An elephant in the room

[GetOffYourGas]

I certainly DID run through the numbers. You have to use equivalent vehicles to make the comparison valid. I used a Mustang Mach E and a same class Honda CRV.

To recap
Mach E 2.5 kWh per mile @ $0.41/kWh uses 400kWh. Cost for 1000 miles= (1000/2.5) x 0.41 = $164
Honda CRV, 34 MPG @ $3.50, uses 29.4 gallons. Cost for 1000 mile= (1000/34) x 3.50 = $119

If you paid the same amount to make the trip in the Honda that uses 29.4 gallons for the trip as you did in the Mach E, the gas would have had to cost $164/29.4gallons = $5.57 per gallon.

IIRC I used $0.43 earlier and this calc uses $0.41, which I believe is the current EA rate. Still outrageous.

I never said you didn’t run numbers. Clearly you did. I just said you didn’t share the details in the original post. Now I see that your numbers are all skewed from mine in favor of the ICEV. I pulled efficiency numbers from fuel economy.gov which say that the MachE is more efficient and the CRV less efficient than you claim.

As for refusing to play the “what if I had a subscription” game? Using your numbers, you’d pay $164 for fuel without and $128 for fuel and subscription fee with it (1000/2.5*0.31 + 4). You can decide whether to subscribe month to month so no you aren’t tied into any kind of contract. Why wouldn’t you buy the subscription to save $36?


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs

 

[tbacba]

I have just started looking into EVs for perhaps my next vehicle... the technology is fantastic and improving rapidly... and was surprised and shocked to see what "fueling" costs are at commercial fast charge stations, like Electrify America. Doing a direct comparison of a 1000 mile trip in a Mustang Mach E vs. an equivalent ICE compact SUV like a Honda CRV, the Honda fuel cost 40% less. Why you ask? Because of the absurd high cost of these commercial chargers, that is ~4x what one would pay to charge up at home. So, while I'd love to have an EV and would save $ for my local driving, road trips will be absurdly expensive. I did the math for my test case and that EA fast charge price is the equivalent of $5.60/gallon gasoline. Not sure what the solution might be but for me, for now, getting an EV makes zero financial sense, especially considering the relatively high initial EV purchase prices.

Does anyone here have a sense where this is going and if and how building out the charging infrastructure might bring these costs down? Or is going to be like our situation for broadband services where we just let a few companies essentially have a monopoly and soak us for every penny?

I have just started looking into EVs for perhaps my next vehicle... the technology is fantastic and improving rapidly... and was surprised and shocked to see what "fueling" costs are at commercial fast charge stations, like Electrify America. Doing a direct comparison of a 1000 mile trip in a Mustang Mach E vs. an equivalent ICE compact SUV like a Honda CRV, the Honda fuel cost 40% less. Why you ask? Because of the absurd high cost of these commercial chargers, that is ~4x what one would pay to charge up at home. So, while I'd love to have an EV and would save $ for my local driving, road trips will be absurdly expensive. I did the math for my test case and that EA fast charge price is the equivalent of $5.60/gallon gasoline. Not sure what the solution might be but for me, for now, getting an EV makes zero financial sense, especially considering the relatively high initial EV purchase prices.

Does anyone here have a sense where this is going and if and how building out the charging infrastructure might bring these costs down? Or is going to be like our situation for broadband services where we just let a few companies essentially have a monopoly and soak us for every penny?

Taking a 1000 mi trip in an EV makes no sense to me at the moment. Even when I had my ICE vehicle I would consider renting a car for that length of trip to save wear and tear on my main vehicle. I think a better question would how often do you drive more than 150 miles per day? If the answer is 0.5% like in my case, then the economics of an EV are very favorable

 

[Raylo]

Real world numbers are always more accurate, especially for EVs, especially for highway mileage. And I am not playing the subscription game because IMO is it a scam... in buying one you are just playing their game and justifying and entrenching this scam business model. And besides, where you travel might not even have the particular provider with whom you have a subscription. So that would be yet another EV trip planning chore... determine which networks there are and whether to buy the subscription. What a joke. I may get an EV for city use but I honestly can't see giving up my ICE vehicle anytime soon.

