Where I'm located I'm billed $.07 per kwh. My model 3 LR has a 75 kw battery, so to charge it from totally empty to totally full would cost $5.25. Tesla's claims are a bit inflated, but I can get 300 miles on a full charge, putting the cost to drive 100 miles at $1.75. Even if we took an extremely generous approximate of 50mpg, it would take 2 gallons for an ICE vehicle to travel 100 miles. Where I'm located, gas is going for $4 a gallon, so it would cost $8.00 to travel the same 100 miles in an ICE vehicle.
If you're charging at home, the EV easily wins.
However, charging away from home can get expensive. During peak hours, it's possible to find charging for $.50 per kwh. Now it would cost $37.50 or $12.50 to drive 100 miles. Compared to the $8.00 in the ICE car, the EV is more expensive.
I think it's a bit disingenuous to claim that most cars cost more to charge than to fill up with gas. If you are able to charge at home, EVs are cheaper to drive per mile.
That's roughly around what I'm seeing as well as my electric is about the same rate. I'm in the midwest and gas is a little cheaper where I'm at, but it's still significantly cheaper to charge. Supercharging isn't too bad around me but I rarely ever use it. I did get to experience supercharging in California recently and it was probably as much or more than gas there which is probably why you see articles like this.
No one mentions oil either. I probably pay $100-150 a year to change the oil in my other ICE vehicle.
> I'm billed $.07 per kwh. My model 3 LR has a 75 kw battery, so to charge it from totally empty to totally full would cost $5.25
You're assuming 100% charge efficiency. I don't know what your actual home charging efficiency might be, but users seem to be reporting in the 80% to 95% range, with more in the 90s than 80s. So your actual cost could be $5.50 to $6.50. I'd guess that charging efficiency goes down as the battery gets older, but I have no evidence for that.
$0.07 per kwh also seems unusually cheap; where I am, costs are closer to $0.15 per kwh. So $11 to $14 per full charge sounds like a more realistic estimate for me, which still beats gas, but not quite as handily.
The overnight electricity rate in Ontario, Canada can be 2.9 cents/kWh, and the price of gasoline is about $1.50/litre ($5.70/gallon). So it's over 10x as much to drive our gasoline vehicle as it is to drive the electric one. A lot over 10x, in fact, since our gasoline vehicle doesn't get anywhere near 50mpg...
The study has 75% of the EV charging done at commercial chargers at $0.42/kwh. And it also calculates as part of the cost, 12 hours at $33/hour for your time spent driving to, and waiting for, the commercial chargers.
My lowest cost per kWh in SF Bay Area is $0.34 or 5 times your energy cost.
I can switch to a plan where past midnight it’s 0.25 but it will bump a good chunk of the day to over $.50 per kWh
In other words, until I get solar, charging a vehicle at home is not a money saving proposition for me
You are assuming 100% efficiency in charging, probably 85% would be more realistic. Not a deciding factor at .07 kWh, but something you would feel at .50 kWh.
Most of us don't live in the state of Washington where the electricity flows like wine*. $0.07/kwh is a good bargain these days. The national average across all of the USA is $0.23/kwh
Financially speaking, charging at home in California is a losing proposition.
* Please forgive me, I couldn't resist the Dumb and Dumber reference :p
Nissan leaf is 33 kWH / 100 miles per EPA [1]. Average US kWH cost is $0.17. [2] On average this should cost you $5.61 / 100 miles.
The study [3] methodology [4] gives a figure of $12.62 / 100 miles because it says road taxes + cost of charger is $7 / 100 miles, most of which is the charger. Because bundling fixed costs into a variable cost calculation is logical. Lol.
It’s not a fair comparison, notably because the “Average” American doesn’t own an EV. Once you start using more power the utility throws you into higher tiers with a higher cost per kWH. Like, using 700 kWH a month might be $70, but 1400 kWH might be $200.
Anyone from California knows this well because the tiers are extremely low. The whole economics of EVs starts to fall apart at 30/40/50c per kWH.
This sounds like a hack job article by some consulting firm hired by an O&G think tank.
Will look at the numbers more closely later. Skimming through it, the numbers don't look right. Also oddly enough, they somehow equate electric trucks as equivalent to ICE trucks in terms of cost to recharge/fuel up?
An interesting (to me) meta analysis of the discussion here: most people who find the numbers out of whack bring up charging at home at off peak rates. But home ownership is only about 65% in the us, and falling about 1.5% quarterly.
That is, home charging is not available to a significant and growing population. Home charging without a garage is pretty risky due to the high value of charging cables.
As it stands, a lot of car owners will continue to use gas stations and charging stations, raising their costs accordingly.
