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Research Firm Claims Most cars still cost more to charge than to fill up with gas
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
59 points (65.0% liked)
Technology
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Seems like bullshit to me. Recognizing the logical fallacy here, it’s still worth pointing out the firm has a history of working with major auto manufacturers, and is headquartered near Detroit. Their CEO, Patrick L. Anderson, also served under a Republican governor in multiple roles and is a contributor to numerous conservative research institutes.
Yeah, this is bullshit. I charge my car at home by leaving it plugged in overnight. Costs me literally a few bucks a month to keep it charged. I don't even notice it on my electricity bill.
If I were charging at fee-based charging stations all the time, the story would be different, but who the hell does that?!?
We were looking at getting an EV without being able to charge it at home. Charging it at public chargers here in the UK would've cost about the same as petrol. But having to rely on the public charging infrastructure in its current state made us decide against it, at least for now.
Out of curiosity, why couldn't you charge it at home? Most electric cars can have their chargers plugged into a standard wall outlet. It's slower, but it works fine.
I live in a hilly suburb, there's a parking pad at road level which is far from my house and on council land. No way for me to install charging equipment. It's very common in my country.
Yeah, that sounds like a fully electric vehicle wouldn't be a good fit, then.
Well not yet. We have to make it a good fit though. Can't keep burning oil.
I wish I could make it work, and it highlights some huge infrastructure issues that need to be solved before the combustion engine goes
I'd love to have one too but I live in the city now instead of the suburbs. My car is parked on a concrete pad in the alley behind my house, a good 80 feet from any electricity. I could probably charge at work though by just parking in the warehouse and plugging in to one of the many extension cords we have around.
I mean, if your employer doesn't mind, that could be a hell of a cost-effective way to keep it topped up.
I'm the VP so I'd better be able to get away with it lol
Yeah, I'm gonna guess you won't get in trouble for it then.
A bit difficult to do if where your living you aren't able to run the charging cable from the inside of your house to the outside.
Ah. Yeah, if you don't have any external outlets, that would make an electric car less practical.
Same as what others said. We basically don't have a driveway. The UK government is pushing for public chargers to become more reliable and easier to use though. This reinforced our fears that the current infrastructure may be unreliable but at the same time really gives hope that it will be good enough for us in the very near future. Our employer's office also doesn't currently offer charging, which some of our friends get, which is really nice for people in my situation.
I made a similar decision. The only garages available to me are unpowered, not cheap, and not even super close to my apartment door. If I felt I could get my landlord to build the infrastructure for parking lot charging and penalize ice vehicles for parking in charging spaces I probably would’ve gone electric
This is such a major issue. I genuinely wonder if we apartment and non-garage having individuals are going to be just shit out of luck for a long time. People normally don't care about us at all.
Yeah I figure that’ll be the case. Like I mentioned it to my gentrification happy landlord and apparently they’d never even considered it
If you are plugging into an outlet in your garage (level 1) you are only charging up 3 - 5 miles per hour. Putting in a 240v 40 amp (level 2) will get you 20 - 25 miles per hour i.e. a complete recharge for current batteries in 12 hours.
Here in DK we are fine with public charging only. Still quite a bit cheaper than gas for a comparable car. And I suspect lower repair cost, (currently) free parking and eventual city closures for ICEs to be enough logical reasons for hesitant people. Personally I would have never bought an ICE. Felt bad enough getting a car at all.
People who live in apartments and basement suites, basically anywhere with no garage. After 2030 or 2035 or whatever the deadline is there will be lots of people who have electric cars and no way to charge them overnight at home, so people will have to charge at public chargers everytime.
People who live in apartments. Or generally places where they can't just plug in at home.
It seems inconsistent with other studies and the article only states results, not assumptions. Most importantly: where?
Thanks for doing the work.
Consideration for readers. Remember not everyone lives where you do and has the same access and infrastructure that you do.
Some US states are pushing for EV but do not have the power production needed to support it at scale. Maybe another 10 or 20 years when everyone has a nuclear reactor in their backyard.
I’m all for EV for those that it makes sense. For many, especially the impoverished, it’s just another barrier to overcome.
It's not a ~~logical fallacy~~ conspiracy when they're really out to get you though.
That said, my experience charging an EV in the space of one month cost as much as 14 twelve gallon tanks of gas. There may be something wrong with my electric service but the power company is an evil monopoly that doesn't care about anything but getting paid so..
Did you charge at home during the night, or during peak hours/at fast chargers?
How many tanks of gas would you have gone through in a comparable vehicle?
Here's my answer for this (with data!): For the month of July, I charged 440.0 kWh. I averaged 94% efficiency while charging, so the chargers actually used 469 kWh. There were 35 charges, for a total of 66 hours spent charging. My total electric cost is 15 cents per kWh (my plan doesn't have peak/off-peak). I did no charging at superchargers in July.
In that timeframe, I drove 1314 miles. 355kWh were used while driving, giving me an average efficiency of 3.7 miles per kWh. You'll note that I used 85 fewer kWh driving, that's because thosed 85 kWh were used to precondition my car, keep the AC running while I'm in the store or on a bike ride, etc. Super wasteful, but it's so cheap that I can't help myself).
So to break it down: 15 cents per kwh * 469kWh = $70 to charge, $12.75 of which was just used for climate control while not driving.
My last car was a 2016 Honda Accord Touring V6 which, in my area and with my driving style, averaged about 22mpg (lots of steep hills, 85mph driving, and stop and go traffic. I live 15 miles from town by interstate and town has lots of traffic).
