When asked what kind of mileage do you get?

[phil]

My answer:

"Don't know. Don't care."

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[Jimmy2]

Seems like I saw somewhere that Duke Power raised its rates for NC customers?
OP gets 4 miles per kw; seems like most of us get around 3 in town? 2.7 on highway?

Still a bargain though compared with gas.

 

[Dave-O]

I’m a fuel hauler who drives the Mach-E to work about 50% of the time. The guys are surprisingly pragmatic once I answered a few questions and corrected some of the propaganda they were fed.

 

[Woeo]

When someone asks me - How many miles to the gallon do you get?

My answer is
Gas is now 2.99
My electric off peak is .08473 (NC)
I get 4 miles per kw

So that would mean 2.99 divide by .08473 = 35.288

Then multiply 35.288 by 4 = 141.152
or even
Then multiply 35.288 by 3 = 105.864

My answer is how many mpg does your car get? 30
Well for that same price of gas I get between 105 to 141 miles.

Too complicated for the average conversation.

If you are paying 8.5 cents per kW [including all taxes, surcharges & transmission costs] then you should say:

”I get 4 miles per kW. At home a kW costs me 8.5 cents, ten cost me 85 cents, so 40 miles for 85 cents.”


Edit: of course this ignores efficiency losses between the wall and the battery of ~10%, [8.5 x 110%], so you might instead say:

”At home I pay ~9.4 cents to get a kW into the battery, 94 cents for ten, so 40 miles for 94 cents.“

 

[Woeo]

I drop those out because in my case it there are $14 in facility charges but I pay that to have electricity to the house so the only amount that is relevant is the rate at night when I charge.

You should read up on accounting & amortization.

 

[superdave80]

How are you getting 4 miles per kw?

Best I can do is 3.3 I'm in a premium extended battery awd

Depends on how much city vs. highway driving you do. My 'normal' driving (mix of highway commuting and driving kids around town) has averaged around 4.8 in the summer and 4.4 so far this winter. Also, SR battery and RWD will do better than an ER/AWD vehicle due to less weight.

 

[Vulnox]

Do you "spend a lot of time charging" your cell phone? No, you do it at night, usually. Same with the car. But if you go, say, on vacation, and you're going to use your phone more, you might need to find a way to charge middle of the day. Same with the car. But that's the exception, not the rule.

That's been my approach with my family. I then give them some examples of trips we might take, and that for those, charging is optional and only for convenience rather than need.

As for the cost, I tell them that it's costing about $6.50 to run the car for a week.

Yeah, on that same note I like to bring up that even if I do spend "time" charging on a road trip, on an annual basis it waaaaaaay less than the time I spend driving to or at gas stations. Right now we have an F-150 PowerBoost and the Mach-e.

Even though I am working at home (I am the main driver of the F-150) and my wife drives to work daily (in the Mach-e), I have spent more hours cumulatively at gas stations or going to gas stations in 2022 while my wife has spent exactly 0 minutes "waiting" for the MME to charge. So if we were to go on a road trip in the MME next week, it would have to be a super long road trip or some really poor charging sessions to even come close to the time I have wasted getting gas for the F-150 that is driven significantly less.

That is my typical response if someone wants to argue about roadtrip charging times. Those people usually start off saying it takes "hours" to charge at DCFC too, so their ignorance on the topic is already at the surface.

 

[SuperRob]

Yeah, on that same note I like to bring up that even if I do spend "time" charging on a road trip, on an annual basis it waaaaaaay less than the time I spend driving to or at gas stations. Right now we have an F-150 PowerBoost and the Mach-e.

I like to explain that the time you skip going to gas stations you are 'banking' and then you spend that time when you need to road trip it. Some people, like you and me, are going to come out WAY ahead in that equation.

 

[ADDZ71]

You should read up on accounting & amortization.

Okay don't really need a**hole replies like that. You should probably do a little more research into marginal costs and allocation. The point I was making is the $14 facilities charge is there whether I use 1 kWh or 1000 kWh so that is not relevant to the cost of adding the ~446 kWh of use I consume on an average month. If you want to allocate or amortize that over the whole amount so be it but in the discussion of what my fuel costs are versus my ICE vehicles it is definitely irrelevant.

 

[Woeo]

Okay don't really need a**hole replies like that. You should probably do a little more research into marginal costs and allocation. The point I was making is the $14 facilities charge is there whether I use 1 kWh or 1000 kWh so that is not relevant to the cost of adding the ~446 kWh of use I consume on an average month. If you want to allocate or amortize that over the whole amount so be it but in the discussion of what my fuel costs are versus my ICE vehicles it is definitely irrelevant.

If you want to charge at home you need an account with your power company, so all those fees and charges should be allocated to your EV fuel cost using your logic. BTW, just as easy to call the kW for your lights the marginal units consumed as it is to say the KW to power your car. At least I was suggesting that you split sunk costs among all the kW you consume.

 

[ctenidae]

But if they just go "bet you hate all that time spent charging", would just leave the conversation altogether. I am all for discussion and debate, love it, but the other person needs to come into it with at least the willingness to listen.

I've run into that. I do my charging at home, so I say I love it, my car fills up while I'm sleeping/working/having lunch/playing with the dog. I absolutely love not spending any time sucking gas fumes filling up every week.

 

[ctenidae]

You should read up on accounting & amortization.

I think he did, that's why he dropped a cost that has nothing to do with charging his car out of the equation. It's a fixed cost that's not allocable to charging.

 

[doogie63]

How are you getting 4 miles per kw?

Best I can do is 3.3 I'm in a premium extended battery awd

don't live in the city. Not much stop and go where I live.

 

[daemonic3]

EQUATION:

Gas Price * Mach-E miles per kWh / Electric Cost per kWh

Keep in mind the EPA estimated range of 270 miles for MachE ER AWD assumes basically 3 mi/kWh.

Example in Colorado NOW:

$2.79 * 2.7 / $0.125 = 60 MPG gasoline cost equivalent

Example in Colorado at worst gas prices in history and good EV range in June 2022:

$4.99 * 3.5 / $0.14 = 124 MPG gasoline cost equivalent

This is exactly how I do it when folks sound interested. Very quick and easy using "current" prices or worst/best case prices. I like it better than eMPG which is energy equivalence, rather this is more like $MPG equivalence.

Last summer gas here was $5/gal and summer efficiency was about 3mi/kWh and summer night rate (Sacramento) was 12c/kWh. Mine was 125 $MPG.

Currently gas is ~$4.25 here and efficiency is ~2.3mi/kWh and night rate is 9.5c/kWh. So our current $MPG is 103.

 

[Kevinbringard]

I usually just give them the total cost savings on a weekly basis. We were driving our AWS Sienna 500 miles a week, which ended up costing around 100$/week or somewhere around 400$/mo. With the BEV and the same amount of driving it costs about 25 bucks a week or 100$/mo.

At the end of the day I figure people are really asking how much does it cost you to drive the car, and so giving them the huge cost savings in hard numbers results in some wide eyes and “Wow, that’s amazing” responses.

Then I get to tell them about the other benefits, such as how I don’t have to go to the gas station and stand in the cold, or be on my way somewhere and realize I’m almost out of gas and have to figure out how to fit in a gas stop to my already busy day. It almost always results in people commenting on how nice that must be.

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