They don’t give specific numbers, but I took the state with the 10th cheapest gas (SC, $3.50) and 10th most expensive electricity (VT, $0.21/kWh), and compared expenses for a small SUV (Hyundai Kona EV(27kwh/100mi) and Kona ICE (3.1 gal/100mi))
12000 miles would cost $720/yr in the EV and $1300/yr for the ICE car.
I’m not sure how they determined costs for a charger (an EVSE to be pedantic), a 20A level 2 charger can be found for under $400, which would add less than $100/year over 5 years, the wiring to install the charger may cost significantly more, but since it’s a durable addition to your house, it should be amortized over a much longer timeframe, $3000 over 30 years is around $200/year.
I think that for most people that can charge at home, the EV is going to be cheaper to fuel, but that depends on EV rates, gas prices and registration fees(but even Texas’s $200/year fee would still leave this Hyundai EV being cheaper). I also excluded oil changes, for 12000 miles, my ICE car would need around 1.5 oil changes/year at $60/each. And of,course, like this report, I ignored the cost difference between the EV and the ICE car, which in this case is around $10,000 ignoring tax breaks.
In my case, my EV charge station cost nothing because I use the level 1 10A charger that came with the car and plug it into a normal wall outlet and it more than keeps up with my commute. (And I live in a state with $5 gas and $0.13 electricity, so it makes the EV even cheaper to operate)
That electric price is far from accurate. $.21/kWh is what the average person is paying to power a few light bulbs and occasionally run the oven. Not use an EV that will triple or quadruple the electric usage and be charged at a much higher rate.
This is in the U.S., where gas is insanely cheap compared to Europe. I'd be curious to see what the math looks like with, for example, Dutch gas prices, which are currently almost at €2 per liter, which is just over $8 per gallon at current exchange rates.
After reading the summary I linked to and browsing through the source PDF, I don't think these cost comparisons are fair or reasonable.
First, they amortize the cost of home charging infrastructure over 5 years, but personally, that's not how I think about those costs. When I'm comparing prices between cars, I'm considering the home charging as a one-time upfront cost. Once I've paid that cost it's not part of my ongoing costs to fuel the car.
You could argue that home charging infrastructure is a part of the cost of an electric car, sure, but if you're going to include that in the cost of the electric car, why not include the total cost of ownership for the ICE car as well (oil-changes, tuneups, emissions tests, etc.)? This article feels biased against EVs by only including additional costs of ownership for EVs and ignoring costs for ICs.
Also, high-voltage chargers for our home or commercial chargers on the road would be completely unnecessary for my family. We drive infrequently enough that an extension cord snaked to our driveway would be plenty of power.
This doesn't actually compare marginal costs. It factors in fixed costs like the cost of the charger for the EV amortized over five years. It counts road taxes for both types of vehicles, but road taxes are marginal for gas vehicles and fixed for electric ones. It doesn't count the additional marginal costs of maintaining an ICE vehicle over an EV.
And all of the taxes come from Michigan, which is one of those states that charge EV and hybrid owners extra to register and have lower gas prices than the rest of the country. I'm almost certain this would give a different result closer to the coasts.
This overall study feels like statistical cherry-picking to eeek out a marginal result.
Tesla M3 owner. Does it cost more to charge at a supercharger during peak hours in a state where gas is cheap? Absolutely. Does it cost less in states like California where gas is ridiculously expensive using a slow charger at home/workplace? Also absolutely.
I can just say that I live in the middle of the US and it currently costs me about 4 cents per mile to drive my Volt on electric and about 9 cents per mile to drive on gas. The factor was closing in on 5 when gas prices peaked.
Their methodology involves things like including the cost of residential chargers spread over 5 years "(We assume an L1 charger costs $600 and L2 charger with installation in 2021 costs $1,820.40)" and including cost of the time taken to occasionally drive to commercial chargers
Charging at home easily wins, especially if you have built out your solar accordingly. Many states like CA require a limit of 150% current use as the max for what you can build, but it's just as easy to get the car first. On top of that, the article doesn't mention maintenance. That may not be as much of an issue with a mid-market car like a Toyota, but cars like Tesla have far lower maintenance bills that up-market brands like Lexus, Audi, Mercedes, etc. It's easy to spend $2k/year on maintenance for luxury cars- sometimes far more than that.
This is surprising to me, and I'm getting confused.
A hybrid that you don't plug in, clearly gets better gas mileage than a gas car, so must cost less per mile?
(Or is the original research amortizing the more expensive original purchase price too?)
But does that mean that "traditional" (not plug-in) hybrids are cheaper to power per-mile than either full ICE or full EV? That seems surprising too. (And then what about plug-in hybrids?)
