If you charge at home it gets less. If you have solar at home it approaches zero.
Yes, the cost of the car itself is a factor, but even there prices are dropping all the time.
>> when you can only take 10% as much fuel
effeciency makes all the difference when we discuss % of fuel. 90% of 100 mj is the same as 30% of 300 mj. So already the "fuel" can be 66% less. Generally though the raw amount of mj isn't a very important number. A better measure (which takes effeciency, and tank size into account) is "range". But even that is somewhat meaningless. At some point range is "enough". For daily commutes that may be 50 miles. For long-distance it might be 500 miles.
In only a very few cases would a pickup with 2000 mile range be more useful than one with 1000 mile range.
Plus you can also factor in maintenance costs. The cost of ownership of an ev, from a service and maintenance point of view is a lot lower.
[1] ymmv somewhat. Although electricity prices vary a lot, so do gas prices. The 50% saving (at worst) is a pretty good rule of thumb though.
The bio-fuel people at least make some kind of sense compared to fossil fuel "survivalists" - but again they're portrayed as just tree huggers!
If there is such a marketing, then people relate to it because EVs are not suited for handling unpredictable situation. You got stuck in a ditch in the middle of nowhere at night, you loss all of your battery getting out of it, and now you are stuck. So you can't take it to unforgiving places.
EVs are great for boring commute that is it. I don't see it changing any time soon.
Based on these average values I used, EVs fared slightly worse.
This was not factoring in costs of purchase or repairs etc. And all averages were taken off the internet so everything had to be taken with more than a grain of salt. But the outcome was nowhere near your statement of EV energy costing about half of the cost of gas for the driver.
I pay around $.12/kw and get 4 miles per kw. So my "energy" costs are $.03/mile. I have a Mazda cx50 as well, it gets about 20-22mpg, with the gas prices here in Seattle that's around $.30/mile. Even where gas is cheaper that's still $.20/mile. Literally 10x the cost to run a gas car vs an EV.
I'm honestly shocked at how many people have EVs and rely on charging stations. I mean, I think it's a low number, but the fact that it's more than zero is shocking to me.
Well there's your problem. Try doing the same calculation with the average residential electricity cost. Most car use is for commutes after all, so most people can just charge their EV in their driveway every night.
Destination charging and rapid charging are notoriously expensive. It's a luxury product intended for a once-a-year road trip. It is not even remotely representative of your average charging cost. Street-side charging is slightly less excessive, but you're still paying a serious premium.
There are some other parameters to consider too. Stopping for fuel is not something I enjoyed. I can charge at home. You won’t have to stop to refuel in an EV unless you’re going a long way. If you’re going a long way the stop will be longer. Much worse.
You won’t service an EV much, that’s nice.
The silence is bliss.
My post wildfires NEM2 off peak rate for electricity is $.40/kWh. My Bolt gets 4.5 miles/kWh. That’s $.1125/mile.
If I were driving a Tesla it would be worse (my wife’s Tesla lies mercilessly about its range when full; it’s like Elon Musk recapitulates himself; real world it gets about 3.5 miles/kWh), and if I drove a Rivian it would be MUCH worse.
So, in California, it isn’t true at all (mostly because rate payers are funding PG&E’s liability) that the most efficient EVs are cheaper than a good mileage gas car. No where near a 2x advantage (it was better, but not nearly 50%, when I bought it, more like 90% of the gas cost). At no point has it ever been close to 50% cheaper for fuel in California (which, as it happens, sells by far the most EVs).
Generally speaking, I think EV proponents (like me!) should spend a lot less time promoting “it’s cheaper”. It is, in practice, cheaper, because maintenance is cheaper. But Americans don’t care about levelized costs, they care about the highest salience variable expenses, and trying to convince them to do otherwise is a losing argument.
And yes, I'm sure there are places where gas and electricity get closer together. In the US gas is mostly untaxed. So it's closer. Elsewhere the tax-cost of gas works in EVs favor. [1].
Also I think PG&E is perhaps not representative of electricity producers.
So sure, in your area, the finances only make sense if you factor in maintenance. And if gas prices remain stable. And if you don't have solar. But again, all these factors vary wildly in various places.
[1] in the long run these taxes will need to be made up elsewhere. So that's a temp saving. But I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
Negative externalities like pollution and climate change are not even priced in. Even if they were priced in, there are non-monetary factors that we could consider once in a while, but the conversation tends back to dollars.
Assuming you think price as a signal is the solution to dealing with those externalities, it doesn't matter what caused the price to be high.
Filling the wagon today would cost me like 170 euro. Filling my xpeng happens overnight and is about 7-9 euro depending on grid pricing.
Not everyone is you.
You can recharge your car at home every night. At 2 in the morning.
