It Costs Less To Fill Up A Subaru With Gas Than Charge An EV? Don’t Tell The EVangelists

Great story, Denis. My vehicle testing leans heavily toward EVs. In Metro West Boston, it costs more to charge in public at many of the places I visit than it does to power a 30 MPG-ish vehicle like a Forester. At home, my electricity, even with special discount programs, costs me $0.34/kWh. I like to break it all down to cost per mile. Much simpler. There are certainly some places where electricity is cheap. But not in my affluent and EV-friendly state. Hybrids are the least expensive to power.

It would be nice to know the assumption s and calculations used to get at this. Because, from what I calculate -
$12.00 to fill up for 100 miles of gas driving (rounded up from article).
Assuming even a very high electric rate of $0.40 / kwh
That's $12.00 / $0.40 = 30 kwh of power charge.

Inefficient EV vehicles get 4-5 miles per kwh. So even the low range of 4 miles per kwh = 120 miles of charge for the same price as gas.

So, something isn't adding up to what the article implies. And that is using conservative estimates (my electric rate is <$0.20 / kwh for example).

Very interesting! But breaking this down a bit… though it depends entirely on how one drives and which EV we are talking about and of course the price per kWh… but an efficient EV like a model 3 can easily get over 4 miles per kWh average and a bigger less aerodynamic or more aggressively driven (or perhaps towing) EV can get 2 miles oer kWh or less. Let’s just use 3.5 miles per kWh as the average. Electricity prices vary widely and John gave a high end example in the Boston area of .34 cents/kWh. It is about 9 cents per kWh here in Seattle area and the average price in the U.S now is a little over .16 cents/kWh. Using these averages you get a cost of about $4.60 to drive 100 miles on electricity. Lower it to 3 miles per kWh and raise price to .26 cents/kWh and it is $8.67 for 100 miles. Not until you get to .35 cents and 3 miles per kWh, do you pay more for 100 EV miles. So I would say SOME (and most likely a minority) of drivers in the U.S. would pay more in “fuel” costs to drive an EV, but most would likely pay a little to a lot less. Of course in places where gas is cheaper, or electricity much higher, the calculus is different. I don’t have access to the source article, but would be interested to know if they broke down the costs and miles per kWh info in any detail.

I just bought a 2020 Forester. On flat highway driving with cruise control set @ 65mph, it recently got 43mpg; (my usual all-in mpg is ~32). At $3.+/gal cost, it's about 8-10 cents/mile. I don't know how that translates to equivalent $/kWh, but I'll wager it's cheaper.

Wisconsin is between .13 cents a kwh and .09 so take this think tank with a grain of salt.

Probably makes sense to compare all out of pocket costs after purchasing the two vehicles to achieve an apples-to-apples comparison since the EV won't need any maintenance until the tires, breaks, and air filters need changing, while the gas car also requires regular oil and filter changes. Thus likely reduces the 5 year cost of ownership breakeven point so much that gasoline could drop much further

Yes, unfortunately commercial charging will be close to the equivalent of good mileage ICE car. Home charging will always be a better deal- just like preparing a meal at home is cheaper than eating at a restaurant. There are many free charging alternatives while shopping or dining out (but usually L2). Cheap fuel is not the only benefit of EVs

This report I believe is only talking about public chargers that you pay a company to charge there. If you charge at home, and you will 99% of the time, depending on the state, it could cost half of what you are paying for gas. And don't forget that electric utility prices are much more stable than gas prices, meaning I know how much it's going to cost me to fill up for the year, when gas prices change by the day, sometimes drastically. Gas prices always go up in the long term while utilities are paying less for new capacity. Finally, if you live in a high cost electric market, adding solar can drop your costs greatly.

Everyone's getting this wrong. People are going to charge their EVs at their house 90% to 95% of the time. My little Nissan leaf adds about $20 a month to my power bill in Eastern US. I average about 10,000 miles a year on that car driving it the way most Americans drive on 10 to 15 mi trips at a time.

Let's go really simple here. Why would I buy a car that is worth less and spend more running it to save a few dollars. In the end if I go with the ev I will have paid less in running costs and have a car that is worth more. In the end I have more equity saved and have not burned fossil fuel myself commuting...