Faulty math article on EV v ICE

Nygman

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I seriously can't get their math to work they quote charging at home and charging at a public station yet their numbers don't make sense when using the charge from home numbers.


For example:

Charging any of these vehicles at home will run about $12.62 per 100 miles while fueling one at a gas station may run about $11.08.

I think the about is using 37 cents a kilowatt hour or thereabouts, which for home charging is way out of line.

They're using bad numbers to make a bad point that's not true. Most people who have electric cars recharge at home where it is far cheaper than gas.




https://www.businessinsider.com/ev-charging-cost-versus-gas-car-truck-suv-2023-7
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HuntingPudel

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Since my PV array over-generates, my electricity costs me nothing. ?‍♂?
 

AKgrampy

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Yes - pathetic as usual and only somewhat accurate for areas with high electric rates. Unfortunately there are some areas like that but even here in AK at 25 cents it is cheaper.
 

Fat Mach

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That 37 cents per kWh is about half what my home marginal rate is. It is out of line.
 

VegasWeezy

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I agree. I know this has been discussed on this forum elsewhere, and I know there are places in the country where electricity is very costly. So there are instances where charging at home can be more expensive than the equivalent ICE vehicle filling the gas tank.

However, for most of us who charge at home, it is far cheaper than the ICE equivalent.

I have tracked this closely ever since switching to my MME.

In one year of owning my MME (today is that anniversary!), it has been $868 cheaper to charge my vehicle than it would have been to pay for gas in a vehicle that gets 27mpg. (I traded my wife's 2015 Hyundai Sonata in when buying the MME)

In less than 3 months of my wife owning an Audi Q4 e-tron, it has been $279 cheaper to cahrge her vehicle at home than it was to pay for gas in a vehicle that gets 25mpg (we traded a 2019 Hyundai Santa Fe for the Audi).

The ICE vehicles I use for comparison didn't actually average 27 and 25mpg, but I use those figures to be conservative.

Energy costs in Las Vegas are currently about $0.167 per kWh. So I believe we are on the lower side of the national average
 


flapjake314

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HuntingPudel

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LOL I don’t even want to calculate my other cars’ fuel costs. Let’s just say they’re expensive to drive. ??
 

Blue highway

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AEG, the author of that bit of trash has been mentioned here before... they are a shill for ICE cars.

Their math is worse case electric rates plus the cost of a home charger monetized over a year... so nobody experiences the "real world" rates they project outside of a few places in Cali.
 

ctenidae

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My home charger shows 277.5 kWh over the past 30 days, which comes to about $70 of juice between 2 BEVs (~14 cents for generation, ~12 cents for delivery). At a SWAG of 2.5m/kWh I get about 700 miles of range out of that juice.

$70 of gas at about $3.50/gallon works out to about 20 gallons of gas. Average "modern" SUV gets about 29 mpg, which works out to about 580 miles of range.

I know they've changed math in the past couple of decades, but I'm pretty sure 700 is still greater than 580. Plus $0 maintenance costs, 0 time spent standing around a gas station, and 0 effort to keep the cars ready to go. Spurious claims based on shady math aside, I'm happy with my EV life.
 

KevinS

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I've boiled my position on EVs down to people who ask me about it to a few basic points:

1. It's not for everyone and I feel no reason to do anything but relay my personal experience.

2. I rarely travel more than 200 miles in a day so I don't worry much about vehicle range.

3. If I have to recharge on the road for some reason, I just bake it in to my travel time. I have owned my car almost 2 years and have only had to do this probably 7-8 times mid-trip.

4. I would have never purchased an EV if I couldn't charge at home every night and start each day with +/- 200 miles.
 

Nklem

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That 37 cents per kWh is about half what my home marginal rate is. It is out of line.
There are blue areas of the country where that is the going rate....
 

VegasWeezy

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This is really shady math and complete BS...

Checking their source (U.S. Energy Information Administration), the price per kWh in Michigan for May 2023 was $0.1856.

They claim it was $12.55 for an entry level EV to go 100 miles. That math ($12.55 / $0.1856) equates to 67.62 kWh used to travel 100 miles which equates to (100 / 67.62) 1.48 miles per kWh.

That is complete BS. Now I realize they are factoring in more than just the kWh cost as they are amortizing charger costs (which would be miniscule) and including taxes (not sure what EV taxes are out there). But this is a total joke
 

Coffs

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100 miles for me is about $4.68

Not entirely unheard of for an article to be biassed. Guess the 'author' doesn't like EV's
 

DevSecOps

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I'm basing this on my usage, with facts for the month of July. I'm not considering anything from the article here. Just based on my personal usage:

In July I charged at home:

1,157 kWh at a cost of $152 for a distance in the R1T of 2572 miles.

Therefore I paid on average .13 for each kWh and got about 2.22 kW/mi which = $5.85 per 100 miles.

So based on my math significantly less from the article.

However -

If I were to have charged in the public using EA rates of .48 kW I would have paid $21.61 per 100 miles. Significantly higher than the article.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that it could be higher, it could be lower it could be about right. There are a lot of people, who live in apartments for example, who must charge in public. It very well could be that those people have to pay more. If you're on PG&E California rates you could be paying upwards to $0.53 kW.
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