Owner of two, plugin hybrids, I can confirm my EV miles are half the cost of the current gas miles. When you add the 'free' charging, the ratio is almost 3-to-1 in favor of EV miles. Source: Electric Vehicles Cost Less Than Half As Much To Drive The average cost to operate an EV in the United States is $485 per year, while the average for a gasoline-powered vehicle is $1,117, according to the study by Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute. . . . In the new Michigan study, Sivak and Schoettle found that fuel costs for both type of cars vary dramatically from state to state. In Hawaii, it costs $1,509 to fuel "a typical new gasoline vehicle" each year, and $1,106 to charge an EV. Gasoline is cheapest in Alabama at $993 a year, but electricity is still much cheaper at $481. The difference is greatest in Washington state, where gasoline will cost that average motorist $1,338, compared to $372 to charge up. In no state is it cheaper to fuel up on gasoline—Hawaii comes closest to parity. Note that some cities with excessive electricity rates like Boston may have reached parity. Much to my surprise, this study was discussed earlier: Electric cars are cheapest to drive against gas cars in these states: new report California, where roughly half the nation's plug-in cars are sold today, sits in the middle of the various rankings, because its gasoline is highly taxed but it also has relatively expensive electric rates. Washington state has exceptionally cheap electricity; some residential customers in certain areas pay as little as 3 or 4 cents per kilowatt-hour, against a national average of about 12 cents. While the ratio between the most and least expensive gasoline in the country was roughly 1.5, the priciest electricity rate was 3.0 times that of the least expensive. The study used NHTSA data on the distance driven by light-duty vehicles, reported last year at a national average of 11,443 miles. It assumed that average light-duty vehicle also returned 25.0 mpg, per the earlier study, and an EPA average energy use for all plug-in electric vehicles of 33.0 kilowatt-hours per 100 miles driven. An abstract of the UM-TRI study is available online, though the full study is not presently available to the public. It occurs to me we need to survey the existing plugin hybrids to determine IF these may be a better vehicle model than the separate ones reported in the articles about the paper. Bob Wilson
One of these days we'll get Bob to install a PV array. A Few years later it'll be full amortized & then he'll REALLY be doing the rooster crow. .
not while there's free charging to be had. gas is still $2.50 here in orlando, not gonna change any hearts.
On my neck of the woods, given the $0.20/kWh and the current (min) $3.0/gal, the actual EV mile cost is only roughly 70% of the HV only baseline... What is more comforting is that each EV mile only emits 1/3 of the CO2.
