Discrepancy in cost of charge comparisons

[tinaCA]

I noticed that our window sticker for 2013 Leaf S says the estimated "fuel" cost is $550/year. However when I used some online calculators to estimate cost of electric for charging some predicted up to $200/month! That can't be right, as we spent $250/month on gas.

I know utility rates vary, we are currently on CA Tiered E1 (not a time of day rate). According to PGE analysis using an EV A rate would actually cost us significantly more, but this of course based on our past year's usage from before we owner an EV, so we haven't been able to analyze the impact on our bill with the current tiered rate. We can't do an EV B because we are not able to install a separate meter for EV. Since DH works from home a lot we do use electric during the afternoon.

What are your average estimated charging costs per month and miles driven on average per day? If in CA, what rate did you choose and how does it work for you?

We do also have free L2 charging close to home we will make use of when possible but of course we will need to also charge at home at least part of the time.

 

[UBUYGAS]

Hi Tina,

I pay 10.5 cents per kWh. to charge my LEAF fully costs around $2.52

I get on average around 84 miles per charge.

At that rate and electric costs I pay around $30 for 1000 miles. YMMV

15,000 miles is around $450.00

Sal

 

[EVDRIVER]

Hi Tina,

I pay 10.5 cents per kWh. to charge my LEAF fully costs around $2.52

I get on average around 84 miles per charge.

At that rate and electric costs I pay around $30 for 1000 miles. YMMV

15,000 miles is around $450.00

Sal

PGE rates are very high.

 

[tinaCA]

After digging through my online account I finally found my average rate - 14 cent/kWh. That doesn't seem too bad, for a tiered plan but that's historical before our Leaf which we have had less than a week. I plan to call PGE tomorrow and see if I can get more info on EVA which involves cheaper rates after 11pm - may not be worth it for us since our regular electric use can't be shifted much due to working from home, so our daytime rates would be higher. We already do laundry etc mostly on weekends.

Seems like the cost of around $400-$500 for 12,000 miles would be expected on our current plan. I wonder why the online calculator projected over $4x more?!

 

[RonDawg]

The estimated costs on the Monroney sticker assume a price of I believe 11 cents per kWH. PG&E's prices tend to be higher as mentioned above.

PG&E seems to have more tiers with smaller allowances within than down here in SoCal, so your average cost may be higher than 14 cents/kWH once something like an electric car is added in.

 

[cwerdna]

I wish I could answer in more detail, but I gotta run.

http://www.pge.com/cgi-bin/pevcalculator/PEV" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; may help the OP.
http://www.pge.com/en/myhome/myaccount/charges/index.page" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; may help the OP too, provided she sticks w/E1. She will need to make a guess as to how many kWh will be consumed by charging the car.

I got an answer before when I asked at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=155519" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, but the rates have gone up.

Yes, PG&E rates are ridiculously high once you cross get into tier 3.

http://www.pge.com/tariffs/ERS.SHTML" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and http://www.pge.com/tariffs/rateinfo.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; is where you can find rate schedules.

If you mouse over your area in the map at http://www.pge.com/myhome/customerservice/financialassistance/medicalbaseline/understand/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, it'll tell you your daily baseline, depending on whether you have natural gas heating (water heating and/or furnace) or no gas (All-Electric Quantities).

 

[PV2leaf]

In CT we are paying about 10 cents a Kw/Hr before delivery and fees. If you divide your bill amount by the Kilowatt/Hours used you will find your "delivered" price. In CT with CL&P it works out to about TWENTY CENTS per KwH.

Please be careful in how you compute your costs.


I have had my leaf 12 months and 4 days 17,684 miles. Top score on all battery values during one year check and P3227 software update

 

[padamson1]

Your bill may say some number 'X' cents/kWh, but your bill also usually has transmission charges (per kWh), connections fees, taxes, and other fees that make the actual cost per kWh higher than that 'X' line item. So ignore that $/kWh line item noted in your bill, take the bill total and divide it by the number of kWh's you used, and you'll get your actual cost/kWh.

Here in Oregon my bills says $0.08/kWh (I opt for more expensive renewable energy sources) but my actual cost is $0.12/kWh in the winter and $0.18/kWh in the summer. This is because when my kWh usage goes down (thanx to solar panels), those fixed taxes and connection charges become the biggest part of my $/kWh rate.

