Results: Hard truth about electric cars: Replacing battery may cost more than the car

Are you, personally, in favor of the idea of purchasing an EV (electric vehicle) in place of a gasoline-powered one?

Avery Siwinski who is 17 years old was excited to get a car to drive herself to and from school. Her parents spent $11,000 on a used electric car for her. It's a Ford Focus Electric. The car is a 2014 model, with 60,000 miles. Have you considered saving some money and purchasing a used electric vehicle instead of a new one?

"It was fine at first," Avery Siwinski said. "I loved it so much. It was small and quiet and cute. And all the sudden it stopped working." Avery Siwinski had her car for six months before her dashboard started to light up with problematic symbols. If your car encounters a problem, do you have enough mechanical knowledge to figure out the problem and get it fixed?

"Turns out, this is a pretty common problem for this particular car," Ray Siwinski, Avery's grandfather said. The car has sat at Ford Auto Nation in Pinellas County for the last few months. Ray said he was able to get a quote on a replacement battery for the electric car. "The Ford dealership had advised us that we could replace the battery," he said. "It would only cost $14,000." Do you think it is a good deal to purchase a used car, then have to pay MORE than it's original price to replace the battery?

"Then we found out the batteries aren't even available," he said. "So it didn't matter. They could cost twice as much and we still couldn't get it." It's an issue he says isn't specific to owners of the now discontinued Ford Focus Electric. "If you're buying a new one, you have to realize there is no second-hand market right now because the manufacturers are not supporting the cars," he said. The Siwinski's message to you: do your research before buying electric. They warn, it may cost you far more than you realize. Does this make you think twice about all the hype about how great electric cars are?

In another, unrelated, article about electric cars, I read that one owner was quite disappointed because he had to replace the tires so often. Electric cars are incredibly heavy, weighing in at 3,300 - 4,400 pounds (nearly 1.5 - over 2 tons). Because of this, the owner said he typically averaged only 26,000 miles for a set of tires, rather than the previous 30,000-40,000 miles. Have you ever considered excessive tire wear from an electric vehicle?