At what point does an EV not make $ense?

I am in the last year of a 3 year Leaf lease. When looking at last year's electricity usage, I paid close to $.28 per kwh. According to Wirecutter article on EVs, $.12/kwh = $1 gallon of gas. This would put me close to breaking even with the current price of gas in the Bay Area. I do use public chargers too, so I don't know how to factor these prices into my usage.

Wondering if there are calculators on the web for this? Has anyone else calculated that using an EV is more expensive than say a Honda Fit or Toyota Prius? To be clear, my use of an EV isn't purely based on economics. I am consciously choosing not to rely on gasoline. That being said, I don't want to pay more to use an EV.

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-electric-vehicle/

Sorry if this has been discussed previously.

Thanks,
Dan

k2theiely said:

I am in the last year of a 3 year Leaf lease. When looking at last year's electricity usage, I paid close to $.28 per kwh. According to Wirecutter article on EVs, $.12/kwh = $1 gallon of gas. This would put me close to breaking even with the current price of gas in the Bay Area. I do use public chargers too, so I don't know how to factor these prices into my usage.

Wondering if there are calculators on the web for this? Has anyone else calculated that using an EV is more expensive than say a Honda Fit or Toyota Prius? To be clear, my use of an EV isn't purely based on economics. I am consciously choosing not to rely on gasoline. That being said, I don't want to pay more to use an EV.

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-electric-vehicle/

Sorry if this has been discussed previously.

Thanks,
Dan

Click to expand...

Your numbers are off. At 12 cents/kwh $1 worth of electricity takes you about 33 miles in an EV, but $1 worth of gas only takes you about 10 miles is a gas car, if you're lucky.

To be clear, my use of an EV isn't purely based on economics. I am consciously choosing not to rely on gasoline. That being said, I don't want to pay more to use an EV.

Click to expand...

I, on the other hand, want to be paid to do what I feel is right. It's apparently the American Way.

LTLFTcomposite said:

Your numbers are off. At 12 cents/kwh $1 worth of electricity takes you about 33 miles in an EV, but $1 worth of gas only takes you about 10 miles is a gas car, if you're lucky.

Click to expand...

But the OP said he's paying 26c/KWh and was talking about a ICE car that probably gest more than 40mpg. Where I live gas costs $2/gallon or to go 33 miles would cost ~$1.65 going off your numbers also going off your numbers at 26c/Kwh it would cost a little over $2 to do the same trip, IOW it would cost a fair amount more to go EV.
That said I personally like driving an EV and it's environmental benefits, even if not financial benefits' I also just like how it drives. Same thing happens when someone says purchasing a ICE like a Toyota Corolla would be cheaper than a Leaf. While it may be, I don't care to purchase a Toyota Corolla, maybe I want to purchase a Lexas, compare a Lexas to a Leaf and tell me which one is cheaper.......IOW most of the time people end up with a particular car not because of any financial benefits but rather it's something they like or want. If it was all about financial benefits no one would purchase Lexas, Infinity or Cadillac, instead they'd all purchase Toyota, Honda or Chevrolets

LTLFTcomposite said:

k2theiely said:

I am in the last year of a 3 year Leaf lease. When looking at last year's electricity usage, I paid close to $.28 per kwh. According to Wirecutter article on EVs, $.12/kwh = $1 gallon of gas. This would put me close to breaking even with the current price of gas in the Bay Area. I do use public chargers too, so I don't know how to factor these prices into my usage.

Wondering if there are calculators on the web for this? Has anyone else calculated that using an EV is more expensive than say a Honda Fit or Toyota Prius? To be clear, my use of an EV isn't purely based on economics. I am consciously choosing not to rely on gasoline. That being said, I don't want to pay more to use an EV.

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-electric-vehicle/

Sorry if this has been discussed previously.

Thanks,
Dan

Click to expand...

Your numbers are off. At 12 cents/kwh $1 worth of electricity takes you about 33 miles in an EV, but $1 worth of gas only takes you about 10 miles is a gas car, if you're lucky.

Click to expand...

As with anything else, it depends on which gas car. A 50 mpg HEV will take you 20 miles ($2.50/gal. Public chargers are factored in the same way as your home usage, just change the price you pay/kWh. And remember that charging isn't 100% efficient - figure 75% for L1, and 85-90% for L2, so that increases the price/kWh to the battery. If you're using Blink public chargers, you're definitely paying over what gas costs/mile. Others, it depends.

For example, my 2003 Forester 5-speed is rated at 21/27/24 (would be 19/25/21 under the current EPA test regime). I only use my car on road trips, where I typically get 28-31 mpg (got 30.4 on my recent Yosemite trip), but let's use the 24 mpg combined rating to be conservative. Today's price at my usual local station is $2.50/gal. (I paid $2.40 at a lower-priced out of town station on the trip, coming and going). So, 2.50 / 24 = 10.4 cents/mile. If I had a Gen 3 Prius, it's rated at 50/46/48 (re-rated from 51/49/50), so 2.50/48 = 5.2 cents/mile.

