Latest / Making Cents / My Car Costs $13 to Fill Up... Should You Go Electric Too?

Transcript

My Car Costs $13 to Fill Up... Should You Go Electric Too? · Making Cents

• 0:00
  An entire tank of petrol now costs me about $13.
• 0:04
  And how, because it's not petrol.
• 0:06
  I went electric.
• 0:08
  My electric car has made life significantly cheaper for me, but it's because I carefully chose one that worked for my life and I bought it at the right time in my life too.
• 0:19
  So could this work for you?
• 0:22
  Petrol prices have gone crazy.
• 0:25
  They're looking like they're only going to get worse, unfortunately.
• 0:27
  And a lot of people have been messaging me wanting to know if they could get R of a big cost in their life by switching to an electric car.
• 0:35
  And the answer is a solid maybe we're going to run through all of the pros and cons of this because I want your life to be easier and you have told me that you need the info on this.
• 0:45
  So let's do it.
• 0:46
  It's time to compare petrol, hybrid and fully electric cars, what do they cost to run and what are the hidden costs that you might not have thought about?
• 0:55
  And here's the thing, getting all of this info from someone who does not care about cars, but does care a lot about how much life cost to run.
• 1:05
  So if you're looking for someone to talk about how pretty the car is or how nice it sounds when it goes vroom, probably go and find yourself a boy youtuber who cares about such things.
• 1:17
  I do not.
• 1:18
  I care about how much it's costing us.
• 1:21
  Just like when I looked at solar power for us.
• 1:23
  I will be wearing two hats today.
• 1:25
  One will be my hat where I put on all of my financial journalist experience.
• 1:29
  I run the numbers for you, compare a bunch of research and see what is the case for most situations.
• 1:35
  And then secondly, my personal experience hatch what it's been like running an electric car for my family, all four of us, how much it costs us anything.
• 1:45
  That even with all the research in the world, maybe I wasn't expecting that.
• 1:48
  Tripped us up.
• 1:50
  And frankly, we all like to be a little nosy too, right?
• 1:53
  So why not let you have a little nosey.
• 1:56
  No stone left unturned.
• 1:57
  I'm doing the real running costs.
• 1:59
  Fuel, insurance, servicing.
• 2:01
  I've seen you in the comments asking about what the battery is like, will it die?
• 2:06
  Will it bankrupt us?
• 2:07
  Okay, fine, let's check that.
• 2:09
  And then a bit of a brutal warning on depreciation.
• 2:12
  How much value your car could lose depending on what type of car it is.
• 2:17
  So welcome to Making Sense.
• 2:18
  It's the podcast people who want financial freedom without giving up their coffee.
• 2:22
  I'm Frances Cook, financial journalist and fellow financial freedom seeker who makes money simple for you.
• 2:28
  I want to help as many people as possible build a better life for themselves by understanding and taking control of their money.
• 2:35
  You can be part of how that happens.
• 2:37
  First, make sure you're subscribed wherever you like to listen, whether it's YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
• 2:43
  And then send your favorite episode to a mate.
• 2:46
  Then we can all level up with money together.
• 2:48
  The show grows and I can keep bringing you the money info that actually moves the dial.
• 2:54
  So let's start with why everything is suddenly so expensive.
• 2:57
  We're going to do the quickest lay of the land on why so many of us are thinking about getting an electric car.
• 3:03
  Because these petrol prices are no joke.
• 3:07
  Look back in February when war broke out between the US and Iran and prices spiked.
• 3:14
  I think a lot of us were hoping it would be short, that this would be resolved, that maybe some adults would enter the room.
• 3:21
  Six months in, several ceasefires announced and then broken.
• 3:26
  And the U.S.
• 3:27
  energy Information Administration a couple of weeks ago they put out their latest outlook and they don't expect oil production and trade from the region to go back to pre conflict levels until maybe April or June next year.
• 3:43
  So basically not a blip.