I never said you didn’t run numbers. Clearly you did. I just said you didn’t share the details in the original post. Now I see that your numbers are all skewed from mine in favor of the ICEV. I pulled efficiency numbers from fuel economy.gov which say that the MachE is more efficient and the CRV less efficient than you claim.

As for refusing to play the “what if I had a subscription” game? Using your numbers, you’d pay $164 for fuel without and $128 for fuel and subscription fee with it (1000/2.5*0.31 + 4). You can decide whether to subscribe month to month so no you aren’t tied into any kind of contract. Why wouldn’t you buy the subscription to save $36?


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs

 

[Raylo]

I used that example because I am taking one next week.

Taking a 1000 mi trip in an EV makes no sense to me at the moment. Even when I had my ICE vehicle I would consider renting a car for that length of trip to save wear and tear on my main vehicle. I think a better question would how often do you drive more than 150 miles per day? If the answer is 0.5% like in my case, then the economics of an EV are very favorable

 

[AndysComputer]

I certainly get it, but I don’t think you do.
When you make comments that you are retired and will make more longer trips than most and thus the cost of DC fast charging matters, but you won’t pay a subscription on principle then you’re just costing yourself more money then need be and then trying to twist it to justify that the switch to EVs is somehow economically wrong when it is demonstrably not so.

And people who say electricity will go up, even at home, of course it will, everything in life does. You think gasoline isn’t going to go up?!

I agree that the current cost of gasoline and DC fast charging means it will be no cheaper to drive an EV than an ICE car on a long trip. The exact difference depends which cars you are comparing (size wise I’ll agree a CRV and a MachE are about the same, tech wise and performance wise they are worlds apart, it’s like comparing a BMW M3 to a Camry).

However when not on long trips you are saving something like 70% in fuel and 80% in maintenance. You can’t just ignore that and complain that you’re not saving on long road trips.

Currently, people who need to make regular Aug road trips are well advised to get. Tesla, both for the lower cost charging, efficiency of the vehicle which means it doesn’t even use as much power to make the same trip, and all the rest that goes along with the brands position at the top of the ladder. Do they cost more and get no rebates? Yes. That’s life at the moment.

Do I expect to see shenanigans from oil companies buying and building EV charging networks and manipulating the price to keep their old product competitive. You bet.

cra joy I’d be happier driving both our EVs around if they cost more than gas (which they don’t) just to screw it to the oil companies and to not have to watch this country involve itself in other countries affairs and send young soldiers to their deaths to meet our thirst for cheap oil.

I’m starting to think the OP is a troll actually as ignoring the 70% savings in day to day fueling, rolling out the 5 minute has fill up time and not wanting to get a better charging deal ”on principle”.

Go buy a CRV…

 

[John McGrath]

No offense but you guys must misunderstand. I want an EV. And no one ever said they didn't make great sense as a daily driver. But if any journey outside the range of one's home L2 wall plug is priced like Disneyland EVs are never gonna be willingly accepted.

I understand, just disagree. Most people rarely drive outside of home range. EVs are like having a super cheap gas station in your garage, minus the stink--stoping for gas begins to seem like an odd anachronism. We have solar which has already paid itself off in saved costs, so for all intents and purposes our fuel is free. If car dealers ignored engine type and just said, for an extra 20% upfront this model has a bottomless gas tank, people would leap at it. That's what solar+EV is. Increasingly non-EV geeks get this. My neighbor got a Tesla Model Y mostly because he thought it was cool, and was sick of paying $60/tank to fill a Range Rover (we're in CA, expensive gas). He hardly cares about environmentalism or the minutia of EVs..