Looking at the study they source, one reason they were able to get the fossil fuel price to low is that gas prices have fallen recently.
Anecdotally, gas prices seem to be the mostly wildly fluctuating commodity price that I’ve ever been exposed to as a consumer. I would definitely not tie a necessary function like transportation to something so unpredictable unless I had any other choice. Can’t wait for used EVs to become more widespread.
Reading the full report, the author is trying to include secondary costs. For example, a Luxury EV using mostly commercial chargers, the owner will spend ~12 hours per month charging at an hourly wage of $33, costing another $401.50 per month. After rolling these secondary costs back into the cost to refuel, some of the EV scenarios are more expensive than ICE.
The costs listed in the BI article don't seem to actually match those in the report as far as I can see. e.g. they say charging a Rivian at home for 100 miles would cost over $17 but in the report they list the cost of home charging a luxury EV at ~$12
[+] [-] mcgingras|2 years ago|reply
If you're charging at home, the EV easily wins.
However, charging away from home can get expensive. During peak hours, it's possible to find charging for $.50 per kwh. Now it would cost $37.50 or $12.50 to drive 100 miles. Compared to the $8.00 in the ICE car, the EV is more expensive.
I think it's a bit disingenuous to claim that most cars cost more to charge than to fill up with gas. If you are able to charge at home, EVs are cheaper to drive per mile.
[+] [-] theFletch|2 years ago|reply
No one mentions oil either. I probably pay $100-150 a year to change the oil in my other ICE vehicle.
[+] [-] feoren|2 years ago|reply
You're assuming 100% charge efficiency. I don't know what your actual home charging efficiency might be, but users seem to be reporting in the 80% to 95% range, with more in the 90s than 80s. So your actual cost could be $5.50 to $6.50. I'd guess that charging efficiency goes down as the battery gets older, but I have no evidence for that.
$0.07 per kwh also seems unusually cheap; where I am, costs are closer to $0.15 per kwh. So $11 to $14 per full charge sounds like a more realistic estimate for me, which still beats gas, but not quite as handily.
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] playa1|2 years ago|reply
One thing to add is that range increases a lot when driving below 45 mph. For city driving we get a lot more range for the same cost.
Switching from a minivan to a Nissan Leaf for around-town driving was a huge cost savings per month.
[+] [-] Vvector|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vladgur|2 years ago|reply
In other words, until I get solar, charging a vehicle at home is not a money saving proposition for me
[+] [-] botulidze|2 years ago|reply
If I use your example,
- 75 kw battery to full is $30.75 and it's $10.25 per 100 miles;
- 2 gallons for ICE to travel 100 miles, it would be $12.8 per 100 miles.
So electric car would be a clear winner. If I factor in charging at 80% efficiency, it's $12.3 - only a $0.5 difference.
And the country I live in has the 4th highest energy price in the entire block.
Two points I would also consider
1- the service cost of an ICE car would be higher in a long run compared to the electric one due to higher complexity and more moving parts.
2- electric's car battery will wear down overtime and it will probably run less during winter.
I don't have much data though to elaborate on those points.
[+] [-] ttt3ts|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fatfingerd|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonas21|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] georgyo|2 years ago|reply
In NYC, residential power, including transit, taxes, other fees, is almost $0.35 and gas is $3.30
[+] [-] m463|2 years ago|reply
EDIT: last I checked. wholesale rate is $0.02-$0.04/kwh, sigh.
[+] [-] metadat|2 years ago|reply
Financially speaking, charging at home in California is a losing proposition.
* Please forgive me, I couldn't resist the Dumb and Dumber reference :p
[+] [-] 7e|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theironhammer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thorncorona|2 years ago|reply
Nissan leaf is 33 kWH / 100 miles per EPA [1]. Average US kWH cost is $0.17. [2] On average this should cost you $5.61 / 100 miles.
The study [3] methodology [4] gives a figure of $12.62 / 100 miles because it says road taxes + cost of charger is $7 / 100 miles, most of which is the charger. Because bundling fixed costs into a variable cost calculation is logical. Lol.
[1] https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/44448.shtml [2] https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices... [3] https://www.andersoneconomicgroup.com/many-gas-powered-cars-... [4]
[+] [-] oceanplexian|2 years ago|reply
Anyone from California knows this well because the tiers are extremely low. The whole economics of EVs starts to fall apart at 30/40/50c per kWH.
[+] [-] somuchjob|2 years ago|reply
And smoking isn't habit forming, your honor.
[+] [-] cyberge99|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xyst|2 years ago|reply
Will look at the numbers more closely later. Skimming through it, the numbers don't look right. Also oddly enough, they somehow equate electric trucks as equivalent to ICE trucks in terms of cost to recharge/fuel up?
