The i10 is a rather low end car, but the upgrade could be worth it. Finland gas prices are 8.464 USD/gallon right now. That’s unusually high but assuming 200k miles at say 35 mpg that adds up to 48,000 USD in gas over the lifetime of the vehicle.

Not that electricity is free or that we have long term cost data, but I suspect the EV / plug in hybrid premium is a very easy choice in Finland.

I was curious so I did some math about this.

The average car life in Finland seems to be 15.6 years (let's round that to 16, helping the case for EVs).

The average distance traveled by Finnish cars, based on 2018 data, is about 13600km per year (let's make that 14000km per year, also helping the case for EVs).

That works out to 224k km over the lifetime of a car. That's only 140k miles.

Regarding your 35mpg (was 30mpg before the edit), that's 6.7l per 100km (7.8 before edit), let's make that 7l per 100km (and 8 before edit), further helping the case for EVs.

But in reality a small car such as the i10 probably uses more like 5-5.5l per 100km (40-45mpg).

Then the gas price is super high due to the Covid economic bounceback coupled with the supply chain issues plus the latest conflict.

I'd say your numbers are too optimistic plus they're for the entire lifetime of the car. The average owner probably has the car for half that duration, at best. So they don't really care about the entire lifetime.

Still, things seem to be getting closer than 10 years ago, for example.

The really bad thing is the upfront price. There's no comparable EV in the i10 price range, which is a very cheap car (we're talking about a car around €12k).

I actually looked it up. 35 MPG is perhaps generous when their 2021 cars are averaging 30.9MPG, but it’s a low sample size.

https://www.fuelly.com/car/hyundai/grand_i10

Finland imports a lot of used cars but: “An average car in the fleet 12.6 years of age” that suggest the car actually lasts to ~25.2 years. It’s not that simple because again they are importing and exporting used cars.

https://www.aut.fi/files/2524/Annual_statistics_of_car_marke...

> There's no comparable EV in the i10 price range

there is now! I'm seeing the Dacia Spring appear everywhere - probably because it starts at only 13k in France including the ecobonus (I think base price is 16-17k). This is an absolute game-changer

I'm curious about it, but let's see how far the uptake goes.

Where are you located?

> Where are you located?

Given the GP's

>> it starts at only 13k in France including the ecobonus (I think base price is 16-17k).

I'd guess France.