EV use can be more expensive than gas

[Birdowin]

It’s not about cheap, it’s all about climate change. If you want to talk about costs, what is the cost of all of the record storms that we’ve been having?

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[KBabione]

The timeliness of this thread is great - My wife and I drove to a wedding this past weekend about 250 miles away. We stopped once to charge up to 85% about halfway there (so we didn't arrive empty) and did the cost calculations on the fly. We paid $0.40/KW to charge and were getting roughly 2 M/KWH so our per mile cost was $0.20. Gas around us is $3.70/gallon and our Highlander gets around 20 MPG so our ICE cost for this trip would have been $0.18/mile - less than the EV.

BUT - we pay $0.16/KWH to charge at home so those first miles (we started at 100%) were only $0.08 each and the resort we stayed at (The Boar's Head in Charlottesville - amazing if anyone is going to that part of Virginia) had two Tesla destination chargers so we were able to charge back to 100% for the return trip home for "free." For this trip the EV definitely "won" over ICE from a cost perspective.

To the OP's point...Traveling and using L3 chargers is currently more expensive than taking an ICE vehicle, but most of the 12K miles we've put on our Rivian have been local so our total cost is well less than half what it would have been in our ICE vehicles. If you can't use a L2 charger at home for most of your charging needs then you're probably not a good candidate for an EV.

 

[EVTrucking]

EV car is not a good finance decision. You spend more money on EV tax, depreciation due technology change, tires, etc.

If you charge at home it is cheaper than gas, public chargers are 1.5-3x more expensive than gas.

It is fun to drive, it is nice gadget , but not a good finance decision

EV are much more than a gadget!

Every time you start and ICE you spew toxic crap into your air and everybody else air. You fill your tank with a toxic explosive that is sloshed, leaked all over the country. Justifying an ICE financially is selfish, short sited and plain ignorant.

Next time you are out driving focus on the exhaust pipes of the cars around you and wake up to the fact that the person driving that gasoline burning car is pumping crap directly into your lungs and doesn’t give a darn about you, their only concern is themselves!

Financial justification is the easy socially acceptable excuse for not doing what is right.

 

[shap]

EV are much more than a gadget!

Every time you start and ICE you spew toxic crap into your air and everybody else air. You fill your tank with a toxic explosive that is sloshed, leaked all over the country. Justifying an ICE financially is selfish, short sited and plain ignorant.

Let's keep politics out of this. If you think EV manufacturing is clean and slave work on mines is fine, think again.

We are here talking about real numbers and having EV to save money is not always (or more often than not) work.

 

[R1TCntrlMaIzzy]

Yes, it is more expensive to use L3 chargers on a regular basis or a long trip. I suspect some planning might help and a membership to several of providers.

All Quad models are an 835 hp vehicle. Would an equivalent ICE use regular or premium fuel? Would that make the math a little closer? IDK

I would bet no one knows when the pricing will be lowered, changed.

 

[shap]

Yes, it is more expensive to use L3 chargers on a regular basis or a long trip. I suspect some planning might help and a membership to several of providers.

All Quad models are an 835 hp vehicle. Would an equivalent ICE use regular or premium fuel? Would that make the math a little closer? IDK

I would bet no one knows when the pricing will be lowered, changed.

Actually, that is a good point about the power - but in the real world, you do not really need all 800+ hp

Anyway, it is a great car, fun to drive, etc. As for the money - the car is a depreciation asset, so economically the best car to use is the Honda/Toyota Hybrid But people will still buy BMW, Audi, Tesla, Rivian, etc because it is fun to drive Even if you lose more money.

I think my point was to say - some people (actually many) think they can save money by moving to EV. While in some cases this is true, in very large numbers of cases it is not. And the government will not let you - they will raise the taxes on EV charging (Austin energy is already sending me the report on how much I spend on charging - using their smart meter, CA piloting per mile charge, etc).

 

[docwhiz]

Have you ever compared your expenses on ev vs gas. I used my r1s this weekend and charged it a bit at a public charging station. It was $.50/kwh. It cost me $12.50 for a 57miles added miles. I then realized that it's actually going to cost me more to do a long drive with EV rather than a gas SUV. I would spend about $60 to get about 400 miles added for a range rover evoque while it would end up costing me about $87 to charge multiple times to get up to 400 miles added.

