logoalt Hacker News

jmb99 • yesterday at 6:19 PM • 3 replies • view on HN

My generator was $1000 and can power my entire house (including server rack). If I bought it used it would’ve been $500. I can trivially store 2 weeks worth of gasoline (and I do, constantly) and as long as somewhere within 700km of my house has gasoline I can get there, refill, and get home. I own 6 gas cars and they total less than $33k. My daily I paid $2500 for and average 6L/100km. (All CAD) If you start taking used cars into account the math goes waaaaaay towards gasoline car + generator.


Replies

cloverich • today at 1:10 AM

I don't think there's a pure cost argument that favors EV's in this scenario. I think instead the argument is, EV's are relatively affordable now and have other benefits. For context, the Ioniq 5 is rated Edmund's _best_ EV SUV (afaik, most popular overall category). So e.g. this isn't an example of a crappy one to make na argument (I've owned it for 2 years, my first EV, its v. impressive).

So for someone who wants an EV (for the convenience, environment, or performance reasons), I think the statement is you can e.g. do so fairly affordably and also get free generator with it. Its a nice perk imo.

Grombobulous • yesterday at 7:30 PM

Does this also factor in operating costs of the vehicle? Especially considering gasoline at $4-7/gallon?

Then there’s also the potential scenario of “buyer prefers an EV anyway.”

In my case I’m currently driving a ~10 year old conventional gasoline vehicle that I purchased new, and I plan to keep driving it for roughly another 7-10 years. Given the current automotive product lineups out there I can’t think of a scenario where my next car will involve gasoline regardless of my desire for a backup power source at home.

➕ show 1 reply
dd8601fn • yesterday at 6:43 PM

Out of curiosity, what do you normally do about the gasoline? I ask because I had a crappy little generator, and it seemed like my most common issue was old gas in the thing. Wasn’t a big deal or anything, just curious… stabil and run them regularly whether you need it or not?

➕ show 1 reply