Filling a gas-powered vehicle can still be cheaper than charging an electric one

[Craigeddy111]

Oh my...reading the comments section hurt. I'm just going to leave this here.

Sponsored

 

[MachMachWhoThere]

Totally remembering that time I was debating between my MME GT and a Ford Escape Hybrid. The decision was crushing me.

 

[jrstinkfish]

My wife "filled" her new Niro EV from 30% to 100% for $4 with our home L2 charger. I'm gonna guess the ~170 miles she'll get from that $4 trumps what a $4 gallon gas will get you.

 

[timbop]

the article raises some important questions.

Does the author realize that the edge case they cite is unreal and therefore the thrust of the headline and article are completely misleading?

Or are the author and editors morons?

Propagandists

It’s Faux News, soooooo……

Precisely

Let me just say I have a Mach on the way and for the most part I will charge at home. I have seen some comments that charging at a public charger can cost around $0.40/kWh. So let’s compare. A car that gets 33 MPG will cost $4.25 to get 33 miles right now. An EV that get 3 miles/kWh would cost $4.40 for the same distance. In cold weather the ICE will be even a better price as the mi/kWh goes down on the EV. Then on top of everything you do pay more for the EV. Maybe I am in right field but the article is essentially correct. If saving money is the only driving force and a person can’t charge at home an ICE can be cheaper. I believe there is a bigger picture than just cost for the decision to go EV though. Just my thought here and feel free to pile it on if you believe I am off base.

If an EV owner can't charge at home, that doesn't mean they MUST DCFC at the max rate. EA has a $4 a month subscription that reduces your DCFC rate to $.31/kwh. EVgo also has similar subscription plans. One can also charge at public L2 stations which are much less than DCFC.

Nonetheless, a BEV is a bad idea if one doesn't have at-home or at-work charging. That part is true, but the emphasis on that use case is a typical bogus propaganda move to paint a completely false impression. 99% of the audience will take away that "EV's are still more expensive than $4.50 a gallon gas"- and repeat that meme ad nauseam in their echo chamber.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I've put 300 kWh into our Mustang since we got it just a couple of weeks ago. All of that cost us $0.00.

We're planning an ~1000 mile round-trip road trip with it sometime soon. If we charge at EA DCFCs and pay their rate of $0.41/kWh, this would cost us approximately $135. The app, mygasbuddy says it would cost me about $250 if I drove our truck (and got the EPA mileage, which we have never achieved), or $170 if we drove our previous vehicle...and these estimates assume we would go out of our way to find the cheapest gas, which we never do. We've driven this route a couple hundred times. It usually costs us around $200 at the pump, with lower gas prices. With the price of gas jumping up in recent weeks, I'm sure it would cost us >$300 for the same trip with our truck.


I expect it won't cost more than about $20.00 total with our Mustang.

 

[RyZt]

I love my Mach E. My electricity rate is 18c/kWh. Regular gas price around me is $5.5-$6. Assuming 3mi/kWh, the breakeven is a gas car with 90-100MPG (used to be 60-70MPG before the recent gas price spike.)

No comparable car can achieve 60MPG, let alone 100MPG. But honestly, the difference isn’t significant enough if cost saving is the only factor.

Plus a person that is buying a mach e, probably isn't buying a car that gets 33 mpg. There aren't that many that actually get that. What car would you be driving that is a small suv/crossover that gets 33 mpg? Especially if you are driving mainly city driving, not highway.

While we’re accusing others of selecting that facts, we shouldn’t do the same. 33 MPG isn’t hard for a hybrid car. Both examples below are slightly smaller than Mach E. But I would consider them comparable in size
* I used to drive a 2013 Ford C-Max hybrid. Ford originally claimed 47 MPG. In practice, ity driving is 40MPG. Highway is a little lower. Overall is 38 MPG.
* I recently drove a rental 2022 Toyota Venza Hybrid. I got 44MPG.

 

[AKgrampy]

Nobody in their right mind would get an EV if they can't charge at home. Or they can't get an ID4 or ioniq5 and charge at ea for free.

I have seen many comments from people who live in apartments and have to use public chargers exclusively. I do agree with your position. I will most likely never use pubic charging unless I give a trip to the nearest big town a try sometime and that is 350 miles away with zero electricity for about 100 miles in the middle.

 

[AKgrampy]

Again, most people charge at home. I charge at super off peak hours and I am in CA that has high rates. I only pay 10-11 cents/kWh. That's a big difference. Plus a person that is buying a mach e, probably isn't buying a car that gets 33 mpg. There aren't that many that actually get that. What car would you be driving that is a small suv/crossover that gets 33 mpg? Especially if you are driving mainly city driving, not highway.