• 3:46
  Do not expect fuel to get cheaper anytime soon.
• 3:49
  And to be honest, I feel like that's probably an optimistic outlook.
• 3:54
  Things could keep going well past that.
• 3:57
  Things do seem to keep spiraling downwards at this point.
• 4:02
  So I really think we take that and say that's an outlook from people who are hoping it will resolve soon, which could color things.
• 4:11
  It's probably the most positive version of events.
• 4:13
  So not great out there and it's moving fast.
• 4:17
  But at the time of recording this, Brent crude oil prices have hit their highest point in nearly four months.
• 4:23
  Recently hit over $107 a barrel.
• 4:26
  That is very high for any of you who don't usually keep an eye on this.
• 4:31
  It's bouncing around a lot.
• 4:32
  So it will almost certainly be different by the time this episode comes out because it's moving all the time, but going to go out on a limb and say it'll still be expensive.
• 4:42
  We just keep on nudging those record high moments.
• 4:45
  And amongst all of this, of course we're all just trying to figure out a solution because it's sending petrol and diesel prices through the roof and we are trying to get to work and carry on with life and
• 4:54
  get the kids to school and life continues.
• 4:56
  So how have we responded?
• 4:58
  Well, plenty of people are not waiting for a video from me to be sure.
• 5:01
  So these are New Zealand Figures.
• 5:03
  Chris Keel at the Herald, he's very good.
• 5:06
  He pulled a bunch of figures and compared them all.
• 5:09
  Found that in the June quarter, new car sales were up 19%, but electric and hybrid car sales were up a combined 165% so far and away, outstripping other types of car sales.
• 5:26
  That's crazy.
• 5:27
  If you want actual numbers, it's new registrations of electric vehicles in just that three months was 6,099.
• 5:38
  And that is almost triple the number from the same time last year, which if you're curious was 2,327.
• 5:47
  And that's registrations.
• 5:49
  So that is new cars actually being bought, actually driven, hitting the road.
• 5:54
  That's not just showrooms bringing them into the country and hoping that someone will buy them.
• 6:00
  So for those of you who are considering this, is that a good idea?
• 6:05
  Going to start with my experience because I know you love a good nosy same.
• 6:08
  Let's start with the nosy bit and then let's figure out what the general experience could be, what your experience could be because we are all different.
• 6:17
  I told you how it now costs me $13 to fill up my car, or rather charge it to 100%.
• 6:26
  And I'm looking at that from if I ran the car battery down to zero and then charge it up to 100%, it costs me a smidge under $13 and it's a big battery.
• 6:37
  I got one of those longer range cars because I do quite a bit of driving.
• 6:41
  I live in Tea Mutu.
• 6:43
  I'm up in Auckland.
• 6:44
  At least fortnightly.
• 6:46
  It has to be able to make that journey there and back without me ever charging it once.
• 6:50
  Because while I'm in Auckland, I am go, go, go.
• 6:52
  There's often no time to charge.
• 6:54
  So it's a big battery and it's 13 bucks.
• 6:57
  So how do we get there?
• 6:58
  Now?
• 6:59
  You know that I love to build up my financial independence and there's a few different ways to do that.
• 7:04
  I've got a few different strategies going at the same time.
• 7:07
  I obviously invest in shares.
• 7:09
  You know, I love shares.
• 7:11
  I've also invested in increasing my earning power.
• 7:15
  I also keep costs low and all of those strategies are really powerful when you bring them together.
• 7:21
  And sometimes when you are trying to keep those costs low, you can just cut costs.
• 7:28
  But sometimes it's an investment to create a system that lets me keep my costs even lower.
• 7:36
  So about two years ago now, I talked about it in the previous episodes on how we decided to invest in solar power and an electric car.
• 7:43
  The idea Being that it was a one off investment to put a system in place and then we keep benefiting from that system for years and we save ourselves rich through that.
