Kona Electric - monthly cost

  • Thread starter Thread starter FloridaSun
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies Replies 37
  • Views Views 6K
FloridaSun

FloridaSun

Well-Known Member
I just did my math and analysis of what the Kona Electric costs me for electricity for driving 3000 miles per month.
I just got my monthly electric bill and it was $7.06 higher than last years bill for the same time frame..

Date...............................Due Date...Amount
10/22/2018 Utilities Bill 11/19/2018 $230.34
10/22/2019 Utilities Bill 11/19/2019 $237.41

Consumption actually went up by over 400 kwh per month (2361 kwh this year vs. 1929 kwh last year) but due to the new Billing Plan, cost remained about the same. With my old billing plan, cost would have gone up $47 instead of $7. I made one road trip and spent $10 at a Electrify America station @15 cents per minute, so my total cost for electricity compared to last year was $17 more. So, my actual cost per mile is a stunningly low half cent per mile..
Based on my calculation, my average of 4.8 mi/kwh means that I use approximately 625 kwh per month. I frequently use free chargers which account for probably about 200 - 250 kwh per month.
electricoctober.webp
 
Francois said:
I don't know my monthly cost but it is sure to be very small. I am on a hydroquebec plan of $0.04 per kw. So much cheaper than fuel. :)
Click to expand...

We are paying around $0.10/kWh, with no off-peak differential. Still, it is pretty good. I pay for fast charging once in a while (and I found a free 50kW that I can use to top up).
 
ericy said:
We are paying around $0.10/kWh, with no off-peak differential. Still, it is pretty good. I pay for fast charging once in a while (and I found a free 50kW that I can use to top up).
Click to expand...
My normal rate was a little over 10 cents per kwh but it was a tiered system where price would go up based on amount of energy used.. There are 3 tiers. Each tier is about 1 cent per kwh higher. My peak/off peak plan does not have tiers.
 
My monthly costs have been zero. In fact zero since I got the car in May, and now 10,000 kms later. I have yet to pay for a charge whether at home, driving around town, or on a trip.
 
R P said:
My monthly costs have been zero. In fact zero since I got the car in May, and now 10,000 kms later. I have yet to pay for a charge whether at home, driving around town, or on a trip.
Click to expand...
I will be in that situation once the chargers at my office are installed. No word on when those will be installed yet. They were announced in August..
 
ericy said:
You win:D
Click to expand...
Now I feel like I need to keep this streak going. Even if it costs just a couple dollars for a charge at home or somewhere, I am going to have to go to all extremes to avoid it...:cool:

One day though, I will have to cave, sooner or later. It will most likely be on a trip somewhere... Or the free chargers are going to start disappearing.:eek:
 
R P said:
Now I feel like I need to keep this streak going. Even if it costs just a couple dollars for a charge at home or somewhere, I am going to have to go to all extremes to avoid it...:cool:

One day though, I will have to cave, sooner or later. It will most likely be on a trip somewhere... Or the free chargers are going to start disappearing.:eek:
Click to expand...
Nothing is free, someone (public taxpayers in the case of BC hydro fast chargers) is paying for that privilege.
As far as L2, there are still quite a few out there not requiring payment thanks to private corporations, but as EVs ( or PHEVs for that matter) become more mainstream expect the availability to become less .
Best of luck with your streak...
 
electriceddy said:
Nothing is free, someone (public taxpayers in the case of BC hydro fast chargers) is paying for that privilege.
As far as L2, there are still quite a few out there not requiring payment thanks to private corporations, but as EVs ( or PHEVs for that matter) become more mainstream expect the availability to become less .
Best of luck with your streak...
Click to expand...
Well, I have paid an awful lot of taxes over the years, and still paying lots. So I will happily take back any that I can get... After all, the purchase subsidies and then the free charging are doing what the policies intended,... getting more people to buy EVs. They gave me a carrot and I am taking it...

And as for where do our tax dollars go? Probably best not to get into that here on this forum...

I don't expect the free to last forever. The question is when... Are the subsidy and free charging incentives enough to convert people over to EVs? We'll see... What we really need is to see the price of EVs come down. I think it is starting to happen,... but very, very slowly. But until manufacturers can see their way to profitability with EVs, could be quite a while yet before we really see a lot of them on the road. The selfish side of me says that is good...
 
My Ultimate is priced about CDN$20,000 over the similarly equipped petrol Kona. Taking into account the domestic rate of $.14/kWh and assuming an average gas price of $1.50/L, I reckon to break even by 180,000 km. That’s not counting the saving in maintenance and the use of free public stations, so the break-even point may be much sooner.
 
R P said:
Well, I have paid an awful lot of taxes over the years, and still paying lots. So I will happily take back any that I can get... After all, the purchase subsidies and then the free charging are doing what the policies intended,... getting more people to buy EVs. They gave me a carrot and I am taking it...

And as for where do our tax dollars go? Probably best not to get into that here on this forum...

I don't expect the free to last forever. The question is when... Are the subsidy and free charging incentives enough to convert people over to EVs? We'll see... What we really need is to see the price of EVs come down. I think it is starting to happen,... but very, very slowly. But until manufacturers can see their way to profitability with EVs, could be quite a while yet before we really see a lot of them on the road. The selfish side of me says that is good...
Click to expand...
I see it the same way.. I'm a landlord and own 6 houses in my county and I contribute a lot more than the average citizen to the taxes (property taxes), so I don't feel bad that I take back a little bit of the money that I pay. Same goes for tax credits.. Government is not GIVING me money.. They are just taking less from me for one year.
 
