In a contest between EVs, Hybrids, and Mechanical cars circa 2012, Mechanical can't help but win.

So after a day and a half of research I've determined that the Hybrid and Electric vehicle (EV) 10 year Cost to own & operate (10yCOO) is substantially greater than that of equivalent mechanical vehicles.  I'm not sure this is a reason to short Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), per say, but it certainly isn't a vote in their favor or that of Capstone (NASDAQ:CPST) and it's 40hp C30 turbine.  Capstone might be a short candidate whenever it pops up however.

1. Battery packs must be replaced, increasing the cost to own EVs and Hybrids significantly.
1. This may not be quite as apparent at the 5 year mark where they are only slightly more expensive but after the 8 to 10 year battery life is completed $12,000 for Teslas, $15,000 for the leaf (which may only last 5 years), and $3,000 for Hybrids makes the difference readily apparent.
2. While there are warranties available, under the standard insurance model they are priced relatively neutrally: Cost x Probability of failure = price of warranty.  Often included in the sticker price for the time period it is not expected to fail.

Per Toyota's National Environmental, Safety & Quality Communications Manager, John Hanson: "The battery pack in any hybrid Toyota is warranted either for 10 years or 150,000 miles (in states with California emissions laws) or 8 years or 100,000 miles in all other states."

2. Alleged cost to own savings of EVs & Hybrids are generally false.  While they are keen to discount the cost of fuel and maintenance from their 10yCOO they do not include the battery replacement.  The maintenance schedules of mechanical cars and electric cars are different, as you might expect, but payed in smaller frequent intervals by the mechanical car owner and in bulk payments by the EV owner (at purchase & batter replacement).
1. While I’ve had a Tesla dealer tell me I can sell thier car on in 5 years and should not worry about the looming $15k battery replacement, if I were to do so it is likely the next person (or a car pricing website) will take that $15k expense into account when pricing the car?  They sure as hell take it into account with a car that hasn’t had an oil change in 5 years.
2. Cars like the Toyota Prius C One might have social value, but as a form of transit they are an impractical choice.  One may as well purchase a sportscar for status in a different subgroup of the population.   The 5 year cost to own a 2012 Toyota Prius C one is $36,970 per Edmunds with it’s EPA 53/46mpg 38.6” head room, 41.7” leg room, and 17.1 cu. Ft of cargo space, 10.6sec 0-60, 17.8sec ¼ mile (Road & Track test, Calvin Kim, 2/7/2012).  While the Honda Civic DX Coupe strolls in $800 less at $36,108 with it’s EPA 28/39 (remember fuel price was include in the cost to own) 38.1” head room, 42.2” leg room, 11.7 cu.ft. of cargo space and 140hp, 6s 0-60, 14s ¼ mi (Road & Track est, Douglas Katt, April 19, 2011).
1. So you’re paying more for the status of driving a Prius than the affordable “sports car”.  .  While it’s true that your fuel in the Prius only costs $6,419 over 5 years driving 15,000 miles and the DX coupe costs nearly twice that at $10,034 after you consider maintenance, insurance (yes the Dx is cheaper to insure by $600), and starting sticker price all substantially higher with the Prius you have to ask yourself what you’re really paying for, and that is the status of a green image.  It’s a great time to love sports cars apparently.
2. The Nissan Versa 1.6S costs another $600 less than the DX, or $1402 less than the Prius if you couldn’t decide on which fad to be a part of.  And don’t forget about the extra $2500 the Prius will cost you sometime between year 8 & 15 to keep your fuel prices artificially low.
3. The only non-plugin hybrid capable of a lower 10yCOO is one that focuses on streamlining, regenerative braking, and electric motors for bursts of power, and it's most likely to be efficient if the vehicle is >4000# or less than 1500 (and impractical to use as a daily driven car). Enter the VW XL1?
4. Pure electric vehicles with batteries not designed to be switched out in under 10 minutes are without merit for travel and should not purchased by anyone expecting to sell or own a car 10 years from now.  Tesla got this part right in their design process, Tesla batteries can allegedly be replaced in 5 minutes with proper equipment.  I don’t believe any other production Hybrids or EVs meet that criteria.  When you can just pull into an EV station and have your whole battery pack replaced in 5 minutes EVs will gain some footing they currently must relinquish to mechanical cars. . .
5. The current paradigm of electric charging stations is hopelessly impractical since the charging rate is orders of magnitude slower than using liquid fuel and the price to charge per kWh is a little over 10x the cost ($0.08) to supply it, this fails on both merits of personally owned transit which cars are well known for (faster and cheeper).
6. EVs might significantly decrease local emissions to near zero, but the drop in total emissions is less.  Probably just shy of 60% efficiency for Power Plants in aggregate at point of generation then adjusted  for the 7% transmission losses to where the work is done = 53% (excluding local losses) and 18-20% at the wheel for ICE.  So up to 30% more available energy is being converted to useable energy at power plants, some portion of the remainder is lost as heat or unspent but overall likely cleaner output than from an Internal combustion engine per kWh.
1. If this is indicative of a 20% drop in pollutants it is certainly significant enough to consider, but might be more of an argument for ending Fossil fuel subsidies than initiating EV subsidies.
7. Backup generators, if used for range extension, get ~15mpg.  Based on the Honda EU2000i & EU3000is (high fidelity power output capable of charging EVs) 2800W@23.3A x 7.2 h /3.4gal, 300w per mile to cruise a Tesla model S at 70mph.
1. A high efficiency, lightweight, gasoline-Hydrogen reformer could possibly improve EV range extension substantially and reduce the need for batteries, which are neither energy dense nor remarkably reliable or efficient.  On the other hand this would reduce our reliance on the 20% efficient ICE to a system that is 31-36% efficient and wouldn’t require a substantial change to our fuel infrastructure.  However, the reformer would have to be efficient enough to offset it's weight.