We take >300 mile trips maybe 4 times a year, so focusing on those is a red herring--and even then the first 200-300 miles is at home charging rates. You would need to be doing many many more long road trips before you'd be paying more.

I hope you enjoy the EV when you get it, and find this isn't a concern. They're far more pleasant to drive, to a degree I was surprised by.

 

[Frank Pierson`]

I'm not so sure about competition helping. There are plenty of examples where we allow what amounts to monopolies... or whatever the word is for de facto monopolies... such as for broadband service. Then we allow these companies to create pricing structures and mandatory service bundles that soak customers. IOW, competition in many business segments is largely a myth. These practices... and allowing these practices... are far more detrimental than any govt tax. My analogy for these chargers is that they are essentially electricity ATM machines, with super high fees. EA for instance charges $0.43/kWh, but I suspect they get the supply from the utilities at deep discounts to rates even lower than we pay at home, maybe $0.05/kWh. That's an 800% markup. Good job if you can get it. Perhaps there are some other factors that drive their costs higher and I'd love to know what they are and try to understand it better.

Yeah, driving an EV locally and charging at home is a BIG win. But for me making the highway use so dear is a huge disincentive to get one.

A lot of the big mark-up is the hosting locations fees or surcharge percentage. Every municipality has it's hand out to make money on the chargers. As do states. We have one village here that wants $4.50 to use their station. Even though they were installed by the power company free due to a lawsuit loss to the State of NY. Obviously no one is using their location and now they want to remove them because they don't make them money.

 

[Esprit1st]

Just a couple more ¢2 thrown in:
- most people who don't actually drive an EV don't understand the daily/road trip charging. Just a fact.
- subscribing to an EV charge network will in most cases pay off with only a couple charges (I subscribed to EAs plan for only a day trip because it saved me money)

 

[Raylo]

That is another part of the equation that requires attention and I suspect the private places that host chargers like WalMart are also on the take. This is an area that perhaps, dare I say, invites regulation to contain costs and promote EV adoption in the interest in both consumers and the environment. For instance, business licenses could make it mandatory for places like WalMart to host chargers for no or minimal fee. After all the customers are going there to spend $ at the business already and attracting them should be enough benefit.

In any case I am going to stay on the EV sidelines for now... unless my situation changes so I have room for a city EV... and wait to see how this all sorts out. I'll be keeping up with this and look hard at next gen or more likely next-next gen vehicles and if the infrastructure piece comes around such that they can be driven without paying usurious costs for charging, then maybe one will be in the cards for me. If not, so be it.

A lot of the big mark-up is the hosting locations fees or surcharge percentage. Every municipality has it's hand out to make money on the chargers. As do states. We have one village here that wants $4.50 to use their station. Even though they were installed by the power company free due to a lawsuit loss to the State of NY. Obviously no one is using their location and now they want to remove them because they don't make them money.

 

[Raylo]

This is the closest comment I have seen to what I am thinking. IMO the chargers should be installed directly by utilities or their subcontractors... perhaps incentivized by state and fed govts... all using a universal credit card billing OS like you see on every gas pump. No middle man. No memberships. No extra fees or proprietary nonsense. No extortion to "join" for a lower rate. Put them everywhere and let the state utilities commissions determine fair rates that allow amortization of the equipment and a typical per kWh profit for the utility. Just like they do for all the other electric infrastructure. That's all. Same thing with L2 in cities.

Personally I think one thing the DC Charging market needs is a dumber, cheaper charging network. I want a network of chargers that only needs to communicate with the credit card network to charge me for my consumption. That's it. I don't want and app or an account or network wide consumption reports, or any of that. Nobody expects to preauthorize their Shell station fillup and they don't expect a monthly report from Chevron detailing their gas purchases or any of that stuff, and the cost of adding it to DC fast charging is a driver of both cost and unreliability.

 

[sgperry]

Just a note for anyone who really is going to Disneyland: California is rolling out free fast chargers at many of the rest areas along its highways and it's possible to travel through much of the state without paying for charging at all.

