Digging into my electric bill lately I see that my super off-peak (12am-6am) cost per kWh is $0.35. Regular off peak (all hours except 4pm-9pm) cost is $0.53. Over the past six months I’ve been paying about $4.90 per gallon for 91 octane on average.
On the highway, my SUV gets 30mpg. I compare this to an etron that gets a reported 2.33 miles per kWh (0.43 kWh/mi).
Cost per mile for 91 octane @ 30mpg: $0.1633
Cost per mile of electricity @ 0.43 kWh/mi: $0.1502-$0.2275
I’m curious if cost of energy is a factor for EV drivers and what your numbers look like by comparison.
In central TX, I’m right around $0.10/kWh, plus have free charging at work/ free charging at electrify America stations for 3 years with the ID4. At 20k miles per year (long commute) savings are substantial
You have a good use-case for solar.
Just for comparison, I am paying $0.18 kWH/mi (from NJ utility).
On our Model Y, past year we spent $778 on electric (home+SC) to go ~16K miles.
That’s around $0.04 per mile.
Lets compare imaginary econobox that gets 30mpg and takes regular at current $3.29/ gal at Costco by me.
Lets use yearly commute at 15,000mi
Round up my electric to 0.15/kwh and -.02 for off pear charging. (13c)
Using my current Bolt and easily attainable 4.5mi/kwh and assume I only charge at home off peak.
$1,645 in yearly gas lets add $100 in oil changes for a grand total of
-$1,745
-$434 in yearly electric
In my particular case about 50% of charging is done at no cost to me So lets say I spend a rough $250/yr for driving 15k miles thats $0.017/mi compared to $0.116/mi so that’s nearly $1,500/yr savings.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that having GM credit card I get $100 for paying 6 months of electric bills. That brings the cost to $0.01/mi
SDG&E… I just checked and they do have an EV program to drop 12am-6am to $0.18 range but the other times do go up a bit. Fortunately my regular electric bill is only about 400 kWh/mo on average.
Solar use case does make sense with a lot of miles and high rates. But SDG&E is trying to switch everybody over to flat rate which will charge solar customers a flat rate as well which for me will be $128/mo just to be connected to the grid. Wonder if I can go off grid in the suburbs?
Here’s my real-world experience in SoCal with Socal Edison:
My May-June summer bill under the TOU-D-PRIME plan had the following rates:
9pm-8am Off-peak $0.23252
8am-4pm Super offpeak price of $0.21844.
The Bolt EUV is advertised as achieving 247 miles per charge on its 65kwh battery. 247/65 = 3.8 miles per kwh, which I’ll conservatively round down to 3.5 miles (effectively 227 miles per charge).
I have my car programmed to charge during off-peak timeframe at $0.23252 per kwh. Multiplied by the 65kwh battery size, that’s $15.11 to give me a full charge.
Gas was $4.49 at my Costco last I checked, so if a comparable ICE vehicle were to achieve 30mpg, I’d need about 7.5 gallons to fill up. That’s a $34 fill-up (plus an hour of time wasted driving to Costco and sitting in line) versus having my car juicing itself up overnight for $15.
Given the above, I’m effectively paying <$2/gal with my Bolt EUV, assuming it only achieves 90% of its advertised range. I have no idea what it’s actually doing as far as range since it’s so damn cheap I don’t really care to check.
I’m using EV-TOU-5 in San Diego (Carlsbad, CA). There is a $16/mo service fee, but rates are 15.4cents per kw. I charge the car, run the pool pump, run the dishwasher, and when it gets hot, I set the AC at 68 degrees during off-peak Everything is on a timer. I think I calculated my cost at around $30/mo for the EV.
We spend about $200/mo on electricity because no one else cares about peak rates so they just do their laundry after 2pm when the rates go to 81.6 cents per kw. During the pandemic, we heated our pool every day so our gas bill was over $1000/mo.
Generally EV $/mi is cheaper but as electricity rates go up you may want to look into Supercharging (Tesla) or some discount plan on one of the charging networks near you.
SDG&E is notorious for high electricity costs (I have relatives who live in the OC but are under SDG&E and complain about their electricity bills).
You also have to account for the convenience of charging at home charging if you charge at home. Not having to go to a gas station or have the smell of an ICE vehicle in your garage has value too.
My 1 year ownership of the Tesla Y and my ONLY cost is $51 at Superchargers while traveling to Vegas, the rest is completely FREE charging it’s been like this since I bought my first Model 3 in 2020 with minimal cost for charging my EV’s. I don’t charge at home, but if I did SCE rates are $0.21 to $0.27/kwh for me…
My other car Toyota Mirai is also “fueled” for FREE by Toyota for the next 6 years
What he said and most hotels have the FREE chargers when I travel so I only need to top off at a Supercharger if I’m in a hurry, I also have some credit left on my EvGo account (Came as a CVAP incentive $1K in 2020) so I use that in lieu of Supercharging when going to Vegas for top-offs half way or so…
it’s been like this since I bought my first Model 3 in 2020 with minimal cost for charging my EV’s. I don’t charge at home, but if I did SCE rates are $0.21 to $0.27/kwh for me…
for the next 6 years
and most hotels have the FREE chargers when I travel so I only need to top off at a Supercharger if I’m in a hurry, I also have some credit left on my EvGo account (Came as a CVAP incentive $1K in 2020) so I use that in lieu of Supercharging when going to Vegas for top-offs half way or so…