this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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?!?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean, if your employer doesn't mind, that could be a hell of a cost-effective way to keep it topped up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm the VP so I'd better be able to get away with it lol

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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..

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That is a clear comparison, and sounds like a fantastic change as well!

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The whole article and the report, nowhere is it explained how they get their numbers. What fuel prices or electricity prices have they used, what mileage for the cars. It's kind of crucial info, and not really difficult to calculate either.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah because the article is absolute bullshit. The bias was immediately evident.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Then why'd you post it? 😅

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's provocative. It gets the people going.

Is this your first day on social media? People post 1 + 1 = 3 and get a ton of angry corrections.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I think thats a little simple to say that it's only posted because it provocative. Cultural opinions shape policy and the future of public transport is important.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The report gives a quick summary of what they include, but not any details or math.

The cost of underlying energy (gas, diesel, electric)
State excise taxes charged for road maintenance
The cost to operate a pump or charger
The cost to drive to a fueling station (deadhead miles)

Elsewhere it says it assumes 12k miles in a year and is focused on the midwest and Michigan in particular. As it so happens, Michigan charges for registration based on the car value. EVs cost more than ICE vehicles in the same market segment most of the time. This would fall under excise taxes that they include.

I wouldn't be surprised if they also tacked on the cost to install a L2 charger once as "cost to operate a pump or charger" — intentionally ignoring that it's a one-time fee to support EVs at a home.

The people making the report clearly picked criteria that sounds reasonable but also intentionally misleads people. Not a surprise.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I could give an easy estimate for the costs with napkin math. A quick gooble search says that a long-range EV might require up to 100 kWh of power to charge (high estimate) and where I live the electricity cost is about $0.11/kWh. That's $11 for a "fill up" of a long-range EV.

A tank of gas that could get me 300 miles is closer to $40.

$11 < $40.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've got real world math that basically backs this up (you can find my other comment in this thread if you want all the juicy details): My honda accord got 22mpg and had a 17 gallon tank, and gas here is $3.87. $66 to fill up and drive 374 miles = 17.6 cents per mile. My Model 3 Long Range has 77kWh usable and gets about 3.7 miles per kwh, my electricity is 15 cents per kwh (until i get solar next year), so $11.55 to fill up and drive 285 miles (so 4 cents per mile).

Yes the accord got about 90 miles more range, but cost 3 times as much to fuel and that range only matters (to me) on road trips, and my range has yet to be an issue in my model 3.

In fact I'm going on a 6 hour drive next week and according to ABRP I'll only have to make one 10 minute stop halfway to charge in order to get to my hotel (where I can charge up for free)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Research firm is bullshitting. It costs like $1-$2 for me to fill up my car with electricity at home.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Where i live its literally 5 times cheaper. I call bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not in my experience. Perhaps if you were charging at a location which charges an inflated rate. At my current electrical costs in Canada, electric is cheaper per kilometre.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

There are definitely situations where it's more expensive, like if you exclusively use DCFCs. My electricity is 15 cents per kWh at home (so that's where i do all my charging), but the local ElectrifyAmerica station charges 48 cents per kWh, which would make my Model 3 cost 13 cents per mile, which is damn near what my Honda Accord costs me in gas (gas is $3.87 per gallon right now. at $3.25 it would be cheaper).

I feel for people who don't have the option to charge at home and I hope that problem gets solved quickly

[–] Evil_Shrubbery 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Price of gas is not the cost of gas.

It should include a way of getting the gases back into non-gas form and to reverse/mitigate any damages caused in the process. And the same for all of the supply chains (for gas and electricity, and any product really), can't produce that much waste on a finite planet & just forget about it if there are no (complete, non-bs) recycling processes, natural or man-made.

Thats why plastic very much isn't cost-efficient, it's just cheap bcs legislators allow it to be.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Cost to fill up is not cost of ownership.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Well this article just isn't right at all

I drive an entry level EV (Hyundai Kona) that advertises 4mi/kWh, which is roughly accurate (2-3 in the winter, 5-7 in the summer). That's 25 kWh for 100 miles.