Others calculate cost of charging by comparing their bills from previous years. "Well last August I spent $100 and this August with my Leaf I spent $130, so my LEAF costs me $30 a month". However that's only accurate if all your other electricity consumption (oven, A/C, lights, etc) remained constant which, if you think about it, is pretty unlikely.

Also you can't just use the miles/kW on your dash to compute how many kWh it takes to charge. The LEAF is not 100% efficient Wall-to-Wheels, there is loss converting from AC to DC and stuffing electrons into the battery. How much loss? Depends on your EVSE and whether you're doing L1 or L2 (L1 is less efficient).

So there are many sources of error for 'cost of charging'. I use a dedicated meter for my EVSE, a log of my odometer readings, and actual $/kWh on my bill, so I am pretty confident of my cost calculations. Last time I did a calculation (September) it was $46 for 948 miles.

 

[tinaCA]

Oh of course - all those extra fees, sigh.

cwerdna, that calculator is the one I referred to in my OP. It projected an increase in my electric bill of $130/month on my current plan! With the EVA rate charging after 7pm it would be $90/month increase and $55/mo increase with EVA and charging only between 11-7am - but with trickle charger this may not be always practical/possible since it is slow. I am on the list for the "free" AV station but I am pretty sure we will not be covered by standard install will likely need panel upgrade and definitely more than 30' from panel, so I am trying to determine if ability to charge only after 11pm (and the convenience of the level 2) would be worth the extra cost.

These costs seemed much higher than I expected, if I keep my current rate structure the cost of charging the Leaf would be 3 times higher than the window sticker claims. This is one reason people are so reluctant to change to EV - costs are so difficult to project and so many things hidden...

 

[UBUYGAS]

My 10.5 cents per kWh is the average cost from my bill each month.


It used to be 11.5 cents but I changed my delivery company to Viridian and that chops off a penny. So around $192 savings per year!

 

[ColumbiaRiverGorge]

I pay 6.15 cents a k/Wh 24/7, my carpool partners pay for all of my workplace charging, & all my quick charges but one have been free.

 

[cwerdna]

I pay 6.15 cents a k/Wh 24/7, my carpool partners pay for all of my workplace charging, & all my quick charges but one have been free.

For those w/cheap electricity, like yourself, try plugging in your monthly usage w/95136 zip code into http://www.pge.com/en/myhome/myaccount/charges/index.page" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, then compare your electricity bill to that calculator (which is a bit too low since it doesn't include some taxes and fees). Then you can better understand our ire against PG&E.

http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (from http://www.pge.com/tariffs/ERS.SHTML" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false is the non-TOU rate schedule. Because I have a nat gas furance and water heater and am in area X, from http://www.pge.com/myhome/customerservice/financialassistance/medicalbaseline/understand/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, I get allocated 11.0 kWh/day as a baseline in "summer" (May 1 thru Oct 31) and 11.7 in "winter" (Nov 1 thru April 30th).

Some folks say, go to a TOU (time-of-use) based schedule. Ok, I'm on E-6 SMART, http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-6.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has the basics. Look at page 2 for the total bundled rates. Gotta love it when peak summer charges ("summer" 1 to 7 pm Mon thru Friday) range from 28.7 to 51.4 cents/kwh, depending on which tier you end up in.

There is also a new EVA and EVB plan, but from PG&E's rate estimators, it'd only make my bill skyrocket. No thanks. http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; explains it. It gets rid of tiers but the rates are pretty high. I posted about it at http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=337391#p337391" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

OP, you will be floored when you see Seattle's low residential rates at https://www.seattle.gov/light/accounts/rates/ac5_erps24.htm#rsc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. You will be really blown away when you see http://www.douglaspud.org/Pages/2013-rates-january-1-2013.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Ignore demand charges, unless your house somehow pulls over 50 kW at a time.

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has a table of averages by state. Hawaiians have it very bad.

 

[planet4ever]

As cwerdna has said, the PG&E rates skyrocket once you hit Tier 3. Specifically, on E1 you start paying more than 31¢/kWh. And for most of us in the Bay Area, Tier 3 hits at around 14-16 kWh per day, assuming you have a gas furnace. Your LEAF alone can easily use more than that.

Hundreds of thousands of words have probably been written in this forum on that PG&E phenomenon, which also affects most other power companies in California. The bottom line seems to be that you either lump it and justify your LEAF on grounds other than gas savings, or you install solar panels and generate enough of your own electricity to at least keep you below Tier 3. My recommendation is the latter. I've had a 7kW system on my roof for seven years now, long before I ever heard of a LEAF. There have also been many, many, thousands of words written here for people contemplating a solar system.