• 7:54
  The savings that we make are more than we ever invested in the first place.
• 7:58
  So super fast recap.
• 8:00
  If you missed those previous episodes, we spent $89,000 all up on home solar, electric and an electric car combined.
• 8:09
  55,000 of that was on the electric car.
• 8:13
  And if you want the full breakdown on how the solar electricity worked, I've got two other podcasts on that.
• 8:17
  I will link them in the description for this.
• 8:19
  But let's not get derailed today.
• 8:21
  Basically my numbers worked out to a 15.6% return.
• 8:26
  That's better than the share market and then the whole thing would pay itself off in six and a half years and it lasts for about 25.
• 8:37
  Because of the savings we make from both the electricity and the petrol, it keeps paying itself off for a couple of decades past that payoff period.
• 8:46
  So most of the time my car fuel is actually free, which I love.
• 8:53
  But I wanted to work out that $13 figure for you as if I didn't have solar power and solar say, would it still be worth it if you only had one half of it?
• 9:04
  If I didn't have the solar and I just got the electric car because I know not everyone's going to want both and some people aren't in the position for both, that's fine.
• 9:12
  We're all at different places, right?
• 9:14
  And so I did the maths for you, which is a true demonstration of my love.
• 9:17
  I do not like doing maths.
• 9:18
  And on our current power plan, if we charge the car on the cheapest off peak time that we could, so basically overnight that's 17 cents a kilowatt comes to just under $13.
• 9:32
  If I was taking that battery from completely flat to completely full.
• 9:35
  And we drive a lot, like I say in Auckland all the time for work, drive between there and my home in Chi.
• 9:40
  We also have a bunch of kids activities that we do.
• 9:43
  We've got two kids and they're still pretty young, but we've got yay.
• 9:48
  A pretty active social life.
• 9:50
  Then we're also driving them to soccer or the zoo or whatever.
• 9:54
  We're in that car a lot and it is obscene how much we would be spending on petrol otherwise.
• 10:02
  So again, maths, I didn't just grab some manufacturer's claimed fuel figure for this because those things look quite optimistic to me.
• 10:11
  They are trying to sell to you.
• 10:12
  After all.
• 10:13
  That's not what we're Here for we're not trying to sell you anything, we're just trying to figure out the best option for you.
• 10:18
  So instead I looked at test data and owner fuel logs for for a similar sized petrol suv.
• 10:27
  So we say that my electric car can do on average, depends a little on the weather and how you drive it, but on average 450km on a regular day on that full charge.
• 10:42
  And then, okay, what would a similar sized car using petrol getting at a similar distance?
• 10:48
  So I calculated 37.5 liters of fuel and at the current price that means we're hitting about $123 for a tank.
• 10:58
  So from $123 to 13.
• 11:02
  And now let's factor in road user charges, because an electric vehicle used here in good old New Zealand has road user charges instead of petrol tax.
• 11:11
  When you buy petrol at the pump, you've already got tax on there.
• 11:14
  Meanwhile, me as an electric car user, no, I have road user charges that you have to put in elsewhere.
• 11:20
  So that's $76 per 1,000 kilometers.
• 11:25
  So add in road user charges to that previous calculation, it's about $34 for the amount that you get on the tank that I described before.
• 11:34
  So now a full tank total cost for us is about $47 to get us 450km.
• 11:43
  So even with tax and everything factored in, it's now costing me 38% of what I would have spent otherwise.
• 11:52
  Yes, way less than half for my new costs, 38%.
• 11:58
  However, here's the thing.
• 11:59
  I think it works for us for very specific reasons and like I said, not interested in selling you an electric car.
• 12:04
  Nobody's giving me a commission.
• 12:06
  I'll take one, but nobody's giving me one.
• 12:09
  So all we're trying to do here is to figure out your situation and then the best options for your life, which could be very different from mine.
• 12:17
  In our situation, the solar really helps, so it's actually lower than that 40 whatever figure from before.
