This article documents a study comparing the cost to fill up your ICE vehicles and typical EVs available today. The big takeaway is that EVs are typically more expensive to fill up than gasoline powered vehicles. It’s a bit out of date in that they use a gasoline cost of $2.81/gallon, but it seems to me that ICE is still cheaper at today’s average of $3.48/gallon. I’m not sure how they amortized to cost of a L2 home charger but $1600 over 10 years is about $3.08 every other week. Also, commercial chargers are 2 to 4 times more expensive than home charging. How does this influence your interest in buying an EV?
I have seen this report shredded in a couple of articles for the questionable methods used in the calculations. I don’t think it is a credible analysis.
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I guess we need to find out who paid for the Anderson Economic Group evaluation. At this point, it looks like they paid for it themselves. I downloaded the report and will take a look at it.
It doesn’t influence my decision to make my wife’s next car an EV. She drives less than 3,000 miles per year at this point, so fuel cost is not a criterion for me. It’s simply the socially responsible thing to do.
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Socially conscious thing to do? You have a 5yr old car. Replace it with an ev? And scrap 5 yr old car?you car is built. Use it. Use it less if you feel guilty.
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The “environmental impact” to manufacture an EV and its battery is greater than the “environmental impact” to manufacture a regular car. I believe I actually read that in an EPA article. Carbon emissions to mine the materials and manufacture the batteries are pretty high. Supposedly, that upfront environmental cost is overcome through the life of the EV through less carbon emissions during its operation. Might not overcome it at 3k miles/yr, though…. It would probably be more “socially responsible” to continue driving what you have rather than purchase a new vehicle which theoretically will cause another vehicle to be manufactured. Then give all that money you saved to feed the hungry or something.
That being said, if you want an EV, buy an EV.
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If you look at the chain of custody, you will find the 5 y.o. car is not thrown away. The 5 y.o. car will replace someone’s 10 y.o car, and the 10 y.o. car will replace someone’s 15 y.o. car. The 15 y.o. car might be thrown away, but even that is recycled. There is no need for a guilt trip for someone who buys a new car.
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I don’t see how this would factor in to the decision to buy an EV or not, the argument isn’t really relevant to the reasons for buying electric. Electric cars use less gasoline. That is an indisputable fact. For the majority of drivers considering a hybrid or EV, that, convenience, and maybe the purchase cost is it. Gasoline prices are so volatile and vary so much by region that using a dollar figure to compare energy use isn’t useful.
People keep conflating dollars with gasoline. They’re different.
That is true what adds up today will add up different tomorrow or next month ETC.
Actually, we replace her car with a new one every 3 years
Your new EV as it adds to demand and we are using all the clean energy ecan get now is probably going to be coal powered.
Well…all energy prices can be volatile. And they will no doubt increase in cost with the push to move away from fossil fuels. Electricity costs will most likely increase right along with fuel prices, considering most of the grid relies on a fossil fuel of some sort to operate. Comparing costs at a given time between the two modes of transport seems pretty logical to me.
Personally, if the cost of owning an EV is higher than the cost of a regular car, I’d have zero interest. And I really don’t think the majority of other people buying cars will either. Most working folks aren’t interested in being economic martyrs for the supposed sake of the environment. The average age of vehicles on the road is over 10 years old. I can’t see the people driving those cars (like me) running out to buy something that costs them more money to operate (if the article is actually correct).
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Really? Nice try.
Here’s the EPA’s view on EV vehicles and their environmental impact.
Read your own article and quote the entirety of what I said. The article says exactly what I stated. EV manufacturing has a higher environmental impact. However, an EV has a lower environmental impact over the lifespan of the vehicle due to lower carbon emissions when operating the vehicle. However, again, at 3k miles per year, I’m not sure it’s operated enough for the carbon saved during operation to overcome the extra carbon burned to manufacture the EV and it’s battery.
Nice try yourself.
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So if commercial chargers are used, the cost of charging the EV and the extra driving to commercial chargers can exceed the cost of a fuel efficient vehicle when gas prices are cheap.
And that article doesn’t even consider the cost of the batteries! That’s adding about $15,000 more to the cost of the vehicle. $15,000 at $3 gas and 30 MPG will get you 150,000 miles! Imagine buying a $34,000 gasoline car and being able to drive the 1st 150,000 miles without paying for gasoline! Now which one is cheaper?
That’s my point exactly. For many of the people driving EVs or hybrids, the cost is irrelevant. All that matters is that the car does what you want it to do. The point of it is using less gasoline. Notice I didn’t say energy, I said gasoline. So if your goal is to use less gasoline, and you have a choice between one that uses some gas and one that uses no gas, the choice is simple and already made.
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Total bullsh*t. EV batteries don’t cost anywhere near that. Where you getting that bull from? You can get a replacement battery for up to $6,000. The part you conveniently didn’t include is the added costs of maintaining an ICE vehicle over an EV. Oil changes, Tune-ups, Filter changes, Coolant changes.
You have to compare the whole cost of vehicle ownership. Not the pick and choose small aspects and then make a dumb conclusion.
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Here are just a couple of the EV battery futures.
A new EV battery shows big promise | Greenbiz
The Holy Grail Of Electrification: The Humble Battery (forbes.com)
Taken from the above article.
“Battery structure hasn’t changed in over 30 years, so there is a huge opportunity in this sector as trillions of dollars will continue to be invested in creating better batteries, said Moshiel Biton, CEO of Addionics. “Given the high demand in the market, even a small change in these key parameters has huge economic value.”
Doing comparisons right now probably means little with so few EV’s on the road and you can bet if this is forced on us that electricity rates will go up a lot in the future if we don’t melt down our unimproved grid . Can’t wait to see what happens in California seeing they have blackout in the summer now .
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If they can make the aluminim ion work then that could be the holy grail for EV’s . No one will know until they can make it work . Right now it is no better than the 100 MPG carburator from the 70’s that never made it to fruition .
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