Based on 15,000 miles per year: Here in Texas using Entergy, our annual cost based on 15k miles would be more like $663 vs. $847 for our Prius @ 46mpg.
How much of the Prius gasoline cost is road use taxes? It is of the order of 15% but varies by state. There is no road use tax on the electricity for the Leaf. The actual energy cost of either is about the same. The Prius actually accounts for less CO2 per mile than an EV. If my commute was less than 60 miles (more if I could plug in at the office) I would get a Leaf as a second car. A Prius is my choice as the first car. JeffD
gas prices fluctuate too much to make an accurate comparison. the other day it was $2.85, now it's $3.10. they should have done the sticker in miles per kilowatt hour or something. instead, they're treating it like an appliance. oops, just saw the kwh's per mile. nevermind.
Three miles per kWh. That's the same as my Zap Xebra. The Leaf is more efficient, but heavier and goes faster, so the miles per kWh is the same. Not in WA it doesn't! My electricity comes from hydro (mostly) and wind (a tiny bit). Zero carbon. Also, carbon is not the only damage a gasoline car does: There are other pollutants, there is the disastrous balance of trade when we import energy rather than produce it domestically, and much of the world's oil comes from the principal financiers of al Qaeda. Further, electric transportation moves us toward a transportation paradigm where sustainable energy can be used. A Prius gets ALL its energy from fossil fuel. An EV can get all its energy from solar or wind. As long as you drive a Prius, you HAVE to import petroleum. With an EV you typically import nothing (unless its Canadian hydro) and you CAN move to solar and wind. Comparing a Prius to an EV powered by coal: About the same amount of CO2, but the Prius makes you dependent on imported oil. Comparing a Prius to an EV powered by hydro, solar, or wind, no comparison at all! 'Nuff said.
99 MPGe is pretty deceptive. They assume electricity is 100% efficient and used 33.7 kWh from a gallon of gasoline. The power plant need to be 50% efficient, to match the Prius 50 MPG.
This is madness. As a transient comparison it's one thing but an official sticker hanging on the car whether gas is $2.50 or $4 is lunacy. The thing they are trying to get at--a comparison of cost--relies on a silly measure, miles per gallon. This car in fact gets zero miles per gallon. It cannot run on gasoline. They need a better method and this is not one. I've seen better methods recommended online. This is silly. Miles per kilowatt hour or kilowatt hours per mile is fine, it is meaningful. if consumers cannot convert, that is their fault, EPA cannot try and plug the gap with a silly miles per gallon comparison.
Basically I agree with you. Except for your statement that the car gets zero miles per gallon. To calculate miles per gallon you divide miles by gallons. Division by zero is undefined. It is meaningless. It means nothing. When you divide by 3 you are dividing something into three parts. You cannot divide something into zero parts. When you try to divide by zero you get all sorts of false results. Other than that, I agree with you. But at least the sticker does give the miles per kWh. Smart people will ignore the mpg "equivalent" and do their own calculation on the relative costs of electricity for the Leaf vs the cost of gasoline for a comparable gas car.
Not so fast USB...., How much energy goes into to making and delivering a gallon of gasoline? Its not 100% efficient either. Let alone all those 5 mile long Ethanol trains that go by my window daily....
It would take the same energy to refine and deliver gasoline to the power plant. The only difference is turning the wheel vs. turning the generator. I think the equivalent should be the energy we can possibly to extract from a gallon of gasoline, not the theoretical limit. As mentioned in the other thread, if the Leaf emit zero emission, shouldn't it get infinite MPGe (zero consumption)?
on a cost basis; it would be around 105 mpg for the... oh wait (gas went up 6 cents this week) make that 106 mpg... but gas is likely to go do...well, lets just say the price of gas is bound to go somewhere. and yes, i am comparing my electricity rates which are somewhere in the middle of the low end of things (about 9.4 cents per kwh after taxes, etc is accounted for) as far as how the EPA came up with the figure?? hey, its their first try and they tried hard and they will come out with revised figures in a few years (ya thats right. no matter how badly they are wrong, they will still study the lop-sided results for several months before they figure out how to fix the mistake) now there have been several test drives by independent people driving a Leaf just to see if the 100 miles was a viable option and many have had varying levels of success. but one thing i have not seen is any result as low as this one. now Nissan posted several scenarios and the expected range you would get and other than scenarios taking several hours, we dont really see that poor a performance. now that this news is being examined, many people with experience in the EV community is starting to tear apart the conclusions. Why The EPA Is Wrong about the 2011 Leaf Range And Nissan Is Right - All Cars Electric
Don't they have stickers on refrigerators saying "If your electricity costs X your yearly cost to run this refrigerator will be Y."? How about a sticker on cars saying "If your [gas/electricity] costs X your cost per mile to fuel this car will be Y."? Of course, PHEVs get more complicated. They'd have to post a figure for EV mode and a figure for CS mode.
Power plants do not run on gasoline. They run on natural gas (or nuclear, coal,etc) which there is far less energy used to process and transport it. [/QUOTE]