• 12:26
  But it still would have been worth it even if we were still connected to the grid and didn't have the solar right.
• 12:32
  We needed a replacement car anyway.
• 12:35
  That's a factor.
• 12:37
  We'll come back to that.
• 12:38
  We do drive a lot for both work and personal, so it was worth investing into a solution that really reduced that pressure.
• 12:45
  We also used a green loan to make the money really cheap.
• 12:51
  Your average car finance is insane.
• 12:55
  When you get a green loan, it really changes the numbers and how achievable this is.
• 12:59
  So we'll dive into that too.
• 13:02
  That's my experience.
• 13:03
  Now we're going to run through the options and how you can work out whether they actually fit for you.
• 13:09
  So if you're thinking about this, you basically have four options for your transport.
• 13:14
  First up, petrol car, the standard until now.
• 13:18
  Fill it up at the pump, roughly $3 a litre, depending on the day and who's bombing who and then you're done.
• 13:24
  Then we have hybrids.
• 13:25
  There are actually two different types of hybrids.
• 13:28
  The first is a self charging hybrid.
• 13:31
  That's the most common one.
• 13:33
  That's what most people think of with a hybrid basically means you're actually not going to plug it in.
• 13:40
  It's a petrol car with a small battery and electric motor bolted onto it.
• 13:47
  It fills up at the pump like normal, but the electronics recycle energy every time you brake and let the engine run at its most efficient.
• 13:57
  Think Prius Aqua, half the Ubers in Auckland.
• 14:02
  And then the second type of hybrid is the plug in hybrid, which is ideally meant to be best of both worlds attempt.
• 14:10
  It has a bigger battery that you can charge from a socket, giving you anywhere from 40 to 80 ks of electric driving, plus a full petrol engine for everything beyond that.
• 14:23
  And then you have the full electric car battery only.
• 14:27
  No petrol engine at all charges from a socket.
• 14:30
  And that's what I've got.
• 14:32
  So let's start with what does each of them cost to run?
• 14:36
  Now here's what I like to compare.
• 14:38
  First up, fuel or power.
• 14:40
  Let's look at some averages, knowing that obviously these things change and bounce around a little, right?
• 14:45
  But a petrol car currently hanging around the $3 a litre mark.
• 14:50
  Now, a good hybrid should cut your fuel use around town in almost half.
• 14:57
  The Australian Automobile association looked at those self charging hybrids, the ones that you don't plug in, and it meant you saved anywhere from 30 to 50% on how much fuel you burned, which nice.
• 15:10
  And an electric car that you can charge at home.
• 15:14
  Eca, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, did the sums.
• 15:17
  Charging at home off peak often works out to be similar to paying $1.60 a liter.
• 15:23
  And that's when you're including things like road tax, which obviously it depends a little bit on your power plan, right?
• 15:30
  You can be really smart with your power plans.
• 15:32
  You can really try and change those.
• 15:34
  You might have something like solar, but that's the average person's experience, Right?
• 15:39
  Next thing you want to think about with these cars is insurance.
• 15:42
  Electric cars actually often cost more to insure insurance comparison site quashed.
• 15:49
  Put out research that found there is an insurance premium on Electric, they can charge anywhere from 6 to 38% more for a similar petrol car, which like that's a pretty crazy big difference in what the percentage might be.
• 16:06
  So once again, shout out to shopping around, get those quotes and price compare people.
• 16:11
  It can change a lot depending on what model of electric car you get.
• 16:15
  It's also linked a lot to the battery.
• 16:17
  Don't worry.
• 16:18
  A proper deep dive on the battery coming very soon in this episode.
• 16:22
  But the battery is usually at least a third of the value of an electric vehicle.
• 16:27
  And unfortunately it's also kind of near ground level where road debris can get at it.
• 16:34
  And so sometimes an insurer will write off an electric car after damage that would be a repair on a petrol car, which is kind of annoying.