There are many cars that get close to or over that mileage rate. My Expedition gets over 21 on the highway. Plus based on what I have read a Mach gets significantly less that 3 mi/kWh in cold weather. My only point is the facts presented were not fake news and need to be taken into consideration. I made my choice because I feel it is the right thing to do moving forward. Even at the $0.21 per kWh I pay I will save. However, if the goal is to move exclusively to EV in the future there are many people who live in Apartments and rentals who may not have access to home charging.

 

[bp99]

The title of the article was very much click bait. The actual content, was valid in that it explicitly stated DCFC as being the factor. With gas prices rising, people are looking at electric for savings. The dirty secret that's not often published is that DCFC is not cheaper than gas. For those that can charge more than 90% at home, fueling a BEV is by far cheaper. For those that would be dependent on public chargers, the cost savings are not there (unless you don't value your time and can seek out free L2 chargers or even low cost 50kWH DCFC).

This is ultimately the problem with expecting a big surge in charging infrastructure. Without charging high fees, it's not profitable to run charging stations. The carrot for getting people to move to BEV is to save money (especially when the purchase cost is more than comparable ICE). But if the public charging options are no cheaper than gas, that value proposition does not exist for many. Most people won't change for the "environment". They're going to change for either a better product or to save money.

 

[EVS]

Again, most people charge at home. I charge at super off peak hours and I am in CA that has high rates. I only pay 10-11 cents/kWh.

What is your utility company? PGE rates are 25c-44c, more like 30c-33c minimum , as charging EVs will push it into higher tiers. Some of the existing time-of-use plas that benefitted solar homes are being retired. Take a look at these new rates from April. There is also 5% tax on top of this.
Did you install a separate electric meter to get this low rate and how much did that cost? TIA!

https://www.pge.com/pge_global/comm...rates-work/Residential-Rates-Plan-Pricing.pdf

 

[jojomontag]

All of the EA stations I have visited (Texas and Oklahoma) charge by the minute, not by kWh ($0.32 per minute). So if I were to charge for 45 minutes, that would be about $14.40. However, I still have over 400kWh in credits because the last long trip I took was when EA had free sessions.

And the most recent short trip I took cost me nothing because I found a free Chargepoint station.

I don't fully agree that people who buy EVs should be sure to charge at home. I've seen many who own EVs yet live in apartments. Given that EA only charges by the minute in my area, it's still cheaper to charge than it is to buy gas. So not being able to charge at home is not necessarily a deal breaker. By the way, I charge at home for free (free nights through Reliant), though, so it's definitely advantageous.

 

[dml105]

The title of the article was very much click bait. The actual content, was valid in that it explicitly stated DCFC as being the factor. With gas prices rising, people are looking at electric for savings. The dirty secret that's not often published is that DCFC is not cheaper than gas. For those that can charge more than 90% at home, fueling a BEV is by far cheaper. For those that would be dependent on public chargers, the cost savings are not there (unless you don't value your time and can seek out free L2 chargers or even low cost 50kWH DCFC).

Except the article relies on the corner case while barely mentioning the typical. The number of people who will drive 12,000 miles solely powered by DCFC is probably less than 1% of the EV driving world.
And the percent of cars that get 41 MPG is pretty tiny too. Sorry, but an Escape hybrid is not in the same league as a Mach-e.

When one cherry-picks facts, one can say they didn’t say anything untrue and yet still tell a false and misleading story. That’s what happened here.

 

[KevinS]

When one cherry-picks facts, one can say they didn’t say anything untrue and yet still tell a false and misleading story. That’s what happened here.

And that's the Fox Guarantee™

 

[BayouEV]

Nobody in their right mind would get an EV if they can't charge at home. Or they can't get an ID4 or ioniq5 and charge at ea for free.

Maybe that was the point of the article. There are circumstances to consider when buying an EV. The cost of fast charging is one of them. Because we understand the cars so well, we probably presume knowledge about ownership that the general public does not yet possess. I spent an entire haircut last week explaining the experience to the barber who had never seen an EV before.

 

[dml105]

Maybe that was the point of the article.

That’s an extremely charitable view. The article was published by a network that routinely spouts anti-EV rhetoric (or really, if Biden is for it, then they will be against it). There’s no need to get into a political debate here, but just consider the source.

Because we understand the cars so well, we probably presume knowledge about ownership that the general public does not yet possess.

And someone without much knowledge of EVs would read this article and have no clue that for the vast majority of users (like close to 100%), EVs are dramatically cheaper to operate than ICE cars.

Sponsored