What about a PEV? The only convenient (walking distance from home) public chargers for me are Blinks which charge $0.49/kWh for L2s if you're a member, and $0.59/kWh if you aren't; let's assume I am. Let's also assume a charging efficiency midway between 85 and 90%, so 0.49/.875 = $0.56/kWh to the battery. Divide that by whatever miles/kWh is average for you, normally somewhere between 3 and 5 for a LEAF, to get the cost per mile for electricity. At 4 mpkWh, that's 14 cents/mile. At $0.28kWh/.875 = 32 cents/kWh, divided by 4 mpkWh = 8 cents/mile, and so on.

GRA said:

For example, my 2003 Forester 5-speed is rated at 21/27/24 (would be 19/25/21 under the current EPA test regime). I only use my car on road trips, where I typically get 28-31 mpg (got 30.4 on my recent Yosemite trip), but let's use the 24 mpg combined rating to be conservative. Today's price at my usual local station is $2.50/gal. (I paid $2.40 at a lower-priced out of town station on the trip, coming and going). So, 2.50 / 24 = 10.4 cents/mile. If I had a Gen 3 Prius, it's rated at 50/46/48 (re-rated from 51/49/50), so 2.50/48 = 5.2 cents/mile.

What about a PEV? The only convenient (walking distance from home) public chargers for me are Blinks which charge $0.49/kWh for L2s if you're a member, and $0.59/kWh if you aren't; let's assume I am. Let's also assume a charging efficiency midway between 85 and 90%, so 0.49/.875 = $0.56/kWh to the battery. Divide that by whatever miles/kWh is average for you, normally somewhere between 3 and 5 for a LEAF, to get the cost per mile for electricity. At 4 mpkWh, that's 14 cents/mile. At $0.28kWh/.875 = 32 cents/kWh, divided by 4 mpkWh = 8 cents/mile, and so on.

Click to expand...

Your numbers kind of mirror what I was getting at and note when comparing a EV against a ICE one cannot just go on $/mile, you also have to take into account a EVs battery will gradually deteriorate and at the end could end up needing to purchase another battery at thousands of dollars. No on a purely $$ standpoint gas would need to be $4+/gallon to make sense, of course if you just like driving a EV or like it's benefits, well that can be worth as much as it is to you and even at $2/gallon I prefer my EV

Everyone's situation is different but Allstate wanted about $500/year more to insure a LEAF than a Sentra. That wipes out any fuel savings right there.

LTLFTcomposite said:

Everyone's situation is different but Allstate wanted about $500/year more to insure a LEAF than a Sentra. That wipes out any fuel savings right there.

Click to expand...

+1, very good point. The insurance on my Leaf is quite a bit more than our comparably priced(book value) Toyota Prius :x

Don't forget to factor in maintenance as well. Depending on if you are a DIYer or not, and you prefer to use dino vs synthetic oils, you can save a bundle of money on the Leaf. There's other engine maintenance to consider as well, if you usually keep your vehicles a long time. My Xterra is on timing belt number 3.

I don't agree with that. I change the oil twice a year in my ICE's. No big deal. All the other parts of the Leaf have as good a chance of failing as any other vehicle, and they do. Not to mention battery failure...

I'm shocked at the cost of electricity many of you are paying. I pay 9 cents/kwh--- and my business pays that as a write-off. I figure it costs me a dollar for every 50 miles. So in my situation, the car was a write-off, the electricity is a write-off-- all in all it made economic sense to go electric. Makes a nice change from getting 12mpg...

Not everybody's situation is the same because the insurance on my Leaf is equal to the cost of our 7 year old ML500. Plus I pay $0.10 per kwh.

I've been telling everybody that the Leaf or the i3 is not for all.

I think if your primary motivation is financial, then you are best served by purchasing a used vehicle, as opposed to new.
Consider two vehicles I both own, purchased used:
1994 Honda Accord. Purchased for $1,500, has 190,000+ miles, gets around 25mpg.
2012 Nissan Leaf. Purchased for $6,000, has 24,000 miles, I average 4.2 miles per kWh.
Daily commute: 45 miles * 5 days + 25 weekend miles= 250 miles/week * 52 weeks = 13,000 miles /year / 25mpg = 520gal * $2.25/gal = $1170 in gasoline a year.
Nissan Leaf if I were to charge it at home... 13,000 miles / 4.2 miles/kWh = 3,095kWh * $0.10/kWh = $309.52/year in electricity.
That's a difference of $860/year if I charge at home. However, I'm doing roughly 90% of my charging at a free station near work, so actual cost to me is probably around $30-40 / year.
The Leaf will pay for itself in 5.3 years versus the Honda, assuming gasoline prices stay at $2.25/gal in my area. (They won't.)