• 16:45
  Huge differences based on the model.
• 16:47
  Like I mentioned, something like a Nissan Leaf, often cheaper to ensure the newest fanciest brands, very much not cheaper.
• 16:56
  So basically, hot tip, get an insurance quote before you buy the car.
• 17:01
  If you're interested in an electric car, call up your insurer beforehand and say how much does this one cost to insure before, not after buying.
• 17:10
  However, even after what I said there about the battery and road debris, let's talk repairs and servicing because I think that balances this out.
• 17:20
  A full electric car is often the winner here because it has no oil, no spark plugs, no cam belt, no exhaust and the brakes don't wear as much because the motor is does the slowing down.
• 17:36
  It's really cheap to service, so more expensive insurance if something big goes wrong problem.
• 17:44
  But day to day general if you take care of it better and cheaper.
• 17:49
  And regular hybrids, now this I didn't expect.
• 17:52
  I had assumed that because there was two types of engines in your hybrid that they would be the worst, that they would be a maintenance nightmare with you having to do double duty.
• 18:04
  Data says no.
• 18:06
  And this is why we check our assumptions.
• 18:08
  Consumer Reports has the biggest reliability survey I could find.
• 18:13
  They checked out 380,000 vehicles, so that's extensive.
• 18:19
  And they found that self charging hybrids had 15% fewer problems than the petrol only cars and ended up being way up there in terms of reliability.
• 18:32
  So color me surprised on this one.
• 18:34
  But hey, facts over feelings I can admit to when I assumed something that was wrong.
• 18:39
  Again, it does vary a lot by model.
• 18:42
  So big tip that I found for you in my research.
• 18:46
  Both electric and hybrid, it's actually often not so much about the technology in the car, it's about the company making it.
• 18:55
  Where there have been reliability problems with some hybrid or electric cars, it tends to kind of cluster in the newest brands.
• 19:05
  Established manufacturers with a long track record seem to do much better here.
• 19:09
  So bottom line, quick tip for you is to buy boring, exciting new brands that promise the earth seem to be a bit more prone to having bugs.
• 19:19
  I mean, that's the case with everything, right?
• 19:21
  But unfortunately then they have to work out those bugs on your driveway, which are not great if you're already running late.
• 19:30
  The proven model from a manufacturer that's been doing this for years is the reliable one.
• 19:36
  Borrowing is beautiful.
• 19:37
  It's often that way in the money world.
• 19:39
  Apparently it is true for car advice too.
• 19:42
  If this episode is your kind of thing, you'll want to check out the Market Memo too.
• 19:46
  It's my weekly newsletter where I break down how to actually invest or plain English chat about how the share market really works and how you can get it working for you.
• 19:57
  It's everything I wish I'd had when I was starting out.
• 20:00
  Head to Francisco Co NZ Invest.
• 20:04
  I'll also pop that link into the show notes for you.
• 20:07
  Right back to it.
• 20:08
  Okay, let's talk battery.
• 20:10
  Because when I talked solar to you, the comment section on all of the platforms actually, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, there was a lot of comments from people saying what about battery life, though a little bit of a panicky tone
• 20:26
  on the battery issue and how that might work.
• 20:29
  And I suppose we've all had the experience, right, with our phone or our laptop, where the battery wears out in no time at all.
• 20:37
  You have to replace the whole thing.
• 20:39
  Do you want that to happen with a car and cost you tens of thousands of dollars?
• 20:44
  And no, you do not.
• 20:45
  So totally fair enough to have questions on this one.
• 20:48
  And here's what my research led me to.
• 20:51
  There's a company called geotab that tracks vehicle fleets worldwide.
• 20:55
  They have published a study of real world battery health from more than 22,700 electric cars, extensive 21 different makes and models, real cars, real kilometers traveled and real weather impact.
• 21:08
  So all of those things that people worry about.
