How much actually does it cost to drive vs gasoline?

[AutoDMC]

Ok, so eMPG is garbage and useless for my needs.

The question I've been asking myself, as I pay at charge stations, is... What actually is the price equivalence between what I paid at 7-eleven on my Ford Escape '14 and at Electrify America in my Ford Mustang '22?

Work was slow and I have a copy of Excel, so I decided to do a back-of-the-napkin spreadsheet!

Conclusion is... I'm about in the same spot, actually. Assuming my assumptions, of course!

Assumptions:

• Fuel economy of the Escape is based on the trip computer. I reset Trip B on the day I bought the car, and didn't touch it until today. It reports 27.2 mpg
• kWh economy based on the trip computer of the MME. I reset Trip 1 at the dealer and haven't touched it since.
• The cost of the gallon of gas is based on the 7-11 by my house in Broomfield, CO.
• The efficiency of the wall charger is a guess based on the world's laziest DDG search. That's the efficiency of a kWh from the meter to a kWh stored in the battery.
• The kWh costs are based on my power bill (which doesn't give me a straight kWh price, so calculate this, wind power) and the app listed price for my two closest chargers.

Assuming a spherical cow, etc, my conclusion is that DCFC and Gas are statistically the same. A mile is a little cheaper on an AC charger. But there are significant savings to be had if I had a real garage and a wall charger.

This also ignores maintenance of the ICE engine, and capital outlay for the charger hardware at home.

Does this line up with people's experience?

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[Arsenic17]

Yes, that is correct and all your assumptions look reasonable. Using DCFC will not save you money on travel costs. The big savings for EV owners comes only if you can charge at home or for free. Many parts of the country have cheaper electric than 0.16$, so that is hurting you relative to the national average, though I understand Windsource is some elevated green energy price from Xcel.

 

[hybrid2bev]

The Pass+ rate is $0.36 per kWh for EA.

Also if you’re in a state that charges by the minute the EA costs can be half as much as the per kWh states.

 

[TheSeg]

Maths' are sound from looking at the screenshot.

What I'll add is that the costs of gas is much more volatile and upwards, which is the only reason the cost calculations would be significantly off. ICE miles will only become more expensive faster than EV miles.

For example, California gas is higher outright than CO, so our delta is much greater.

With my spreadsheet, I took into account both the rate and taxes, which is:
((Rate per kWh + CA State Energy Surcharge per kWh) * Utility Tax 7.5%) = Total kWh
((0.1386+0.0003)*1.075) = $0.14932/kWh

I don't know what's available for your power company, so this may not be applicable. For Alameda, CA, we have a Time-of-Use (TOU) plan using the same meter for both car and apartment. Not only lowered my car changing costs, but regular apartment electricity as a whole. The above rate is off-peak, while 5pm - 9pm weekdays is $0.53782/kWh. I just set my Mach-E not to charge when home at that time as insurance, but I never need to charge at that time.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Seems accurate enough.

For me it's <$0.04 per mile when I'm driving around town (I get closer to 4-5 miles/kWh in town) and charging at home and $0.10/mile for road trips (average around 3.1-3.5 miles/kWh on road trips) if I only charge with DCFC (this is rare--usually I have access to a L1 or L2 charger during road trips for at least one leg and usually two legs).

Also, ICE maintenance is not a minor yearly cost and it's only a one-time cost to install an L2 charger and my experience is that one-time cost was no more than a single year of maintenance on my ICE vehicles.

Edited to add:
My ICE is a 17 mpg pickup truck, gas averages around $4.00/gallon in my town, and my road trips are usually into CA, where gas prices are closer to $5.00/gallon or even $6.00/gallon. My ICE costs are about $0.24/mile (local) to $0.50/mile (road trips).

 

[21st Century Pony]

I want to add that the price of gasoline is much more potentially volatile due to random occasional world events than the price of electricity. All we'd need is a Middle East war or internal social unrest which shuts down the Persian Gulf / Red Sea sea lanes, or a more complete social meltdown in Venezuela, or a war between Russia and Ukraine (oh yeah that one is now ongoing) for the supply of gasoline to become volatile across the world, at least for several months, which will affect the domestic gasoline price.

So, for the EV vice ICE cost calculations in this thread, "yes, until...". This is BTW why I now drive an EV.

 

[MBCook]

If anyone wants to play with this themselves, I had the same questions and made a free app ~2 years ago for my iPhone called “Gas Muzzler”. No ads, totally free, I did it to learn the process.

I came to the same conclusions. DCFC is somewhere around a wash, home charging was around 1/3 for me depending on gas prices or electricity prices.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Total cost of ownership for me vs an ICE of similar capability: Despite the higher capital cost we will break even within 3 years.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

I want to add that the price of gasoline is much more potentially volatile due to random occasional world events than the price of electricity. All we'd need is a Middle East war or internal social unrest which shuts down the Persian Gulf / Red Sea sea lanes, or a more complete social meltdown in Venezuela, or a war between Russia and Ukraine (oh yeah that one is now ongoing) for the supply of gasoline to become volatile across the world, at least for several months, which will affect the domestic gasoline price.

So, for the EV vice ICE cost calculations in this thread, "yes, until...". This is BTW why I now drive an EV.

Just look at the panic buying in Florida right now...

 

[JustBob]

Assuming a spherical cow, etc,


Engineers are the best...

 

[AliRafiee]

I don’t think I would drive an EV if couldn’t charge at home.
I pay $0.10 per KW. I charge about 4-5 a month, 30 mile commute per day. That’s less than $40 a month.

 

[Monke]

DCFC is expensive at $0.29 per minute. 30% to 80% will be 20+ cents per kw. EA does not give free sessions anymore. If the station has communication errors, I would not be able to activate through the app but NFC paying right there works fine. I changed my strategy to charge from 20% to 70% if possible and the rate per kw went down to 17-18 cents. In addition, I timed the last minute and ended before the station register the minute. Wait for free weekend electricity plan to kick in before fill up the car. We are paying high price of 20 cents per kw at home during the week, so weekend is not actually free.

Last trip, we paid $42 for DCFC (still waiting for the weekend for free fill up). The distance was about 725 miles. If a comparable ICE can get 25mpg with gas at $3.30 per gallon. I'm paying about half of gas cost.

 

[CeramicShark]

My utilities charges a monthly fee just for being grid connected. For my utility it's $7.50, regardless of how much or how little electricity you use. In your scenario if you have a grid connection fee of $7.50 like me that would be roughly $0.02 per kwh off your rate on the table because you will pay that cost just to turn on your lights. The extra energy to charge your car doesn't matter.

Not a massive change but a bit cheaper than you calculate for your home charging rate.

 

[glenthompson]

I’m having solar installed soon and expect to see my electric cost drop to about $0.05 per kWh (system amortized over 20 years). Significantly less than my current 12 cents that is expected to increase due to new power sources coming online.
In 3,000 miles of driving I’ve only used public charging once, a level 2 ChargePoint at the mall where I just wanted the parking spot at Xmas.

 

[JohnFoxeSheets]

I just like driving my car.....especially past gas stations like this one

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