Gasoline is expensive right now. I expect it to get slightly cheaper between now and the next election, then zoom upwards again, at least briefly.
If you are like most Americans, the talking heads on TV pushing electric cars are flipping idiots. They are expensive. VERY expensive. And if we had the money to buy an electric car, the price of gasoline wouldn't be hurting us that bad, anyway.
So, what are the alternatives? There are a few.
You could get a used hybrid; at first glance, the cost of a used Prius isn't that bad; they go for about the same as a "normal" car of the same age.
But the problem here is twofold. First, older cars start requiring more and more service and repair -usually- and Hybrids are fairly complex; you can't take it over to your brother-in-law who fixes cars in his spare time for most of the possible problems it might have. The BIG problem, though, is that batteries wear out; after 7 years of use, most electric cars require at least a partial battery replacement.
Guess what the cost is to put a new battery pack into a 8 year old Prius? Around $3000, but as much as $5000. If you are a Nissan CVT driver, that won't sound too crazy, but it kinda is.
You could go Old-Skool weird, and go with a Propane or Woodfuel car. And that is possible, but it's a true PITA in a lot of ways, and in my opinion should be restricted to hobbyists or Post-Apocalyptic scenarios, only.
I would say "Hydrogen", but the Toyota Mirai is new, costs $50,000 so the same problem as a new electric, really. Plus, you can only fuel it in California.
oh, wait. there IS an Alternative!
The image I'm trying to show you is for a 2004 Mazda RX-8 RE. A variant of my favorite Rotary Rocket, the RE is a Limited Production vehicle that ran on Gasoline OR Hydrogen, based on a switch in the drivers compartment.
Unlike modern Hydrogen vehicles, it burned Hydrogen instead of using a Fuel Cell; this worked because Rotary Engines are damn near perfect Hydrogen burners, the switch just changed which fuel tank was being used, and the vehicle ECM. In 2007, Mazda shipped 30 of these off to a Norwegian research facility for use as fleet vehicles.
In H burning mode, The car ran off it's 110 liter, 2.4kg hydrogen tank; it only had 107HP in H mode, which is OK as long as you have that Gasoline switch to flip it back into Rocket Mode.
Here is the interesting part: There was a engine change in 2006, but the 2004-2005 RX-8 you see rolling down the road? it has the Hydrogen burning engine. it's the same. All you would need to make it burn H is the H injector (easy, simple), the Switch and the ECM (going to have to talk Mazda into releasing it, I think). oh, and the H tank.
But wait! where will you get Hydrogen???
well, for $1600 you can get a home Hydrogen generator that use Lye reduction process from fuelcellstore.com, which would make enough to fill up your tank in about 3 hours, for about $6. You would need to compress it to higher density, but that's neither hard nor expensive.
So...can you twist a wrench? looking for yet another way to illustrate the superiority of Rotary Engines? Your Sister just got a all electric car and you want to make her shut up about the environment?
for less than $10,000 (depending on the cost of getting that ECM, which honestly might be a snap or cheap, I don't know), you could have a True Sports Car that is so green you can drink the crystal clear water which is it's only exhaust product in H mode (disclaimer: don't drink it, it's going to have crap from the gas usage, also), that you fill up with stuff you can literally make yourself + electricity...which ALSO has a switch to put it in RWD drift monster mode.
update: I used this post to autogenerate a video, see it at
https://ai.invideo.io/watch/NGqAc5DQE8c
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