• 21:11
  And the average battery capacity lost per year?
• 21:14
  2.3%.
• 21:16
  Now, at that rate, a battery still holds about 82% after eight years.
• 21:22
  And Geotab's own modeling puts the implied battery lifespan at 13 years or more.
• 21:29
  Now, when we think about other things that we've had battery problems with, things like our phones, they have terrible battery life because it's a cheap type of battery.
• 21:38
  It's uncooled and it's rinsed until it goes flat every day.
• 21:43
  Meanwhile, a car battery has liquid cooling There's a computer babying every cell and it mostly cruises between 20 and 80% charge.
• 21:53
  You're not actually supposed to run your car flat.
• 21:56
  Big problem if you do, in fact, but basically it's a different machine entirely.
• 22:01
  But to be fair, early electric and hybrid cars really didn't do themselves many favors.
• 22:07
  When you look at things like the early Nissan Leafs, they had no battery cooling at all.
• 22:13
  They degraded at nearly double the average rate.
• 22:16
  New Zealand imported thousands of those, so odds are, you know, someone with a sad old Leaf and the reputation stuck to every electric car since.
• 22:26
  Now, the thing is, that was 2011 technology, and judging today's cars by that is like refusing to fly because of the Hindenburg or refusing to invest because of the 1987 crash.
• 22:39
  Things move on, technology moves on.
• 22:41
  This one has changed a lot.
• 22:44
  And if it still worries you, you can also check the warranty, if that helps you sleep at night.
• 22:48
  Great industry standard for electric cars in New Zealand is now to have a warranty for eight years or 160,000 kilometers, and for the battery to still have 70% capacity after that.
• 23:02
  So even if the car still runs, if you're not hitting that 70% capacity after that time, you can still make a claim.
• 23:09
  They're guaranteeing a certain performance level, so that's great and something to check for.
• 23:14
  Look at what they give you in that warranty and be aware that that's the standard and that you want to have that at minimum.
• 23:20
  Now, further down the rabbit hole we go, because we're going to talk about whether your car holds its value.
• 23:27
  And this one is brutal, but it also holds the key to getting a bargain, which kind of depends which side of the fence you're sitting on.
• 23:38
  Winners and losers, right?
• 23:39
  And everything.
• 23:40
  Definitely on this one.
• 23:42
  I personally would never want to buy a brand new car of any type because it's notorious for the moment you drive it off the sales lot, you've just lost about half the value of the car.
• 23:54
  They are the ultimate depreciating asset, AKA something that costs a lot to buy and then immediately starts losing value.
• 24:04
  Not great for your money life.
• 24:06
  Now for petrol cars, I have for years been giving people the rule of thumb that you should buy one that's between two and 10 years old, drive it until it dies, because it's already had that big fall in
• 24:17
  value from when it was brand new, and it's still new enough to not need a whole bunch of expensive repairs.
• 24:24
  So someone else has taken the hit on the value fall, but it's still new enough to not be costing you heaps and causing you problems.
• 24:31
  Boy, is that even more true for electric cars.
• 24:33
  Electric cars are worse than petrol for losing value fast.
• 24:38
  Sorry to say, across a bunch of different sources.
• 24:41
  I looked at the Driven Car Guide Money Hubs depreciation calculator quashed's 2026 total cost of Ownership guide.
• 24:50
  Your average electric car loses about 35% of its value in year one.
• 24:57
  Meanwhile, your average petrol car loses about 25% of its value year one.
• 25:04
  But every horror story for the seller is a bargain for the buyer.
• 25:10
  A two or three year old electric vehicle has lost half of its sticker price.
• 25:15
  What's the battery loss in that time?
• 25:17
  About 5% on that geotab data we just went through and it's under factory battery warranty for another five or more years.
• 25:25
  Someone else paid for the shiny and you can have the substance.
• 25:30
  So for my money, if you are thinking electric, we're back to hunting through the section of cars that are two or three years old.