Ray

 

[tinaCA]

cwerdna, our current rate is $750/year for current use and would be $1000/year on EVA - not counting the EV charging. I wonder if it's cheaper for me to charge at work L2 blink at $1/hour or about $4/full charge?

 

[srl99]

As much as you may dislike the price you pay for electricity - you probably can't live without it. The power went out for an hour during the day in our neighborhood today, and everyone panicked.

 

[planet4ever]

cwerdna, our current rate is $750/year for current use and would be $1000/year on EVA - not counting the EV charging. I wonder if it's cheaper for me to charge at work L2 blink at $1/hour or about $4/full charge?

Didn't you say your work was only 20 miles one way? L1 charging for 20 miles at home should only take about 5 hours, which would fit in the PG&E off-peak window. L2 charging for 20 miles at work with your car will only take about an hour, since you got the faster on-board charger, right?

This might be a good combination plan for you, assuming you can count on an EVSE being available at work. However, you should be aware that there is an efficiency penalty for using L1 charging. Assuming, for example, that your battery needs 5 kWh of electricity, you would actually end up buying about 6.7 kWh from PG&E on L1, but more like 5.7 or 5.8 kWh if you were using L2.

Ray

P.S. I hope you are beginning to appreciate what cwerdna was getting at in his comment that you first took as snippy. It really does get confusing when people refer to EVSEs as chargers. You have the faster charger built into your car. That speeds up charging at virtually all public L2 charging stations (i.e. EVSEs). In a home you might find an occasional 16A or 20A L2 EVSE, but the public ones are 30A, 32A, or 40A, so they don't limit charging for any LEAF. The older LEAFs, and the 2013 S model without the charge package, have a 16A charger (usually called a 3.3kW charger).

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

i figure my cost by taking the bill, subtracting the connection fee and dividing by total kwh used to get my figure. my costs run about $35-40 for about 1800 to 2000 miles a month

 

[planet4ever]

i figure my cost by taking the bill, subtracting the connection fee and dividing by total kwh used to get my figure. my costs run about $35-40 for about 1800 to 2000 miles a month

As others have said, that works if you have a flat rate. But it is of no help to Tina or any of the rest of us in California. We have to calculate our marginal rate at whatever tier level (or often levels) the extra electricity for the LEAF will be sold to us. And if you switch to a time of use schedule things get much messier yet. In truth there is no way to come even close to the correct answer unless you have access to historical hour-by-hour usage numbers. Fortunately those are available for people with "smart meters", and PG&E does offer to do calculations for you using them.

I don't have a smart meter, and I'm not sure I trust PG&E's calculations anyway, so I still don't really know which rate would be best for me.

Ray

 

[cwerdna]

It really does get confusing when people refer to EVSEs as chargers. You have the faster charger built into your car. That speeds up charging at virtually all public L2 charging stations (i.e. EVSEs). In a home you might find an occasional 16A or 20A L2 EVSE, but the public ones are 30A, 32A, or 40A, so they don't limit charging for any LEAF. The older LEAFs, and the 2013 S model without the charge package, have a 16A charger (usually called a 3.3kW charger).

Well, the official Nissan-branded Aerovironment EVSE (http://www.pluginamerica.org/accessories/aerovironment-evse-rs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; is re-branded version of http://evsolutions.avinc.com/products/at_home/charging_at_home_a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false supported a max of 30 amp output (on 40 amp circuit), despite the '11 and '12 Leafs only having a 3.3 kW OBC and thus pulling only a max 16 amps @ 240 volts.

The crappy Blink EVSEs (http://www.pluginamerica.org/accessories/ecotality-blink-evse" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false also "supported" 30 amps @ 240 volts, unless you had a faulty J1772 handle that would overheat and melt (at high draws, like past well past 16 amps) or Ecotality turned down its output as a band aid...

30 amp @ 240 volt home EVSEs aren't that uncommon, I don't think.

 

[xado1]

u all are so lucky.
in the us everything is cheap,and u don't believe it.

here in Austria gas is 7,5.- dollar per gallon
1 kw/h energy costs 0,30.-$
at charging stations 0,40-0,60.-$
my leaf tekna costs me 46.777.-$(list price is 34.640.-euro)cash,leasing would be much more.
here in austria the most people prefer cash,not credit or leasing.
if we can't afford it,we don't buy it