  • Like
Reactions: R P
SkookumPete said:
My Ultimate is priced about CDN$20,000 over the similarly equipped petrol Kona. Taking into account the domestic rate of $.14/kWh and assuming an average gas price of $1.50/L, I reckon to break even by 180,000 km. That’s not counting the saving in maintenance and the use of free public stations, so the break-even point may be much sooner.
Click to expand...

I did the math on the preferred model assuming a 10K difference between the closest equipped ICE kona with an average $1.15/ L fuel cost, 8.5 cents/ kWh, average 20,000 km year usage and with only the federal 5K personal rebate. I did factor in at least 2 oil changes and one air filter change.
It comes 5.7 years or 115,000 km as a break even. If you can take advantage of the Canadian business capitol cost allowance deduction on your income tax that number becomes approximately - 1 year or -20, 000 on the rate of return, i.e. its cheaper to buy a preferred Kona electric than a decked out ICE Kona.
 
SkookumPete said:
My Ultimate is priced about CDN$20,000 over the similarly equipped petrol Kona. Taking into account the domestic rate of $.14/kWh and assuming an average gas price of $1.50/L, I reckon to break even by 180,000 km. That’s not counting the saving in maintenance and the use of free public stations, so the break-even point may be much sooner.
Click to expand...
You also didn't take into account the subsidies in Canada. Not sure where you live, but it was $10K for me in BC, making the diff only $10K to make up to get even on the equiv gas model. That's what prompted my buy on May 1.

We drove the prev car (that the Kona replaced) 20K kms per year, so that would give us a payback in less than 5 years using your cost numbers. However, there is considerable upside for us here to beat those estimates.

Because our driving will be free (or mostly) we are doing more drives/trips now than before where we didn't want to waste gas/money. So the driving now is not just for need, but also wants/pleasure to go to more places than we would have previously. So I think our kms/yr will likely be closer to 30K.

Maintenance savings will be considerable, no oil changes, brakes will likely last twice as long, so that alone should save another $2K or so in 90K kms.

Gas prices here in Vancouver will likely hit $2.00/litre avg in next 3 years given current govts that are hell bent on raising carbon (maybe GST too) taxes even higher. But even at $1.50/litre would be about $10K on gas costs alone in 90K kms.

So in my case, I should actually break even in 3 years with just gas costs alone. And in reality with my free charging and other maint savings, actual payback could be less than 2 years. So yeah, pretty strong case for buying my Kona when I did.
 
In my case my monthly payments for my Kona equal to my monthly gas bill I used to pay +/- 40$....mind you way less maintenance and less fear of breaking midway on the highway in my old 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan and my old 2003 Kia Rio. I am soo glad I traded them in, took the federal and provincial incentives. With the amount of driving I should pay off the difference in roughly 28months.
 
R P said:
You also didn't take into account the subsidies in Canada. Not sure where you live, but it was $10K for me in BC, making the diff only $10K to make up to get even on the equiv gas model. That's what prompted my buy on May 1.

We drove the prev car (that the Kona replaced) 20K kms per year, so that would give us a payback in less than 5 years using your cost numbers. However, there is considerable upside for us here to beat those estimates.

Because our driving will be free (or mostly) we are doing more drives/trips now than before where we didn't want to waste gas/money. So the driving now is not just for need, but also wants/pleasure to go to more places than we would have previously. So I think our kms/yr will likely be closer to 30K.

Maintenance savings will be considerable, no oil changes, brakes will likely last twice as long, so that alone should save another $2K or so in 90K kms.

Gas prices here in Vancouver will likely hit $2.00/litre avg in next 3 years given current govts that are hell bent on raising carbon (maybe GST too) taxes even higher. But even at $1.50/litre would be about $10K on gas costs alone in 90K kms.

So in my case, I should actually break even in 3 years with just gas costs alone. And in reality with my free charging and other maint savings, actual payback could be less than 2 years. So yeah, pretty strong case for buying my Kona when I did.
Click to expand...

Right, I did not take the incentives into account. I missed out on the federal one but got the $5k from BC. That brings my (pessimistic) estimate to 135,000 km. And yes, gas prices are sure to rise faster than Hydro rates.

I too am doing far more driving than before. I can't figure out whether this is positive because it gets me to the break-even point faster, or negative because it does cost something. ;)
 
Last edited:
I track my charging costs so I can monitor my utility trends.

After 12,000 miles on my Kona:

Average monthly charge cost: $100 (vs $280 with my previous ICE car)
Total maintenance costs: $35

I prefer the long-term savings vs cheaper up-front cost.
 
TheLight75 said:
I track my charging costs so I can monitor my utility trends.

After 12,000 miles on my Kona:

Average monthly charge cost: $100 (vs $280 with my previous ICE car)
Total maintenance costs: $35

I prefer the long-term savings vs cheaper up-front cost.
Click to expand...
I would assume that this has to include a lot of Level 3 charging, right? I can't see how your electric bill would go up $100 with the EV.. What is your electric rate per kwh?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top