• 25:38
  Just get a battery health report, dot your I's, cross your T's on that.
• 25:42
  It's the electric version of getting a mechanic report, which I hope you wouldn't skip with a petrol car either side.
• 25:50
  Note, hybrids really hold their value the best out of all of them because taxi drivers and your sensible auntie and everyone in between all want one.
• 26:00
  So there's a really strong resale market on the hybrids.
• 26:03
  Love that.
• 26:04
  So great resale there.
• 26:07
  And in terms of paying for it, I mentioned the green loans you can get.
• 26:11
  I think this is a game changer.
• 26:13
  Now, I covered the green loans extensively in the solar episodes.
• 26:16
  But to recap, you can get what is known as green loan to give you money for investing into things like solar power on your house or an electric car or a hybrid car.
• 26:28
  Now, they are often as part of your mortgage, but some banks do have them as a standalone loan.
• 26:34
  You don't always have to be a homeowner and it means that you can get an interest rate of anywhere from 0 to 1% for up to five years, which is incredible.
• 26:45
  That's entirely different from the average car loan.
• 26:48
  The average car loan is insanely expensive and something to avoid if you possibly can.
• 26:54
  They are almost never a good idea.
• 26:56
  But if you use a green loan, 0% interest and you make sure you can pay it off in the length of time that you've got.
• 27:04
  If it's that five years, make sure you can get those repayments so it's paid off within that, well then that's a Game changer.
• 27:12
  I mean, you still need to get the car that's right for you.
• 27:15
  A green loan just makes a good decision.
• 27:17
  Cheaper, it doesn't make a bad decision.
• 27:20
  Good.
• 27:21
  You know, but it's really worth knowing that that's in the mix.
• 27:25
  Okay, so far we've had some strong results and especially strong results for the hybrid, to be honest.
• 27:31
  So you might be wondering why I went electric rather than hybrid.
• 27:35
  And this is where again, so much of the decision comes down to how you use it in your own life.
• 27:42
  Hybrids are just incredible, but their savings depend a lot on where you drive.
• 27:51
  So driving around town, it's brilliant.
• 27:54
  Stop start traffic is its natural habitat.
• 27:57
  It's so happy, the braking recharges the battery, the engine switches off at the lights.
• 28:03
  Real world city fuel economy testing on hybrids has it using up 3 liters per 100ks versus 7 for similar petrol cars.
• 28:14
  So under half the petrol use.
• 28:17
  Amazing.
• 28:18
  Imagine that in Auckland traffic, a hybrid is a weapon, but on the open road, different story.
• 28:27
  At a Constant sort of 100ks, the petrol engine is doing basically all the work.
• 28:32
  There's really no breaking to harvest.
• 28:35
  And that same body of fuel economy testing has the hybrid advantage shrinking to maybe 5 or 10% on the motorway.
• 28:44
  So buttons.
• 28:47
  So the person who's doing mostly motorway kilometers is paying the hybrid premium for savings that barely show up.
• 28:55
  If your driving is mostly open road, a hybrid is not quite, but almost pointless as a money move.
• 29:03
  And I say that as someone who wants you to keep your money.
• 29:06
  And then what's my usage?
• 29:08
  I live semi rural.
• 29:10
  I'm up to Auckland every fortnight.
• 29:11
  I bop around between Hamilton and Tehmutu.
• 29:15
  I'm an open road gal, so the electric was better for me.
• 29:18
  And of course remembering that I have solar that made the electricity totally free, so obviously that makes it even more on the electric car side.
• 29:25
  But even without that electric would have been better for us.
• 29:29
  For someone who's doing more city driving, particularly stop start, maybe you commute in high traffic times, a hybrid might be smarter.
• 29:39
  I think what it comes down to is that a self charging hybrid is basically a better petrol car and genuinely better.
• 29:49
  In a city, it's dramatically better.
