivers face with the current charging infrastructure of electric vehicles but that will soon be the thing of the past as the government continues to roll out more and more charging stations. There are still reasons that you should switch to an electric vehicle and for some, it may be the only chance to get their hands on performance electric vehicle like the Tesla Model 3 Performance at this price tag and as well all know, electric vehicles are the future for cars so why make the switch early if you can?