According to AAA, the average cost of gas in PA is $3.87 (I know that price changes, but the math gets harder if I look up the price of gas each time I would have had to fill the tank so I'm just taking the current avg). 1314 miles / 22mpg = 59.7 gallons of gas * $3.87 = $231.
For extra fun math, looking at purely fuel costs, the Accord would cost 17.5 cents per mile to drive (not including the fact that I'd need an oil change every 4 months, transmission fluid every year and a half, etc).
My current car at current electric rates costs 5.3 cents per mile to drive.
Additionally, i'm planning on getting solar in a year or two, which should bring my cost down to effectively zero. AND, we can charge for free at my wife's work when she's in the office (as well as at the park I bike at), but she wasn't in the office at all in July; we both worked from home full time last month.
TL;DR: my Model 3 Long Range costs about a third as much per mile to drive as my similarly sized Honda Accord did before I sold it
I charge a Lightning at home with an 80 amp charger and before that I had a gas f150. The increase to my energy bill was about $30-$40 a month and offset about $400 a month in gas.
That is a clear comparison, and sounds like a fantastic change as well!
But how much more does a lightning cost vs a gas truck? I bought a truck last year and badly wanted the lightning but it would have taken roughly 140000 miles before I broke even and the electric was saving me money. That was also using $5 a gallon for gas as a comparison which I only ever paid to at much for once. I’m all for electric and if you have the money and want one go for it but financially speaking it doesn’t make much sense right now unless you want a bolt or a leaf which are actually comparable in cost to a gas car. Everything else is so widely overpriced.
Just going from the website, an F150 Lariat is $68k in Canada, and the Lightning XLT is $69k. If you wanted a more comparable Lightning Lariat, it's $80k.
Both the gasser and sparky version can be optioned up to well over $110k, which is insanity to me.
That lightning lariat you have selected probably doesn’t have the long range battery. You need the long range package to make it comparable to the gas F150 lariat feature wise, at least in the US. Who the hell wants an electric truck with only 200 mile range anyway?
This is definitely hitting the nail on the head. Until the technology trickles down into the lower-end models, it's not anywhere near as much a cost savings when you have to buy way up in trim level to get electric as an option.
It's also worth noting that electric economy is notably worse in cold climates - your internal combustion car generates heat for ~free, the electric heater in your Tesla does draw a fair bit of current.
I paid 76k for the f150 I had (2022 kr)and 85k for the Lightning. So about 10k difference for fairly equivalent trim.
I ended up with a Toyota tundra for 62k that had more features than the 86k lightning lariat I was looking at. I’m guessing your gas truck was much more decked out for only a 10k difference because and even equipped gas F150 I looked at was only about 3k more than my platinum tundra.
When it gets to costs it really depends on what the comparison is since trucks have a wide price range even for the same model. Plus maintenance costs are far lower for an electric vehicle than regular maintenance on a gas engine if neither have defects. That of course does not include costs for insurance, interest on a loan, regustration, and other expenses that go along with a higher sticker price.
All that said, initial cost alone can certainly be a barrier even if the break even point is only a few years away.ong term savings on expensive vehicles are nice for those that can afford it.
It sucks that compact trucks weren't one of the first models offered since they would be at a perfect spot for the benefits of high torque and shorter range for light work.
I think people overstate maintenance on an ICE vehicle. My last car I sold at 120k miles and only ever did brake pads twice and oil changes every 7500 miles for about $25 a change. I probably should have changed spark plugs around 80k and done the transmission fluid but I didn’t. Those things are also really cheap to do.
When it comes to unplanned maintenance I agree it can get costly but that’s much more rare and will only affect some people and probably shouldn’t be factored in. Unplanned maintenance on an electric vehicle is also very costly. Probably negligible when compare the both types across the board.
Like I said, I’m all for electric and I will own one someday but for many it just doesn’t make sense because the insane markup or manufacturing costs, whatever it may be.
Unfortunately people don’t want small vehicles and are willing to pay huge markups on their SUV’s/trucks so prices and size aren’t coming down anytime soon.
Only ever overnight, and maybe 5 tanks tops.
Assuming gas is $3.75/gal where you live, that is $630. If you spent $630 on charging your car in one month then you either drive 3000 miles a month or have a problem with your electric meter. Assuming you live in the state with the highest electricity prices that isn't Hawaii (because then we couldn't assume $3.75/gal for your gas), your rate is $0.34/kWh. That means you 1853kWh.
Assuming you drive the least efficient EV, the Hummer, which goes 329 miles on 213kWh, you would have to drive 2862 miles in one month to spend $630. So for the worst case electrical price, with the worst case EV mileage, with average gas prices, you are driving a lot more than most people to spend 14 twelve gallon tanks of gas worth. For reference, switching that Hummer to a Bolt would only cost $278 to drive 2862 miles.
It's worse than that, it's a hybrid that can only go maybe 30 miles before the battery is drained. So that doesn't even account for 1000 miles. Super wasteful, but whatever's going on isn't the norm so I'm getting hit on multiple fronts.
There’s definitely a lot of nuance involved. For instance my service provider charges more for electricity than the public charge stations do (seriously fuck PG&E and every other monopolistic service provider), so I actually save money by not charging at home. It’s still absolutely cheaper than filling up on gas though, especially when I can find a spot where I don’t have to pay (like my work.)
I don’t see how working with major manufacturers or being near Detroit makes it likely that this group wants to push an ICE narrative. Ford and GM have some of the most advanced electric vehicle systems in the world and are shipping more EV units than competitors.