• 29:50
  But it's still a petrol car at its heart, really.
• 29:53
  It still queues at the pump.
• 29:55
  It's still going to cost you more if conflict in the Middle east flares up again, it softens the petrol problem, it doesn't remove it.
• 30:06
  Meanwhile, an electric car charged at home just removes the petrol problem.
• 30:11
  And one of the things that I personally am always looking for in my own financial independence journey is removing outside factors, removing things that I can't control, so that I am as much as possible fully in charge of
• 30:27
  my own destiny.
• 30:28
  There are fewer curveballs that can come at me.
• 30:31
  Once again, it's not just the money now, it's where do you think the money will go in the future?
• 30:36
  And then how important is it to you to remove uncertainty from the equation?
• 30:42
  It's both mindset and money here, always is.
• 30:45
  But once again, we've got it here.
• 30:47
  So how do we figure out which one is for you?
• 30:50
  All of this glorious information that I have dumped on you, the stats I've looked at, the number crunching, what's the bottom line?
• 30:56
  If petrol prices are absolutely killing you here, is it worth splashing out on a new car to try to escape the fuel price crunch?
• 31:07
  Here's how I think you should think about it first, maybe keep the car you've got.
• 31:12
  If it's paid off and reliable.
• 31:14
  And if you don't drive much, the cheapest car is almost always the one that's already in your driveway.
• 31:20
  You might have more expensive petrol, but buying another car is even more expensive.
• 31:24
  Again, it is quite a big outlay, no matter how you slice it.
• 31:28
  So consider whether you actually would be buying a new car anyway, or if it's just because of petrol prices.
• 31:37
  If you need to change because it's unreliable or you need a different type of car than you used to and you're buying a car anyway, that's when weighing up petrol versus electric becomes really useful.
• 31:51
  Buying it only because of petrol, eh?
• 31:54
  Maybe not so much.
• 31:56
  Next you might go hybrid.
• 31:58
  If most of your driving is stop start city driving and you want maximum reliability with zero life changes, it's the best petrol car ever.
• 32:07
  Just go in knowing that you're basically buying a super efficient petrol car that softens the petrol problem instead of eliminating it.
• 32:15
  And lastly, I think you'd go electric if you can charge at home or at work, certainly if you have solar power and you drive enough for fuel savings to really matter, then you would be looking at those two
• 32:29
  or three year old models from an established brand, getting the battery health report, getting the insurance quote before buying.
• 32:37
  And if you need funding for either a hybrid or an electric car, then it's time to talk to your bank about a green loan, work out what you could pay back in the period of cheap lending that you
• 32:47
  get.
• 32:47
  If it's a 5 year 0% loan, then what can you pay back within that time?
• 32:52
  Do not go over that do it within the interest free period really changes the numbers for you.
• 32:58
  Look, I watch petrol prices now and I just feel so grateful that I made the investment into an electric car two years ago.
• 33:07
  But it worked for us because of all the factors that I laid out here.
• 33:13
  I don't think we need to make a 10 year decision based only on what's happening at the pump right now.
• 33:20
  It is a factor and I think the world is unpredictable.
• 33:25
  This is just one demonstration of it.
• 33:28
  I did hit delete on a lot of stress in my life and being able to fill up my car for Anywhere from a $0 to $13 a pop is pretty incredible.
• 33:41
  Gotta say, the numbers might shake out differently for you, but hopefully today's episode has given you the framework to know that and to know how this would look for you.
• 33:52
  So if this episode was helpful to you, or if you know someone else who is also feeling the petrol price crunch, send it to a friend and we can all level up our money together.
• 34:01
  Make sure you hit subscribe to Making Sense so that you never miss a trick with your money.
• 34:04
  And until next time, have a great day.
• 34:07
  This podcast can only give you general information about how things work in most situations.
• 34:13
  It's not individual financial advice.
• 34:15
  If you're after that, a financial advisor is always the best bet.