Average cost of electricity in the US is, according to a quick Google, somewhere between $.15 and $.25 per kWh; where I live it's a steeper $.33.

Therefore, depending on where I charge, I'm paying anywhere between $3.75 and $8.25 to drive 100 miles--$1.50 short of the article's published $9.78 even with my expensive power.

In reality, though, I pay nothing--my office offers free charging. Show me an office with free gas.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

From the original study:

Notes: Costs are calculated for vehicles driving 12,000 purposeful miles per year. Uses energy prices, gas taxes, and EV registration fees in the Midwest or State of Michigan. Representative models within segments were selected on the basis of sales volume and to include a variety of manufacturers. Entry, mid, and luxury segments are defined based on typical purchase price. ...

As in the first edition, AEG calculated all four categories of costs involved in fueling both EVs and ICE vehicles across benchmark use cases that reflect real-world driving conditions for U.S. households. The costs included:

  • The cost of the underlying energy (gasoline or diesel fuel, or electricity)
  • State excise taxes charged on fuel and EVs for road maintenance
  • The cost of operating a pump or charger
  • The cost of driving to and from fueling stations (deadhead miles)

This seems like the Anderson Economic Group is playing with statistics to make gas cars seem more attractive.

If you look at this map of savings with EVs vs. gas cars, you'll find that most states have much larger savings with electric vehicles over gas vehicles, and there's still savings when driving in Michigan by their accounting!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

So if I was to be really generous, this study shows, at best, that it's cheaper to own a ICE car if your living in an apartment without charging capabilities in Michigan?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I'm not reading further down the line to see but did anyone notice the pic used in this post to show someone not understanding where their fuel door is? Back out and back in correctly and pump gas like a normal human being.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

...how? Like, it cost $30 (10 gal) to fill my petrol car in the states. Even if I was using 150kwh in electricity, at my power rate in Wisconsin ($.13/kWh), it's $19.95. I live in Vietnam now, and pay 2500 VND per kWh, and petrol is about 23500vnd/litre. I have an electric moped that goes 110km/charge, and has a usable capacity of about 0.7kwh. I rarely empty the battery, but even if I did it daily, it would be .08USD/day.

I'd like to see the math crunched on this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

If you have a Rivian R1T or GMC Hummer, the cost to charge at home isn't much different; it's about $17.70 per 100 miles.

Assuming the manufacturers claims are accurate (which is a big assumtion I know) that R1T, at the current US average electricity price of $16.14 per kWh, is $7.26/100mi.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

This sounds like BS. Years ago I calculated the cost of electricity is 1/5 of gas. Unless electricity jacked up (has had started roughly the same) this doesn't make sense.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I got blasted with a $700 electric bill this month, and we didn't really do anything new or different. So this doesn't surprise me really.

If electricity is going to cost this much, I guess the only way electric gets "cheaper" than gas is by hiking gas prices until its cheaper to charge. Consumers are never going to win though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

What was your bill the month before? How much more or less did you run the AC this month? Did you take any road trips?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

Why was your bill $700 though?
Is that all new charges for the previous month, is there an unpaid amount from last months bill? If you owed $650 on the last bill and didn't pay it while the new month generated $50 in new charges then yeah your bill will be for $700. Just as an example.

Just saying a number doesn't mean anything. How did you manage to get charged $700.00 for your electric last month?

Edit: dude posted his bill below. His charge for one month is $350 CAD

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Does not include the cost of environmental impact of burning fossil fuels... Which we are all starting to pay.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

If we are talking just filling up - I went from $200/month with gasoline to $15-20/ month with my ev and charging at home. Obviously YMMV

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

From August 2022 to August 2023 I’ve spent $220 dollars TOTAL on keeping my EV charged…

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