But if you're really in it for the financial reasons, you can do ride sharing or carpooling and cut the costs even further. For me, as others pointed out, it's not all about finances, otherwise I'd be living in some squalid home in the bad part of town for $20,000 instead of what I have. Not to be a sardonic hindquarter, but at some point we make the choice to have something nicer than what is the bare essential. For a good while I was riding my 225cc motorcycle in rain, snow, etc to work because I couldn't afford a better circumstance, and that was a mere 2 years ago.

I look at my Leaf as saving me $30,000 over what I would have paid for a Model 3 brand new. lol. Now that my appetite is sated, I can wait until 2020 or 2021 when I can get one of those off-lease Model 3s. haha.

jkline said:

I'm shocked at the cost of electricity many of you are paying. I pay 9 cents/kwh--- and my business pays that as a write-off.

Click to expand...

Yes. PG&E in Nor Cal is a ripoff for many of us. See http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=471487#p471487 and http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=471681#p471681. That's kind of why there's a nickname: Pacific Gouge & Extort.

Someone did some calculations for me long ago when we had more rate tiers and cheaper electricity at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=155519#p155519.

Once you hit the higher tiers here, the marginal cost of charging and driving an EV isn't necessarily cheaper than fueling a Prius.

Fortunately, I can L1 and L2 charge at work for free. And, there's some free public L2 about 5 miles from home which I sometimes use on Fridays, weekends or days off. Little charging is done at home.

LTLFTcomposite said:

Your numbers are off. At 12 cents/kwh $1 worth of electricity takes you about 33 miles in an EV, but $1 worth of gas only takes you about 10 miles is a gas car, if you're lucky.

Click to expand...

If I was pushed into the highest tiers of PG&E, not hard if you charge an EV only at home and drive a fair amount, the marginal cost per kWh for charging that EV could be 40 cents. Since L2 was too expensive to install at home ($5K was the quote due to insufficient load center, long story) and I only have L1 at home... let's say I average 3.25 miles/kWh from the wall. At 40 cents/kWh, that's 12.3 cents/mile. If I average only 40 mpg in my Prius (it's only that bad if I do lots of short drives in cold weather) and gas is $4/gal, that's 10 cents/mile.

If you tell me to go with a TOU plan (I'm actually on one, E-6, makes predictions very difficult), take a look at the craziness below:
https://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-6.pdf - pages 2 and 4. My baseline allocation is still as I mentioned.
OR
https://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV.pdf- pages 1 or 3 (only if you have a dedicated meter for the EVSE) and page 4 for the crazy time/day bands

Yeah those are some crazy prices. I wonder how much of it is PGE vs regulations in CA driving costs up.

Durandal said:

I think if your primary motivation is financial, then you are best served by purchasing a used vehicle, as opposed to new.

For a good while I was riding my 225cc motorcycle in rain, snow, etc to work because I couldn't afford a better circumstance, and that was a mere 2 years ago.

I look at my Leaf as saving me $30,000 over what I would have paid for a Model 3 brand new. lol. Now that my appetite is sated, I can wait until 2020 or 2021 when I can get one of those off-lease Model 3s. haha.

Click to expand...

I too saved a huge amount of money riding the 1985 Honda Rebel 250 (actually 233cc but they rounded ). I bought it used in February 1986, in the middle of winter when nobody thinks about riding a motorcycle, with <700 miles on it. Rode it everywhere, rain or cold, although snow kept me off the roads. Put over 90K miles on it, with the original clutch. :shock: It was amazing, getting over 100 mpg in the summer. As it aged the mileage went down, and towards the end it was in the 50s as the engine was showing a bit of age.

It saved me from driving my Chevy Pickup, then the F250 Pickup, and for a long time I hadn't owned a car. So not only saving gas, saving wear and tear on another much more expensive vehicle, with much more expensive maintenance too. Also saved on insurance because I drove the truck so little. And I avoided purchasing a vehicle at all because of the Rebel.

It got to be over the years though that so many people, and actually more ladies in their SUVs, would look, see the motorcycle, make the calculation that I could either swerve or stop in time, and force their way into the lane, knowing that the other alternative was death for the motorcycle rider. So I've pretty much stopped when the Rebel stopped, although one of those electric motorcycles are tempting and I'd be "on the road again."

sub3marathonman said:

It got to be over the years though that so many people, and actually more ladies in their SUVs, would look, see the motorcycle, make the calculation that I could either swerve or stop in time, and force their way into the lane, knowing that the other alternative was death for the motorcycle rider. So I've pretty much stopped when the Rebel stopped, although one of those electric motorcycles are tempting and I'd be "on the road again."

Click to expand...