What are your experiences? Is charging in public always going to be costly?

Like most of these EV hit pieces, you use very high electricity prices and very low gas prices and ignore all the other costs of ICE.
Here is some more realistic costs.
Rivian 400 miles, 200 kWh x .30 = $60
Evoke 400 miles, 20 gal x $5 = $100 plus $3,000/year maintenance

 

[ads75]

My 2 door Wrangler and my R1T have about the same energy range (in ideal conditions). The Wrangler is about $60 to fill from completely empty, my R1T is about $21 to fill at home (but free at work). When using EA or EVGO, the R1T does not seem any cheaper, or at least, the costs are comparable, other than time and convenience, both of which matter also.

 

[Mathme]

I took the R1T from the Bay Area to Paso Robles, CA and back last weekend. Since we had the dog with us, we used Pet Mode at those wineries that didn't allow dogs so we used a little more energy. In total, it was about 475 miles of driving for the weekend. My cost break down was as follows:

2 EA charge stops for 98 kWh @ $.42/kWh. Cost $41.24
1 home charge back to 80% SoC at the end of the trip for 59 kWh @ .40/kWh. Cost $23.60
32 kWh free charging in town and at wineries while doing other things.
Total electric costs for the weekend: $64.84

To drive my last SUV that got about 21 mpg on Super Unleaded would have been about $158 (475 miles at $7/gallon).

In this instance, it was considerable cheaper to drive electric.

 

[docwhiz]

Let's keep politics out of this. If you think EV manufacturing is clean and slave work on mines is fine, think again.

We are here talking about real numbers and having EV to save money is not always (or more often than not) work.

Toxic air pollution is not politics, it's science.

 

[iansriv]

This makes me wonder why the cost to fuel up (electric or petrol) is about the same. Shouldn't electricity be cheaper?

 

[docwhiz]

This makes me wonder why the cost to fuel up (electric or petrol) is about the same. Shouldn't electricity be cheaper?

Electricity is cheaper (anywhere from free to about $0.10/kWh) most of the time for most people. (My costs for charging at home is "free" from my fully paid for solar PV system. Many people charge off peak at less than $0.10/kWh.)
Electricity is only expensive on some road trips with expensive DCFC stations. These stations can be expensive because they have to cover initial fixed costs and often are subject to high "demand charges" and peak pricing periods from electric suppliers. $0.50 is high but Tesla's stations are usually about half that. Prices vary according to the time of day and location. You can find prices on Google Maps as well as plug share and your own car navigation system. As with most things, it pays to shop around.

 

[zefram47]

For a comparably sized vehicle, DC charging on a road trip is comparable to an ICE. But how often are you doing big road trips...once or twice a year? For all other driving, assuming you can charge at home, it'll be far cheaper driving an EV than an ICE vehicle. Amortize that over a year of driving and your road trip still costs less. For that matter, pre-plan your route with ABRP and note which charging networks you'll use more than twice over the course of the trip and consider buying a charging plan just for the month that you'll be road tripping for and you'll end up saving probably 20-30% of that. Do note that the EVgo plans don't work with the Pilot/Flying J/Ultium stations. For the Tesla network you can't use the plan rates unless you first activate the charger with the Tesla app and then plug in...if you allow the vehicle to use plug and charge, it'll bill through Rivian at the full rate.

 

[shap]

Toxic air pollution is not politics, it's science.

Extensive tire wearing on EVs create dangerous nano part pollution as well. Twice more than ICE car.

 

[Jiji]

What are your experiences? Is charging in public always going to be costly?

Just throwing this out there, why should it be cheap? A carbon-free transportation system doesn’t necessarily align with the carbon-extraction model of the past 300 years.

I don’t pay anything for charging three EVs at home (25kW of solar panels) so while I am price sensitive on trips, no FlyingJ for me, convenience is a bigger factor than price. And as many pointed out the average cost of energy beats an ICE hands down.

And then there is concept that just maybe I am doing something about the environment and climate change, happy to no longer be a pawn of the oil companies any more.

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