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Gasoline is cheap – but charging an EV is still cheaper

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Re: Gasoline is cheap – but charging an EV is still cheaper

#51

Post by logifail »

samtho wrote: post #11
throw83485 wrote: post #7

In my country electricity is more expensive. Cheapest by far is LNG. EVs also have much higher costs in repairs, maintenance and car insurance.

> EVs also have much higher costs in repairs, maintenance and car insurance. Not sure about the maintenance cost being higher here. The only things that need regular service are brake and tires as all of the moving parts of an EV are contained within an electric motor assembly that are very reliable across manufacturers. By contrast, an ICE vehicle is loaded with moving parts, all of which need lubrication, have wear…

> Not sure about the maintenance cost being higher

Sixt and Hertz seem fairly sure, and they are the ones with statistically-significant data on this:

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/08/sixt-dumping-teslas-due...

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/hertz-...

Re: Gasoline is cheap – but charging an EV is still cheaper

#52

Post by bbatha »

yathern wrote: post #28
hasty_pudding wrote: post #21

EVs may be great for someone with a home and garage to charge it, but for renters or more normal folks who have to park on the street, no ones going to add hours to their day sitting at a charging station.

> for renters or more normal folks who have to park on the street I think categorizing people into "with garages" and "normal" might be a little contentious. A quick search indicates 63% percent of all housing units have a garage or carport[1]. Housing Unit includes apartments and condos. I'm sure it's very geographic, and in large cities the number will be much lower - but many many Americans live in suburbs, where…

I would also guess that percentage of housing units would be substantially higher if you limited it to homes also owned by people with cars. Both because owning a garage is a lot more desirable if you have a car and homes with garages are in places where people need to drive to get around: there are millions of people in major cities who own neither and have no need for a car.

Re: Gasoline is cheap – but charging an EV is still cheaper

#53

Post by logifail »

ageitgey wrote: post #27
hasty_pudding wrote: post #21

EVs may be great for someone with a home and garage to charge it, but for renters or more normal folks who have to park on the street, no ones going to add hours to their day sitting at a charging station.

In London, many neighborhoods have added charging sockets to the existing streetlight posts. I park on the street and can charge overnight easily and cheaply just by parking on the road and plugging in. I'm not saying this will work perfectly in every location or for all cities. But it is relatively easy in many areas to add charging ports with existing infrastructure.

> I park on the street and can charge overnight easily and cheaply [..]

Q: How much do you pay to charge on-street?

Re: Gasoline is cheap – but charging an EV is still cheaper

#54

Post by logifail »

grecy wrote: post #23
hasty_pudding wrote: post #21

EVs may be great for someone with a home and garage to charge it, but for renters or more normal folks who have to park on the street, no ones going to add hours to their day sitting at a charging station.

> Yeah but do they calculate your personal time value in sitting at a charging station for an hour? An even more interesting calculation would be how much you are shortening your life by standing at a gas pump inhaling carcinogens. Not to mention breathing the exhaust of all the vehicles around you. LA has some of the worst air quality in the developed world [1]. Do you want to live there and breath that everyday? [1…

> how much you are shortening your life by standing at a gas pump inhaling carcinogens

[Full disclosure: worked for years in a chemistry lab where we had "proper" risks, including but not limited to real carcinogens]

CDC: "there is no evidence that exposure to gasoline causes cancer in humans"[0]

Petrol and diesel are easy to avoid inhaling, not least because they both stink. It's trivial to avoid any potential risk by turning away from the vehicle while fuelling.

[0] https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/ToxFAQs/ToxFAQsDetails.aspx?faqid=4....

Re: Gasoline is cheap – but charging an EV is still cheaper

#55

Post by chrismcb »

bdcravens wrote: post #42
jwr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except for extreme long range trips I'm writing this comment having just driven about 2000km-long trip with an EV :-) In cold climate (-5C). It's not my first long trip, either. My key observations (some were surprising to me): 1. You should expect to travel slower, as you will need to make breaks for charging, and the EV world presents an overly-rosy view of ranges. In a long trip, you use the battery from 10% to…

I drove from Houston to San Diego and back in my EV6. It wasn't bad, but in the interests of disclosure, I'll point out some of the caveats (some of which may not apply for those using the Tesla network) 1. Our trip was on major interstates (I10 and I8) 2. Not every charging station had full speed 3. Charging stations weren't so close that I could reliably skip one 4. Range goes way down on open freeways (wind resist…

Seems to me like you proved the haters correct. That is a significant cost on time and money, to recharge. To me this is the biggest downside to an EV. Not too mention, of I rub it off juice, the car pretty much has to be towed. Will this problems improve? Sure, but until then...

Re: Gasoline is cheap – but charging an EV is still cheaper

#56

Post by ageitgey »

logifail wrote: post #53
ageitgey wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In London, many neighborhoods have added charging sockets to the existing streetlight posts. I park on the street and can charge overnight easily and cheaply just by parking on the road and plugging in. I'm not saying this will work perfectly in every location or for all cities. But it is relatively easy in many areas to add charging ports with existing infrastructure.

> I park on the street and can charge overnight easily and cheaply [..] Q: How much do you pay to charge on-street?