THAT right there is what made me buy the used Honda. Some F*(@#U%& "nice lady" saw me, came right into my lane, and of course I must perform a panic maneuver. I caught up to her at the next light, and told her she could have killed me. Her response was one word. "So?"

I saw red, and it wasn't the stoplight. I bought the used Honda that week after begging for some financial help from my parents. Things like that are why I can't wait for autonomous driving, so those jackwagons who can't be bothered to care will just turn on autonomous mode.

LTLFTcomposite said:

Yeah those are some crazy prices. I wonder how much of it is PGE vs regulations in CA driving costs up.

Click to expand...

I'm guessing it's a combination of PG&E being a for-profit company and the CPUC. I've seen allegation here (IIRC) that PG&E is in bed w/the CPUC or giving the areas where the regulators live favorable rates/baselines. If so, they may not feel the sting and just not get it.

Maybe it's also state policy related to the CPUC. I took an energy efficiency class in commercial buildings class a few years ago and there was a reference to how our electricity use hadn't increased per capita at all or much vs. other states, eliminating the need for many new power plants. Via Google, I found https://www.nrdc.org/experts/sierra-martinez/california-making-history-eliminating-its-growth-peak-demand referring to this.

In the city next to mine, Silicon Valley Power is VERY cheap for residents, so it's not a CA-wide thing. See http://www.siliconvalleypower.com/home/showdocument?id=6253 from http://www.siliconvalleypower.com/for-residents/rates. With rates like that, I probably wouldn't even bother w/a TOU plan.

sub3marathonman said:

Durandal said:

I think if your primary motivation is financial, then you are best served by purchasing a used vehicle, as opposed to new.

For a good while I was riding my 225cc motorcycle in rain, snow, etc to work because I couldn't afford a better circumstance, and that was a mere 2 years ago.

I look at my Leaf as saving me $30,000 over what I would have paid for a Model 3 brand new. lol. Now that my appetite is sated, I can wait until 2020 or 2021 when I can get one of those off-lease Model 3s. haha.

Click to expand...

I too saved a huge amount of money riding the 1985 Honda Rebel 250 (actually 233cc but they rounded ). I bought it used in February 1986, in the middle of winter when nobody thinks about riding a motorcycle, with <700 miles on it. Rode it everywhere, rain or cold, although snow kept me off the roads. Put over 90K miles on it, with the original clutch. :shock: It was amazing, getting over 100 mpg in the summer. As it aged the mileage went down, and towards the end it was in the 50s as the engine was showing a bit of age.

It saved me from driving my Chevy Pickup, then the F250 Pickup, and for a long time I hadn't owned a car. So not only saving gas, saving wear and tear on another much more expensive vehicle, with much more expensive maintenance too. Also saved on insurance because I drove the truck so little. And I avoided purchasing a vehicle at all because of the Rebel.

It got to be over the years though that so many people, and actually more ladies in their SUVs, would look, see the motorcycle, make the calculation that I could either swerve or stop in time, and force their way into the lane, knowing that the other alternative was death for the motorcycle rider. So I've pretty much stopped when the Rebel stopped, although one of those electric motorcycles are tempting and I'd be "on the road again."

Click to expand...

Same here. I rode a 250cc (actually 249) as my main commuting vehicle for around 6 years instead of my $70 per week van which cost me $3,500 per year for fuel to commute to work plus the cost of tires, insurance, oil/filters, etc while the bike cost me around $1 a day or $365 per year for fuel. With the Leaf I charge mostly at work at no cost to me and every now and then at home so the fuel costs for me are down to about $3 per month now.

People appear to classify motorcycle riders as bad citizens in general now and that attitude on the road has become pretty much self evident by the way many car drivers act when there is a motorcycle on the road with them. For some its like a bull seeing red as the expression goes.

For me its not really when does an EV not make $ense but when do the utility rates make moving into a particular community less than a $ensible thing to do. Taxes and utility rates were among the first things my dad taught me to consider when choosing where to hang my "Home Sweet Home" plaque,

One of the indicators that an area may have high utility rates is the amount of underground electric in it. The cost of installing, maintaining and restoring outages on underground electric are so high that its existence alone can double or triple the electric rate in a community, If there is a big push for underground electric by a few influential folks who hate what overhead wires do for their view then chances are that the cost of electricity is going to jump substantially if they get their way. While there is statistically less frequency of outages with underground the cost of finding and restoring power along with the time required to do it is so much greater that overall it costs more in the long run. If brackish water or sewage gets into it then there will be additional failures for years to come and a much lower life span before all the wires and gear will need to be replaced.

I can save even more if I don't buy the leaf and ride my bicycle.... Better yet... I can saver wear and tear on my bicycle and just walk....

powersurge said:

I can save even more if I don't buy the leaf and ride my bicycle.... Better yet... I can saver wear and tear on my bicycle and just walk....

Click to expand...

Exactly.