 

[Esprit1st]

This is the closest comment I have seen to what I am thinking. IMO the chargers should be installed directly by utilities or their subcontractors... perhaps incentivized by state and fed govts... all using a universal credit card billing OS like you see on every gas pump. No middle man. No memberships. No extra fees or proprietary nonsense. No extortion to "join" for a lower rate. Put them everywhere and let the state utilities commissions determine fair rates that allow amortization of the equipment and a typical per kWh profit for the utility. Just like they do for all the other electric infrastructure. That's all. Same thing with L2 in cities.

You're ridiculously funny. That exact model is being worked on here in NM and they charge WAY more than Electrify America. Turns out they charge something close to $1 per kWh (just under). Additionally they install 60kW chargers. Even (charge speed wise) outdated EVs like the Chevy Bolt or Hyundai Kona are able to charge faster.

I'd sign up for a couple days to EAs membership any day and save tons of money any day over using these guys. For an emergency stop if I run out, sure.

 

[brentr]

If you need to do a 1000 mile trip a couple times a year ... rent the Honda ICE a couple times a year. What you save on home charging for normal driving will be miles ahead of the rental cost.

 

[Jim1960]

Two other things that caused me to get an EV: (1) the environmental impact; (2) basically no maintenance costs (the first Bolt scheduled maintenance other than tire rotation is at 100,000 miles). People rarely include the maintenance advantage when considering cost.
And didn't Tesla say they would open their superchargers to anyone sometime this year?

 

[Ivan Salazar]

When I lock my MINI Cooper SE, it locks the charging handle into the charging port. I'm surprised all EVs don't have this feature.

I think most do. Kona EV for sure has this feature.

 

[Ivan Salazar]

I have just started looking into EVs for perhaps my next vehicle... the technology is fantastic and improving rapidly... and was surprised and shocked to see what "fueling" costs are at commercial fast charge stations, like Electrify America. Doing a direct comparison of a 1000 mile trip in a Mustang Mach E vs. an equivalent ICE compact SUV like a Honda CRV, the Honda fuel cost 40% less. Why you ask? Because of the absurd high cost of these commercial chargers, that is ~4x what one would pay to charge up at home. So, while I'd love to have an EV and would save $ for my local driving, road trips will be absurdly expensive. I did the math for my test case and that EA fast charge price is the equivalent of $5.60/gallon gasoline. Not sure what the solution might be but for me, for now, getting an EV makes zero financial sense, especially considering the relatively high initial EV purchase prices.

Does anyone here have a sense where this is going and if and how building out the charging infrastructure might bring these costs down? Or is going to be like our situation for broadband services where we just let a few companies essentially have a monopoly and soak us for every penny?

At this stage, you don't buy an EV for economics, but for environmental reasons. At least that was my reasoning. To have a brand new car that I enjoy driving and what ever I save in gas and maintenance goes to paying for the car, but it will not save me money.

 

[Jim Matthews]

I certainly get it, but I don’t think you do.
When you make comments that you are retired and will m

I’m starting to think the OP is a troll actually as ignoring the 70% savings in day to day fueling, rolling out the 5 minute has fill up time and not wanting to get a better charging deal ”on principle”.

Go buy a CRV…

Given that he posted the same steaming load on two other forums, already last year - yeah (Done to death)

 

[Puppethead]

At this stage, you don't buy an EV for economics, but for environmental reasons. At least that was my reasoning. To have a brand new car that I enjoy driving and what ever I save in gas and maintenance goes to paying for the car, but it will not save me money.

In addition, for me the joy of driving an EV and the better performance are so great I can't imagine ever going back to an ICE vehicle. And I feel the lack of maintenance costs over time negate any difference between charging costs and the price of fuel.

