Gasoline -v- Electric vehicles... an article - YOU Make the choice!

[WasChops]

Which is more expensive: Charging an electric vehicle or fueling a car with gas? (yahoo.com)

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[Hack]

Which is more expensive: Charging an electric vehicle or fueling a car with gas? (yahoo.com)

Interesting article, with a slant I haven't seen anywhere else.

 

[WasChops]

Interesting article, with a slant I haven't seen anywhere else.

Exactly!!! The article's author addresses specific analysis which I have always suspected to be true - but I have no resources to investigate the matter and report. The EV is going to be the future, but private sector has to get their "act together" and start making charge ups accessible, affordable, safe and IT secure... remember - all of this stuff is ultimately connected to some DAMN Application and those folks love tracking you and know you - as much of who you are as they can discover!

 

[DryHeat]

Here's a link discussing the methods and assumptions used in that study.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38043667/study-electric-cars-higher-cost-questions/

 

[snowcatxx87]

What a bad article. You do not use public charging for daily driving, only long trips. You charge it like your cellphone, you put it on overnight, and wake up every day with a full car.

Most cars come with a charger, and if you are not a complete dunce, you can install the 240 charger yourself. $1,600 for install? That is insane. Cost me 80 bucks to do it myself. With the cost of electricity, it would cost around 6-7 bucks to "fill" the 95kwh battery. (Not a tesla, btw)

Depends on where you live however - and how you use your car, but the average person only commutes 9-10KM for work, well under even the lowest claimed ranges for EV cars.

The article uses some crazy assumptions, some crazy numbers, just to put down ev's.

For my personal use of the Maverick- hybrid is the way. Lots of city driving, and well under the 9-10km commute, as I only drive 4km to my office. Where I don't want to be finding chargers is going to the track days with my motorcycles - and I want to be able to leave the truck at the track in the pits and camp, ride, and not worry about it's charge.

 

[WasChops]

Here's a link discussing the methods and assumptions used in that study.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38043667/study-electric-cars-higher-cost-questions/

Great work finding this article Dry Heat... from WasChops "humid heat"

 

[Down]

Which is more expensive: Charging an electric vehicle or fueling a car with gas? (yahoo.com)

I don't see this article going over very well with this crowd.

 

[ttthhasdf]

chargers are free in my city, so there's that

 

[Bushpilot]

It is a stupid and one-sided article. See the Car and Driver rebuttal.

Personal experience - I drive a 2013 Volt. Most of my driving is electric, including the 27 mile each way commute to work. I add gas to the very small (9 gallon) fuel tank about once a month, and mostly do it "opportunistically" when I find a good price.

Plugging it in takes about a minute. Unplugging it about the same. It takes me less time than periodically filling the tank on a "normal" car.

My electric cost? I charge at work for free, that helps. And I charge at home as well. My electric bill increased about $20 per month. (Before I started charging at work, it had cost me $30 per month at home.)

All that in an amazing car, by far the most advanced I have ever owned. I'll take it, thanks.

 

[RebellaE]

What a bad article. You do not use public charging for daily driving, only long trips. You charge it like your cellphone, you put it on overnight, and wake up every day with a full car.

Most cars come with a charger, and if you are not a complete dunce, you can install the 240 charger yourself. $1,600 for install? That is insane. Cost me 80 bucks to do it myself. With the cost of electricity, it would cost around 6-7 bucks to "fill" the 95kwh battery. (Not a tesla, btw)

Depends on where you live however - and how you use your car, but the average person only commutes 9-10KM for work, well under even the lowest claimed ranges for EV cars.

The article uses some crazy assumptions, some crazy numbers, just to put down ev's.

For my personal use of the Maverick- hybrid is the way. Lots of city driving, and well under the 9-10km commute, as I only drive 4km to my office. Where I don't want to be finding chargers is going to the track days with my motorcycles - and I want to be able to leave the truck at the track in the pits and camp, ride, and not worry about it's charge.

I agree with many of your points. We own a BMW i3. It has a tiny battery (70 miles with a full battery and no accessories). It actually charges on a 110 charger that plugs into a regular plug because the tiny battery gets a full charge overnight even at that rate. My husband uses it as his daily driver. I honestly did not notice a change in our electric bill when we bought it, so we are definitely paying less than $25 per month in electricity.
Given that the engine/transmission has something like 32 moving parts, compared to a regular gas engine/transmission at over 200, and regenerative breaking taking the wear and tear off the physical brakes - we have literally only had tires as a maintenance cost in the 4 years we've owned it.
As a hybrid, my Maverick will not see some of the cost savings that the i3 does, but there is also no range anxiety or trip planning that the i3 entails. I expect it to be a very thrifty vehicle for our family for the next 10 years or so.

 

[Hack]

What a bad article. You do not use public charging for daily driving, only long trips. You charge it like your cellphone, you put it on overnight, and wake up every day with a full car.

Most cars come with a charger, and if you are not a complete dunce, you can install the 240 charger yourself. $1,600 for install? That is insane. Cost me 80 bucks to do it myself. With the cost of electricity, it would cost around 6-7 bucks to "fill" the 95kwh battery. (Not a tesla, btw)

Depends on where you live however - and how you use your car, but the average person only commutes 9-10KM for work, well under even the lowest claimed ranges for EV cars.

