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Electric cars have become increasingly popular, and tax credits are available for them. Find out why I still won’t be purchasing one in the near future.
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Electric cars have become more popular in recent years as newer models have hit the market. The federal government is now offering tax credits to buy certain electric vehicles as well, which means the purchase won’t do as much damage to your checking account since it’s subsidized.
Despite the planet-saving benefits electric vehicles can offer, I will not be buying one anytime soon. And there are three big reasons why that’s the case.
1. There are not many good used ones
In my family, we almost always buy used cars for several reasons. We know that a new vehicle loses a lot of value quickly and we don’t want to take that financial hit. Used cars also generally have lower costs — including purchasing costs and auto insurance costs — compared with brand-new ones. We prefer to spend our money on other stuff rather than vehicles because we aren’t really car people.
It also costs a lot more to add options to a brand-new car than to buy a used one that has them already. For instance, rear-seat DVD players may make a used car worth a tiny bit more money (if it even increases the price) but to add that as a feature to a new car usually costs thousands directly from the manufacturer. So, we’d rather get a car with more options for less money.
Unfortunately, since electric vehicles are newer to the market and people tend to keep them for a while, there are not a lot of used ones available. This makes it harder to find a vehicle that’s been pre-owned and raises the price of the existing used ones out there due to low supply and high demand.
Since I can’t get a good deal on used electric vehicles and probably won’t be able to for a while, I’d rather avoid them entirely.
2. Most electric vehicles are not big enough for my family
We have two kids in car seats, a dog, and a large wagon stroller — and we often drive grandparents around with us. As a result, we need a very large vehicle. We currently have one of the full-sized SUVs in the extended model because even minivans won’t work for us in terms of size (with the car seats and the third-row seats up for the grandparents, we have no place to put the stroller or the dog!)
There are no electric vehicles in the size we need and there aren’t really any prospects of such a large electric SUV coming anytime soon.
3. We like to take long road trips often
Finally, the last big issue is that we take very long road trips on a regular basis. We drive between Florida and Pennsylvania a few times a year, and we also go camping all summer to various far-flung destinations. We don’t want to have to worry about sitting and waiting for our car to charge, or finding a charger while in the middle of nowhere while we’re on the road.
For all of these reasons, electric cars just won’t work for our lifestyle — even though I sometimes wish they would so we could cut our gas costs and get a tax break for our vehicle purchase.
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