 

[FrankinCarp]

All prices and calculations from today in Ottawa, Canada

Gasoline (regular) CAD $1.569/liter or USD $4.69/US gal (3.8L)
Gasoline (premium) CAD $1.879/liter or USD $7.14/US gal (3.8L)
Electric power KWh (home) CAD $0.082/kWh or USD $0.0645/kWh

2022 MINI Cooper SE Nominal Range: 180 km =112 miles

L2 charger 32 kWh cost = CAD$ 2.64 or USD $2.06

• Full Charge Cost for 100 km CAD$ 1.47 or USD$ 1.14

L3 charger Greenlots Shell 32 minutes = CAD $12.45 or USD $9.80

• Full Charge Cost for 100 km CAD$ 6.92 or USD$ 5.45

2015 Honda Fit regular gas: 6.5L/100 km

• Regular Gas Cost for 100 km CAD $10.20 or USD $8.03

2002 MINI Cooper S premium gas: 10.2L/100 km.

• Premium Gas Cost for 100 km CAD $19.17 or USD $15.08

By my calculations (fuel consumption based on my driving style and experience of the Honda Fit, Cooper S and SE), even using the commercial chargers from Greenlots/Shell (some of the most expensive chargers), is significantly less expensive to drive than an ICE car.

I grant the range of a fillup of gasoline (41 L in Honda = 630 km or 391 miles and Cooper S 44 L gives 431 km or 267 miles). My most common longer distance travel would be to Toronto (860 km or 535 miles round trip) 3-4 times a year and stopping to recharge would add about 2.5 hours to my round trip (including the time I would stop for a bite to eat and a coffee or two.)

And it goes without saying, the MINI is way more fun than that Honda ever was.

 

[Paul K]

All prices and calculations from today in Ottawa, Canada

Gasoline (regular) CAD $1.569/liter or USD $4.69/US gal (3.8L)
Gasoline (premium) CAD $1.879/liter or USD $7.14/US gal (3.8L)
Electric power KWh (home) CAD $0.082/kWh or USD $0.0645/kWh

2022 MINI Cooper SE Nominal Range: 180 km =112 miles

L2 charger 32 kWh cost = CAD$ 2.64 or USD $2.06

• Full Charge Cost for 100 km CAD$ 1.47 or USD$ 1.14

L3 charger Greenlots Shell 32 minutes = CAD $12.45 or USD $9.80

• Full Charge Cost for 100 km CAD$ 6.92 or USD$ 5.45

2015 Honda Fit regular gas: 6.5L/100 km

• Regular Gas Cost for 100 km CAD $10.20 or USD $8.03

2002 MINI Cooper S premium gas: 10.2L/100 km.

• Premium Gas Cost for 100 km CAD $19.17 or USD $15.08

By my calculations (fuel consumption based on my driving style and experience of the Honda Fit, Cooper S and SE), even using the commercial chargers from Greenlots/Shell (some of the most expensive chargers), is significantly less expensive to drive than an ICE car.

I grant the range of a fillup of gasoline (41 L in Honda = 630 km or 391 miles and Cooper S 44 L gives 431 km or 267 miles). My most common longer distance travel would be to Toronto (860 km or 535 miles round trip) 3-4 times a year and stopping to recharge would add about 2.5 hours to my round trip (including the time I would stop for a bite to eat and a coffee or two.)

And it goes without saying, the MINI is way more fun than that Honda ever was.

uummm you're a little misinformed on the cost of electricity. Under the Harris government electricity generation and distribution were divided into two separate entities: Ontario Power Generation (OPG) which generates electricity and Ontario Hydro which distributes it. Also added to the mix is private power generation from wind and solar installations although they are a small part of the pie. Furthermore we have 3 different time of use rate charges. The 8c/kwh you quote is the lowest tier available only from 7pm to 7am. Then on top of that you add the "delivery charge" as they call it which has been running around 6 to 7c/kwh in my case bringing the lowest tier cost up to 14c/kwh. Charging during peak periods will cost around 27c/kwh.