One of the biggest advantages of driving electric vehicles compared to internal combustion vehicles is the savings on gas and maintenance. Especially when purchasing a Tesla vehicle, the EV maker shows thousands of dollars in gas savings over five years.
While the statement about the advantages of driving electric vehicles holds true, it's important to note that Tesla's recent supercharging price hikes have significantly altered the cost dynamics. Opting for equivalent-sized gas vehicles, such as the Ford F-150, compared to driving the Cybertruck is now more cost-effective.
This is especially true if you go on a road trip using a Tesla rather than an equivalent gas car. A new Tesla Cybertruck owner discovered this fact when he recently charged his Cybertruck from nearly empty to 100% at a Tesla supercharger.
David Moss was in for a shock when he recently charged his all-electric truck at the Rochester, Washington, supercharger. His bill? A surprising $55.35.
For this amount of money, David was able to put 123KWh of electricity into his Cybertruck. This is the full capacity of his truck’s battery pack, which means that with this full charge, he will be able to drive 318 miles.
David paid a staggering $0.45 per kilowatt hour, a stark contrast to the initial free supercharger network. This represents a significant increase in rates from just a few years ago.
Some people in the comment section of David’s post were surprised to learn supercharger costs could be this high; however, others noted that in their area, supercharger costs could be as high as $0.63 per kilowatt hour.
At these prices, a Cybertruck will cost $77.5 to fill up. Given the Cybertruck's 318-mile range, it costs $24.4 to travel 100 miles using the all-electric truck.
At a glance, this seems like a very steep price to pay to charge a Cybertruck; however, the issue becomes even worse when you compare it to filling up a Ford F-150.
According to Fuel Economy (.gov), you will burn up 4.5 gallons of gas to travel 100 miles driving the 2023 Ford F-150. Multiplying this by the US average gas price of $3.5 per gallon means it costs $15.75 to drive a Ford F-150 100 miles.
In comparison, it costs $24.4 to drive a Cybertruck for 100 miles. Even if we take the lower $0.45/KWh supercharger price, it costs $17.4 to drive a Cybertruck 100 miles.
This is certainly shocking for those of us who were under the impression that it’s significantly cheaper to drive an electric vehicle than a similarly sized gas vehicle.
Having said that, it’s also important to point out that if you charge at home, driving a Cybertruck remains significantly cheaper than a comparable gas car.
In the U.S., the average cost per kilowatt hour for residential electricity is $0.18. At this price, it costs $7 to drive your Cybertruck 100 miles.
Since there is no home gas filling as there is home charging for electric vehicles, driving a Ford F-150 will always cost $15.75 per hundred miles.
At this point, the Cybertruck has become 60% cheaper to drive per hundred miles compared to the Ford F-150.
Another advantage for the Cybertruck is that EV owners only rarely rely on superchargers for their day-to-day commute, which means even adding the few times Cybertruck owners go on longer trips and have to rely on the expensive supercharger network, averaged out, it’s still significantly cheaper to drive a Cybertruck as opposed to the Ford F-150.
In addition to this, with the lower maintenance cost for the Cybertruck and the ability to rely on off-peek charging for an even cheaper charge, the Cybertruck is still, in most cases, thousands of dollars cheaper to own over a few years.
This is wonderful for Tesla. However, one takeaway I garnered from David’s case is that if you have to rely on the supercharger network for your daily charge, for example, if you live in an apartment complex without access to overnight charging, it’s surprisingly cheaper to drive a gas car than an electric car.
Overall, EVs still have the advantage; however, we’ll be sure to keep you posted as the economics of owning an electric vehicle change.
Until then, make sure to visit our site, torquenews.com/Tesla, regularly for the latest updates.
So, what do you think? Are you surprised to learn how expensive it is to charge a Cybertruck fully? Also, which one is better, a Cybertruck or a Ford F-150? Let us know your thoughts in the comments by clicking the red “Add new comment” button below.
Image: Courtesy of Tesla, inc.
For more information, check out: Traveling at 35 Mph, an Oncoming Truck Carrying Gravel Dumps 2 Tons of Rock Over My Tesla Cybertruck – My Cybertruck Held Up Incredibly
Tinsae Aregay has been following Tesla and the evolution of the EV space daily for several years. He covers everything about Tesla, from the cars to Elon Musk, the energy business, and autonomy. Follow Tinsae on Twitter at @TinsaeAregay for daily Tesla news.
A Tesla Cybertruck owner was shocked to find out that charging his all-electric truck costs $55.35. A 2023 Ford F-150, on the other hand, costs less than $50 to travel the same distance as the Cybertruck.
Comments
BS comparing the best case…
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BS comparing the best case senario mpg for the F150 vs the worst case scenario for the cybertruck. Clickbait crap.
It should be noted that if…
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It should be noted that if you're driving through Rochester, WA, you almost certainly aren't paying $3.50/gallon for gas. Going rate for gas appears to be around $4 per gallon there, and if you're coming from Seattle or Tacoma it is higher yet.
Conversely, if you're charging at home in that area, your cost for electricity is around 13 cents/kWh, substantially less than the national average.
Finally, I'm skeptical that anyone is getting 22 MPG in an F150.
But the bottom line is that savings on fueling costs for an EV really do assume that you're normally able to charge at home.