Average home electricity prices are 0.29/kwh in London. The street lamp charging costs 0.24/kwh, so actually slightly cheaper for most people than charging at home.

By comparison, a Telsa Supercharger will run about 0.65/kwh here (but is obviously faster) and other brands I've seen as high as 0.85/kwh for rapid charging.

However if you agreed to an electricity plan where you pay floating hourly rates and you can charge at home with the right equipment, you could in theory pay less by only charging at low rate times overnight.

But given the the limited amount of driving I do (basically just weekend trips), the street charging costs are usually so low as to be a rounding error so it is not a big deal either way.

Re: Gasoline is cheap – but charging an EV is still cheaper

#57

Post by ZeroGravitas »

logifail wrote: post #51
samtho wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EVs also have much higher costs in repairs, maintenance and car insurance. Not sure about the maintenance cost being higher here. The only things that need regular service are brake and tires as all of the moving parts of an EV are contained within an electric motor assembly that are very reliable across manufacturers. By contrast, an ICE vehicle is loaded with moving parts, all of which need lubrication, have wear…

> Not sure about the maintenance cost being higher Sixt and Hertz seem fairly sure, and they are the ones with statistically-significant data on this: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/12/08/sixt-dumping-teslas-due... https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/hertz-...

Sixt seem to have a specific problem with Tesla, not EVs:

> Sixt is directly singling out Tesla here, as it continues to increase its electric fleet,” they write. “The company’s goal is to slowly replace its gasoline and diesel-powered cars until at least 90 percent of its fleet is electric, and it aims to do so by the end of this decade. Unless Tesla improves its quality, collision repair costs, and residual values, the second-largest rental fleet in Europe (and fourth-largest in the U.S.) won’t include cars from the American automaker.”

Re: Gasoline is cheap – but charging an EV is still cheaper

#58

Post by rainsford »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #2

Only if you do this weird unrealistic math. Usually you need to install some infrastructure or deal with overnight slow charging. Thats if you even have a spot at home for this. Factor in your time hunting for a charger or waiting around for the car, depending on how you value your time, and maybe filling up the gas car for $40 in 3 minutes really is cheaper when you’ve accounted for all the inconvenience you might b…

Not only is the math not unrealistic, but I'd argue EVs have a fairy obvious structural advantage that makes their convenience advantage clear without having to do math at all.

A large percentage of personal vehicles mostly take short distance trips between which they spend the vast majority of their life parked at one of a handful of consistent locations. Even with slow charging, EVs have ample opportunity to "refuel" with no additional time investment. As for monetary cost, the electricity to refuel an EV can be generated by a huge number of sources to leverage the cheapest (or greenest if that's what you want to optimize for) ones and be centralized to take advantage of economies of scale. Even if the electricity is fossil fuel generated, a power plant can be far more efficient at turning that fossil fuel into energy than your car engine can.

This is different than saying this charging reality is true for everyone right this second, but they key point is that it's possible for EVs while it is fundamentally impossible for traditional internal combustion vehicles. Your ICE car is never going to be able to be refueled at home overnight or at work during the day. It will never be able to take advantage of solar or wind or nuclear energy. Refueling an ICE car might be fairly convenient now, but this is as good as it gets, it's never going to get any better. My current situation doesn't allow me to charge an EV at work or home, so it would be marginally less convenient for me. But that's pretty fixable in the grand scheme of things, while I'm never going to be able to refuel my ICE car while I sleep.

Anyone doing the comparison between ICE and EV now and not accounting for all the extra upside room to grow EVs still have (and ICE does not) is definitely missing the forest for the trees.

Re: Gasoline is cheap – but charging an EV is still cheaper

#59

Post by natch »

mglz wrote: post #19
jwr wrote: post #14

So much wrong information in the comments here (or, rather, lack of information, because most comments are ill-informed). See for example https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-... for a good debunking of many common myths (good showing here). Yes, one should not accept the all-rosy picture of EVs being all-clean and ideal. But my EV a) is 4-5 times more efficient overall in converting energy int…

*Thank you* So much hearsay from people who never really used an EV. Yes, there are drawbacks. But except for extreme long range trips EVs are perfectly usable while being more energy efficient and less prone to breaking down.

EVs are fantastic for long road trips. Unless you buy your EV from a legacy automaker in which case there is no good charging network.

Re: Gasoline is cheap – but charging an EV is still cheaper

#60

Post by natch »

chrismcb wrote: post #55
bdcravens wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I drove from Houston to San Diego and back in my EV6. It wasn't bad, but in the interests of disclosure, I'll point out some of the caveats (some of which may not apply for those using the Tesla network) 1. Our trip was on major interstates (I10 and I8) 2. Not every charging station had full speed 3. Charging stations weren't so close that I could reliably skip one 4. Range goes way down on open freeways (wind resist…

Seems to me like you proved the haters correct. That is a significant cost on time and money, to recharge. To me this is the biggest downside to an EV. Not too mention, of I rub it off juice, the car pretty much has to be towed. Will this problems improve? Sure, but until then...

It was an EV6 though, not a Tesla. So it had a disadvantage to start with.
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