Seems like bullshit to me. Recognizing the logical fallacy here, it’s still worth pointing out the firm has a history of working with major auto manufacturers, and is headquartered near Detroit. Their CEO, Patrick L. Anderson, also served under a Republican governor in multiple roles and is a contributor to numerous conservative research institutes.
Yeah, this is bullshit. I charge my car at home by leaving it plugged in overnight. Costs me literally a few bucks a month to keep it charged. I don’t even notice it on my electricity bill.
If I were charging at fee-based charging stations all the time, the story would be different, but who the hell does that?!?
We were looking at getting an EV without being able to charge it at home. Charging it at public chargers here in the UK would’ve cost about the same as petrol. But having to rely on the public charging infrastructure in its current state made us decide against it, at least for now.
Out of curiosity, why couldn’t you charge it at home? Most electric cars can have their chargers plugged into a standard wall outlet. It’s slower, but it works fine.
Here in DK we are fine with public charging only. Still quite a bit cheaper than gas for a comparable car. And I suspect lower repair cost, (currently) free parking and eventual city closures for ICEs to be enough logical reasons for hesitant people. Personally I would have never bought an ICE. Felt bad enough getting a car at all.
People who live in apartments and basement suites, basically anywhere with no garage. After 2030 or 2035 or whatever the deadline is there will be lots of people who have electric cars and no way to charge them overnight at home, so people will have to charge at public chargers everytime.
Thanks for doing the work.
Consideration for readers. Remember not everyone lives where you do and has the same access and infrastructure that you do.
Some US states are pushing for EV but do not have the power production needed to support it at scale. Maybe another 10 or 20 years when everyone has a nuclear reactor in their backyard.
I’m all for EV for those that it makes sense. For many, especially the impoverished, it’s just another barrier to overcome.
It’s not a logical fallacy conspiracy when they’re really out to get you though.
That said, my experience charging an EV in the space of one month cost as much as 14 twelve gallon tanks of gas. There may be something wrong with my electric service but the power company is an evil monopoly that doesn’t care about anything but getting paid so…
Did you charge at home during the night, or during peak hours/at fast chargers?
How many tanks of gas would you have gone through in a comparable vehicle?
Here’s my answer for this (with data!): For the month of July, I charged 440.0 kWh. I averaged 94% efficiency while charging, so the chargers actually used 469 kWh. There were 35 charges, for a total of 66 hours spent charging. My total electric cost is 15 cents per kWh (my plan doesn’t have peak/off-peak). I did no charging at superchargers in July.
In that timeframe, I drove 1314 miles. 355kWh were used while driving, giving me an average efficiency of 3.7 miles per kWh. You’ll note that I used 85 fewer kWh driving, that’s because thosed 85 kWh were used to precondition my car, keep the AC running while I’m in the store or on a bike ride, etc. Super wasteful, but it’s so cheap that I can’t help myself).
So to break it down: 15 cents per kwh * 469kWh = $70 to charge, $12.75 of which was just used for climate control while not driving.
My last car was a 2016 Honda Accord Touring V6 which, in my area and with my driving style, averaged about 22mpg (lots of steep hills, 85mph driving, and stop and go traffic. I live 15 miles from town by interstate and town has lots of traffic).
According to AAA, the average cost of gas in PA is $3.87 (I know that price changes, but the math gets harder if I look up the price of gas each time I would have had to fill the tank so I’m just taking the current avg). 1314 miles / 22mpg = 59.7 gallons of gas * $3.87 = $231.
For extra fun math, looking at purely fuel costs, the Accord would cost 17.5 cents per mile to drive (not including the fact that I’d need an oil change every 4 months, transmission fluid every year and a half, etc).
My current car at current electric rates costs 5.3 cents per mile to drive.
Additionally, i’m planning on getting solar in a year or two, which should bring my cost down to effectively zero. AND, we can charge for free at my wife’s work when she’s in the office (as well as at the park I bike at), but she wasn’t in the office at all in July; we both worked from home full time last month.
TL;DR: my Model 3 Long Range costs about a third as much per mile to drive as my similarly sized Honda Accord did before I sold it
I charge a Lightning at home with an 80 amp charger and before that I had a gas f150. The increase to my energy bill was about $30-$40 a month and offset about $400 a month in gas.
Assuming gas is $3.75/gal where you live, that is $630. If you spent $630 on charging your car in one month then you either drive 3000 miles a month or have a problem with your electric meter. Assuming you live in the state with the highest electricity prices that isn’t Hawaii (because then we couldn’t assume $3.75/gal for your gas), your rate is $0.34/kWh. That means you 1853kWh.
Assuming you drive the least efficient EV, the Hummer, which goes 329 miles on 213kWh, you would have to drive 2862 miles in one month to spend $630. So for the worst case electrical price, with the worst case EV mileage, with average gas prices, you are driving a lot more than most people to spend 14 twelve gallon tanks of gas worth. For reference, switching that Hummer to a Bolt would only cost $278 to drive 2862 miles.
There’s definitely a lot of nuance involved. For instance my service provider charges more for electricity than the public charge stations do (seriously fuck PG&E and every other monopolistic service provider), so I actually save money by not charging at home. It’s still absolutely cheaper than filling up on gas though, especially when I can find a spot where I don’t have to pay (like my work.)
