Charging an Electric Car

[jflorey2]

Maybe for city dwellers an EV will work but a lot of country folks want a big truck and will (stupidly) pay any price for gas to run it.

That will also change with time as more EV trucks become available. Note that country folk generally drive fewer miles per year than city people.

[SunEagle]

IMO the $25,000 EV with a 300 mile range will be the death of ICE......even the the most die-hard gearheads cannot ignore the savings. That car is coming and probably from China first...they are getting close.

Maybe for city dwellers an EV will work but a lot of country folks want a big truck and will (stupidly) pay any price for gas to run it.

[DanS26]

IMO the $25,000 EV with a 300 mile range will be the death of ICE......even the the most die-hard gearheads cannot ignore the savings. That car is coming and probably from China first...they are getting close.

[SunEagle]

In Indiana the EV tax surcharge is $150 per year. Indiana charges $.30 per gal gas tax for road maintenance and the Federal gas tax is $.183 per gallon that everyone pays.

According to my calculations I have avoided $521.13 in State and Federal gas taxes and have paid $425 in EV tax surcharges. I'm ahead of the gas tax game here in Indiana for the almost three years ownership of my EV.

Sounds like an EV pays for itself. But when will the state determine that they are not getting enough from the gas tax to keep the roads safe before they increase the EV tax to cover the road repairs? If you can get an EV now then it seems to be financially worth it. But for most an EV is not a possibility so they will miss out on the savings.

[DanS26]

In Indiana the EV tax surcharge is $150 per year. Indiana charges $.30 per gal gas tax for road maintenance and the Federal gas tax is $.183 per gallon that everyone pays.

According to my calculations I have avoided $521.13 in State and Federal gas taxes and have paid $425 in EV tax surcharges. I'm ahead of the gas tax game here in Indiana for the almost three years ownership of my EV.

[SunEagle]

Missing? I am not trying to convince you to buy an EV but I just want other readers to understand the math. Most of the comments above do not seem to be missing anything. I think what you are ignoring is the long term lower cost of operating an EV.
That tax is $175 in California and based on driving 12,000 miles a year that is going to add one and one half cents per mile. Considering gas is $6 a gallon and a vehicle that gets 25 miles to the gallon, the cost of just fuel is $0.24per mile compared to maybe $0.07 per mile to power an electric car at California off peak rates of $0,21 per kWh, Even if the tax doubles, the cost per mile might be $0,10 per mile compared to $0.24 per mile for an Internal Combustion Engine driven car, For many of us who have invested in solar the cost per mile is going to be even better.

My "missing" comment was directed at foggysail. In case he forgot the added expense for EV's that his state may soon introduce..

As for CA. I expect a loud cry out when ICE vehicles are no longer allowed to be sold in that state which I hear now is in 2035 but who knows what the politics or cost will be by then even with solar pv systems.

[peakbagger]

Mass was betting on running a big DC "extension cord" up through NH to get hooked up to "Clean Canadian Hydro" which was really rebranded fossil power from a natural gas plant in Three Rivers Quebec that Hydro Quebec was paying a lot of money to sit there. NH eventually rejected the line and they moved onto a big "extension cord" in Western Maine. That project is still in court as the state of Maine voters have voted to stop it twice. Meanwhile Vt Yankee and Pilgrim nuclear power plants are long gone. The next big bet is offshore wind, it is quite expensive to deploy paid for by Mass ratepayers. Solar is getting deployed through the state but the reason it is getting built are very high subsidies paid for by ratepayers. They state has "clean peak" and big storage incentives being implemented also paid for by the ratepayer. BTW Mass used to get renewable power from multiple small biomass power plants in Maine and NH burning waste wood from land clearing and forestry operations but a prior Mass governor made a political decision to keep these plants out of western Mass and paid for an intentionally flawed study to justify it.

If and when the US gets serious about AGW, this is going to play out all over the country. The last administration delayed the effort by canceling the Clean Power Plan. Under the Clean Power Plan, states like Mass were in pretty good shape but many states who voted for the last administration were in far worse shape. So its pay me now pay me later dumping the shift to renewables on the next generations.

[Ampster]

I think what some people are missing is the added cost a state will add to the registrations of EV's to cover the cost of rode work that is included in each gallon of gas sold. Some states are already doing this to cover road repair costs and IMO it will only get worse as more EV's are sold.

Missing? I am not trying to convince you to buy an EV but I just want other readers to understand the math. Most of the comments above do not seem to be missing anything. I think what you are ignoring is the long term lower cost of operating an EV.
That tax is $175 in California and based on driving 12,000 miles a year that is going to add one and one half cents per mile. Considering gas is $6 a gallon and a vehicle that gets 25 miles to the gallon, the cost of just fuel is $0.24per mile compared to maybe $0.07 per mile to power an electric car at California off peak rates of $0,21 per kWh, Even if the tax doubles, the cost per mile might be $0,10 per mile compared to $0.24 per mile for an Internal Combustion Engine driven car, For many of us who have invested in solar the cost per mile is going to be even better.

[SunEagle]

I have a question for those of you enjoying electric vehicles. I frequently see environmental reports about supposed cost benefits for electricity ($0.10-12/KWH) and that really surprises me. How much are your real cost for charging electric vehicles???