These principles only apply to Hybrids & EVs with ranges over 60mi that are consistent with a 1990’s American understanding of the word "car".  A definition, I might add, that does not consistently apply to most 2 seat sports cars.  I believe a loose, informal, definition of the American understanding of “Car” would be described as: 4 wheels, 4 or more occupants, and the capacity for two sets of golf clubs. I believe that definition could be substantiated by asking surveyees to: “Describe a car, not a form of transport that is like a car, or ‘sort of’ a car, but is an actual car.”  The golf club annalogy is fairly pervasive even amoung those who donot golf and are not familiar with the size of golf bags.

The "Green car" phenomenon is a clever lie, called marketing.  While you could buy a car that used less fossil fuel, if that is your idea of “green”, you could instead use the $10,000 you saved (buying a car with a lower 10yCOO) to help preserve the rain forest, feed the hungry, plant trees & shrubbery, or buy carbon offsets.  But then no one would know how good and green you are, so the Tesla S is your Ferrari.  If you still wanted a hybrid vehicle focus on point 2: mostly mechanical with electricity the equivalent of an on demand power adder like NitrousOxide and generally made to be as light and efficient as possible.  It probably also plugs-in, because it may as well, but it shouldn’t be integral to its design.  Non-plugin-Hybrids will almost always have a substantially higher 10yCOO vs all other vehicles.

EVs and mechanical cars have equivalent 10yCOO, but you can “recharge” mechanical cars virtually anywhere the road goes, it is laughable to suggest this is a current possibility for EVs.  When was the last time you had beef, are you prepared to forsake it forever just because you could find a way to make it work?  And in truth that’s what EV and hybrid buyers are doing, they want to be seen as people who help the environment and do what’s right for the planet.  It’s about status.  No different than owning a Prada bag or an Armani suit.  If you were to use an EV purely as a commute car, it /might/ have a lower 10yCOO but that is by no means assured.  Indeed if it was purely a commute car you’d be better off taking the train or an EV that’s essentially a motorcycle (perhaps not unlike the XL1 if it was manufactured inexpensively enough).

Plug in hybrids have all of the negatives of both EVs and Mechanicals, and their 10yCOO is higher than a similarly equipped mechanical vehicle.  This is necessarily the case because not only do hybrids require the fuel, oil changes, and maintenance of mechanical vehicles they also require the costly hybrid upgrades and maintenance.

Sadly, for would be efficiency nuts, these numbers will hold true until Gasoline is near or over $10/gal.  Gas is such an excellent, portable, energy dense, and cheap form of power while batteries are so unreliable, slow to recharge, and costly that even at the current “high” prices all the alternatives are far higher.  Since diesel is only 13% more energy dense than gasoline and B100 only 6%, it may be beneath consideration as an alternative for the miserly.  It turns out the application has far more to do with efficiency than the fuel itself (some diesel engines are designed to be as efficient as possible while others are tweaked for torque or horse power) so the 10yCOO is only slightly in favor of diesel in equal comparisons.  Most comparisons are not equal however, the Jetta TDI is not the equivalent of an Audi RS4.  In fact the 5yCOO of the 2012 Gas Jetta SE is $38,701 while the equivilant TDI costs $37,782 making the diesel $919 cheaper or 2.4%.  The TDI requires the SE upgrade, but if you were to purchase a base Jetta it would be some $4500 cheeper over 4 years, mostly due to financing and purchase price.  To be clear, if a gas vehicle has a 10yCOO of $60,000 the 10yCOO of a nearly identical and similarly used and purposed diesel 10yCOO will $54,000 (if they started at the same price, but they won't).  Now that money doesn’t know where it came from, and you should still save it, but the difference is slight enough that you should consider the intangible benefits on both sides before committing either way.  

So what can be said about EVs and Hybrids?  Owning one at the moment is unequivocally financially foolish across the board, unless we’re talking about a Tesla and then it’s only mostly foolish.

Fisker Automotive is a fool’s errand and if their business model doesn’t change substantially I don’t see how it could possibly avoid bankruptcy, barring an upwelling of the idyllic or financially foolish.

The current popularity of EVs and Hybrids is just like the ebb and flow of muscle cars, convertibles, sport compact cars, and SUVs before them a cultural tend that, while not going anywhere, isn’t a new paradigm.  It’s all about fuel, it’s energy density, and availability and until that paradigm shifts everything else is fashion.