[+] [-] falcolas|2 years ago|reply
That is, home charging is not available to a significant and growing population. Home charging without a garage is pretty risky due to the high value of charging cables.
As it stands, a lot of car owners will continue to use gas stations and charging stations, raising their costs accordingly.
[+] [-] Johnny555|2 years ago|reply
12000 miles would cost $720/yr in the EV and $1300/yr for the ICE car.
I’m not sure how they determined costs for a charger (an EVSE to be pedantic), a 20A level 2 charger can be found for under $400, which would add less than $100/year over 5 years, the wiring to install the charger may cost significantly more, but since it’s a durable addition to your house, it should be amortized over a much longer timeframe, $3000 over 30 years is around $200/year.
I think that for most people that can charge at home, the EV is going to be cheaper to fuel, but that depends on EV rates, gas prices and registration fees(but even Texas’s $200/year fee would still leave this Hyundai EV being cheaper). I also excluded oil changes, for 12000 miles, my ICE car would need around 1.5 oil changes/year at $60/each. And of,course, like this report, I ignored the cost difference between the EV and the ICE car, which in this case is around $10,000 ignoring tax breaks.
In my case, my EV charge station cost nothing because I use the level 1 10A charger that came with the car and plug it into a normal wall outlet and it more than keeps up with my commute. (And I live in a state with $5 gas and $0.13 electricity, so it makes the EV even cheaper to operate)
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
https://www.gasbuddy.com/usa
https://fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=46000&id=4...
[+] [-] oceanplexian|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rchard2scout|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw9away6|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkubicek|2 years ago|reply
edited to update my link to the latest version
[+] [-] jkubicek|2 years ago|reply
First, they amortize the cost of home charging infrastructure over 5 years, but personally, that's not how I think about those costs. When I'm comparing prices between cars, I'm considering the home charging as a one-time upfront cost. Once I've paid that cost it's not part of my ongoing costs to fuel the car.
You could argue that home charging infrastructure is a part of the cost of an electric car, sure, but if you're going to include that in the cost of the electric car, why not include the total cost of ownership for the ICE car as well (oil-changes, tuneups, emissions tests, etc.)? This article feels biased against EVs by only including additional costs of ownership for EVs and ignoring costs for ICs.
Also, high-voltage chargers for our home or commercial chargers on the road would be completely unnecessary for my family. We drive infrequently enough that an extension cord snaked to our driveway would be plenty of power.
[+] [-] frob|2 years ago|reply
And all of the taxes come from Michigan, which is one of those states that charge EV and hybrid owners extra to register and have lower gas prices than the rest of the country. I'm almost certain this would give a different result closer to the coasts.
This overall study feels like statistical cherry-picking to eeek out a marginal result.
[+] [-] tony_cannistra|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darth_avocado|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yumraj|2 years ago|reply
Electricity is also ridiculously expensive in CA especially in PG&E areas.[0] Off peak is 27 cents with peak rates rising to 58 cents.
[0] https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/rate-plans/rate-plan-o...
[+] [-] frob|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codeulike|2 years ago|reply
article here: https://www.andersoneconomicgroup.com/many-gas-powered-cars-...
cost calculation methodology from 2022 here: https://www.andersoneconomicgroup.com/second-edition-real-wo...
... and in more detail here https://www.andersoneconomicgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/202...
They base it all on Michigan so really the headline should end "... in Michigan". In Europe for example it would all look very different.
[+] [-] xnx|2 years ago|reply
I've also never seen a calculator that includes the time cost of refueling and maintenance for ICE vehicles.
[+] [-] back7co|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jrochkind1|2 years ago|reply
A hybrid that you don't plug in, clearly gets better gas mileage than a gas car, so must cost less per mile?
(Or is the original research amortizing the more expensive original purchase price too?)
But does that mean that "traditional" (not plug-in) hybrids are cheaper to power per-mile than either full ICE or full EV? That seems surprising too. (And then what about plug-in hybrids?)
[+] [-] bee_rider|2 years ago|reply
Anecdotally, gas prices seem to be the mostly wildly fluctuating commodity price that I’ve ever been exposed to as a consumer. I would definitely not tie a necessary function like transportation to something so unpredictable unless I had any other choice. Can’t wait for used EVs to become more widespread.
[+] [-] sxates|2 years ago|reply
tldr: lots of shady figures went into this to make EVs look as expensive as possible and ICE vehicles look as cheap as possible. Garbage "study".
[+] [-] xela79|2 years ago|reply
garbage link
[+] [-] planet_1649c|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Vvector|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jebarker|2 years ago|reply