My reason for question is, I pay only $0.12 now until my contract expires here in Massachusetts. But there are numerous other charges I and my fellow Eversource customers get billed. Eversouce (the supplier) has a host of small charges that they bill as ''delivery fees'' and that cost is higher than the product cost. Without going to my desk to share with all the actual charges, I remember deliverery to be about $0.14/ KWH bringing my usage cost to $0.25-0.26 for every consumed kilowatt hour.

And to make matters worse, our governor....and no, not a Democrat recently signed into law that electric companies....I think starting in 2025, must add 3% renewables to their product EVERY YEAR! Some years ago, Massachusetts was known as Taxachusetts, I don't know what the new slang name will be but someone certainly will come up with a good one.

I think what some people are missing is the added cost a state will add to the registrations of EV's to cover the cost of rode work that is included in each gallon of gas sold. Some states are already doing this to cover road repair costs and IMO it will only get worse as more EV's are sold.

[foggysail]

I have a question for those of you enjoying electric vehicles. I frequently see environmental reports about supposed cost benefits for electricity ($0.10-12/KWH) and that really surprises me. How much are your real cost for charging electric vehicles???

My reason for question is, I pay only $0.12 now until my contract expires here in Massachusetts. But there are numerous other charges I and my fellow Eversource customers get billed. Eversouce (the supplier) has a host of small charges that they bill as ''delivery fees'' and that cost is higher than the product cost. Without going to my desk to share with all the actual charges, I remember deliverery to be about $0.14/ KWH bringing my usage cost to $0.25-0.26 for every consumed kilowatt hour.

And to make matters worse, our governor....and no, not a Democrat recently signed into law that electric companies....I think starting in 2025, must add 3% renewables to their product EVERY YEAR! Some years ago, Massachusetts was known as Taxachusetts, I don't know what the new slang name will be but someone certainly will come up with a good one.

[Ward L]

I have excess solar power too. I replaced my propane heater water heater to a high efficiency electric heat pump and saved about $800/year. I charge my Tesla Model 3 with the fancy pants Tesla wall charger. This charger will go to 48 Amps and 240v to charge at about 45 miles/hour. I've realized I don't need the high charge rate because I have all night long, so I set the charge rate to 24 amps and charge it up overnight at 25 mph. It is supposed to be easier on the battery to charge at a lower rate. I would have been better off to just install a 14-50 power receptacle than install the Tesla wall charger. I have 43,000 miles on the Tesla and have used about 12,600 kWh to charge up. 12,600 / 43,000 = 0.29 kWh/mile. I've saved about $7k in fuel costs with the Tesla given my excess power. The EV won't take that much getting used to. They are amazing cars and I would never buy an ICE vehicle again.

[Ampster]

I have two EVs and have been driving EVs for ten years. In that time I would guess I have driven over 200,000 miles. Due to rate changes by my utility I charge more often from daytime solar when convenient.
Range and lack of DC fast charging was an issue on my first EV but it only had a range of 120 miles. I was fortunately able to trade it in on a Tesla MX that had free DC fast charging for life and range of 230 miles. It currently has 105,000 miles and I have taken it on numerous road trips with no issues.
That 200,000 miles has saved me $24,000 in gasoline over that time.

[DanS26]

I bought an EV about three years ago. My main consideration was that it had to have a 300+ mile range because I drive to to a large metropolitan area 75 miles away two or three times a month. So far I have driven the EV 21,579 miles and have recorded an average usage of 2.74 miles per kWh. Now I use and abuse this EV battery.....charging to 90% and discharging to 10% almost every time I make my trip to the city. I drive fast and I like performance.

My battery has degraded ~8%, a little more than expected but as I said I abuse this battery. I have only used a fast charger once and that was only to find out how the process worked. I have self installed two L2 chargers in my garage and a 14-50 outlet.

I have to say my EV experience has exceeded my expectations by a long way. My only comment to the OP is that you do not operate any ICE or EV for free....there is a cost to own and operate any vehicle. My cost to own and operate my EV is ~$0.50 per mile and that includes depreciation, energy, taxes, insurance, wear items, maintenance, battery degradation. There is no free lunch. Having said that, my savings on gasoline alone has been $2,689 to date and that will be increasing dramatically in the future.

Good luck with your decision.

[peakbagger]

I have a Rav 4 Prime SE plug in hybrid.. Its about 16 KWhr battery capacity. The internal charger is 3.3 KW max (certain XLEs can have a 6.6KW charger). I have a hybrid solar system with excess capacity and net metering. I can either plug directly into my hybrid system inverter with a 120 Volt plug 12 amp plug or plug into 240 VAC plug in my garage. My utility does not have incentives for off peak charging and even if they did I am not sure it would apply to me since I have net metering so my net power usage is less than my generation. I can plug directly into the inverter to charge with a 120 VAC EVSE or plug in my garage and pull down my battery or plug into a 240 VAC outlet in my garage.

I added the hybrid inverter and battery about the same time I got the Prime. Its one of the DC Solar systems with 2500 watts of panels. Its not optimally oriented but it looks like its offsetting the EV use.

[Warren93nature]

We have two EV's (a Prius Prime and a Tesla S) and a 10kW solar system. We still generate more than we use. The Prime gets 4 miles per kwhr and the Tesla gets 3 miles per kwhr. I drive about 4000 miles a year; my wife does about 8000 miles a year.

That's really awesome, obviously, the generating is efficient.