The article uses some crazy assumptions, some crazy numbers, just to put down ev's.

For my personal use of the Maverick- hybrid is the way. Lots of city driving, and well under the 9-10km commute, as I only drive 4km to my office. Where I don't want to be finding chargers is going to the track days with my motorcycles - and I want to be able to leave the truck at the track in the pits and camp, ride, and not worry about it's charge.

Well, not quite. I don't have 220 in my garage, and the power panel is at the complete other end of my house. So it would probably cost well over $1000 to have an electrician run it from one end to the other through my attic. Probably $2k today, IF I can find a contractor to do it before next summer. (If all new homes do not have 220, 40-50 amps in the garage, they should.)

I need to read the C&D rebuttal, but what I'm looking for is an unbiased and unemotional analysis. That may be hard to find.

 

[Bushpilot]

Well, not quite. I don't have 220 in my garage, and the power panel is at the complete other end of my house. So it would probably cost well over $1000 to have an electrician run it from one end to the other through my attic. Probably $2k today, IF I can find a contractor to do it before next summer. (If all new homes do not have 220, 40-50 amps in the garage, they should.)

I need to read the C&D rebuttal, but what I'm looking for is an unbiased and unemotional analysis. That may be hard to find.

Charge on 110v, I imagine you have that in your garage already? That is adequate for getting most of the benefit of an electric car.

"Unbiased and unemotional" - like sharing real life experience, without an agenda? Look up there ^^^

 

[Decayed]

chargers are free in my city, so there's that

Nothing is free. Someone is paying for it. If your city gave away free gasoline it isn't free.

Ev's have a way to go IMO. Some of it is about continuing to build out charging infrastructure. Some of it is about improving battery technology for cost and charging speed. There is a new iron based system that looks to free us from dependency on chinese lithium but it's not ready for prime time. Hybrids are still the best option for the eco minded. Otherwise there's eco-boost.

 

[Jadebox]

Yeah, that article (and the paper it is based on) is terribly misleading. Like one of the earlier posters, I drive a BMW i3. I bought it for driving to and from work (which I haven't done much since then!). Using my charger at home, I get the equivalent of better than 100 miles per gallon. When I was driving to work each day, I went from spending over $100 a month for gas and stopping to fill up a few times a month to spending less than $30 for electricity and never having to stop for gas.

I seldom use a "commercial charger" and when I do the charge is often free. In fact, if charging at home wasn't so convenient, I could probably keep my car charged for free by prioritizing visits to businesses located near free chargers. The other night, my wife and I picked up a pizza and sat in the car eating it while we listened to an audio book and the car sat at a free Level 2 charger. It only added about eight miles of range to the car, but our trip to get the pizza and return home was only about six miles total.

Our other vehicle right now is a Honda Pilot. I'm planning on trading it for a Maverick. I like the size and utility of the Maverick and it is better suited for towing our enclosed trailer than the SUV. I'd like the hybrid version, not just for the better mileage, but because I find it nicer to drive an EV. But, we need AWD since we drive off-road at times (and I don't like getting stuck!). I'm not in a real rush, so I may hold off for a little while to see if they announce a hybrid version with AWD. But, I doubt that I will be patient enough to wait ....

 

[marpolsdofer]

Yeah, that article (and the paper it is based on) is terribly misleading. Like one of the earlier posters, I drive a BMW i3. I bought it for driving to and from work (which I haven't done much since then!). Using my charger at home, I get the equivalent of better than 100 miles per gallon. When I was driving to work each day, I went from spending over $100 a month for gas and stopping to fill up a few times a month to spending less than $30 for electricity and never having to stop for gas.

I seldom use a "commercial charger" and when I do the charge is often free. In fact, if charging at home wasn't so convenient, I could probably keep my car charged for free by prioritizing visits to businesses located near free chargers. The other night, my wife and I picked up a pizza and sat in the car eating it while we listened to an audio book and the car sat at a free Level 2 charger. It only added about eight miles of range to the car, but our trip to get the pizza and return home was only about six miles total.

Our other vehicle right now is a Honda Pilot. I'm planning on trading it for a Maverick. I like the size and utility of the Maverick and it is better suited for towing our enclosed trailer than the SUV. I'd like the hybrid version, not just for the better mileage, but because I find it nicer to drive an EV. But, we need AWD since we drive off-road at times (and I don't like getting stuck!). I'm not in a real rush, so I may hold off for a little while to see if they announce a hybrid version with AWD. But, I doubt that I will be patient enough to wait ....

I am with you in the AWD part for the hybrid. That being said in the two years I have owned my RWD pickup I have been stuck several times just in basic mud and snow. My car of 15 years is a FWD geo and have never been stuck in it. I have off-roading with both drive in bean and corn feilds just after rain and snow for hunting,helping out my farming friends, just plain plowing through snow.

So I just decided to get the hybrid and see what happens. Now I am kinda thinking if I should switch to the Ecoboost so I can AWD and 4k towing then I could 100% be done with my old pick up.

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