KWh/ Mile? Justifying 19 cent KWh electric rate

Driving on electricity is cheaper than gasoline for us (Arizona), however I think one of the biggest benefits is to avoid having to go to the gas station constantly and inhale all the VOCs. We would have gone full EV, but being renters we can't put a 240V socket into the garage. I wouldn't be surprised if we fill up the gas tank only 6 times a year or less (holidays to visit family 250 miles away)

 

A friend of mine has a Model S 90D, and charges mostly at home - on 120V. He says he only charges over night once every 2-3 days. Of my ~8 friends who have Leaf's, only one has a 240V charger at home.

 

That sounds completely unbelievable. It would take 3 days to charge a Model S on 120V so either your friend doesn't know what he's talking about or he only drives a few miles a day.

 

with most peoples commutes, and tesla range, infrequent charging may be typical. but one has to wonder what the long term ramifications are for a constantly full li-on battery.

 

If your round trip commute is around 20-30 miles, and an overnight charge will add around 4 miles per hour of charging, you could easily add 50-60 miles of range a day while using only 20-30. With a 240 mile range, you will just sit at the top of the battery charge all the time which isn't good for the battery.

I can drive my Prime all over the city for weeks at a time without starting the engine, all on L1 charging. Doing the same would be easier not harder in a car with 8 times the range.

 

If there is a garage, ask the owners if they will allow you to install a 240V charger. They might even offer to pay for part of the cost.
All they can do is say no and you've lost nothing.

 

While that is true, we are moving to a new rental soon and plan to be nomadic for the next 4 years before we finally settle down to a single state/city and purchase a house.

 

PGE in CA offers this rate to EV owners (including Prime)
EV Rate:
Weekdays
Off Peak (11PM-7AM): .12225 (summer) .12503 (winter)
Partial Peak (7AM-2PM, 9PM-11PM): .24986 (summer) .19794 (winter)
Peak: (2PM-9PM): .45389 (summer) .32018 (winter)
Weekends/holidays: same rates as above, but times change.
Off Peak: 7pm-3pm
Peak: 3pm-7pm

 

DANG, why would anyone buy an electric car in CA? Unless the state is giving you a very large initial credit to offset the cost of electricity it doesn't seem to make any financial sense at all. At least here in NJ we can get electric for around .08 per KW which makes it reasonable.

Does anyone know WHY they charge so much more in CA? I can't imagine the generation costs being that much more. Transport costs are probably less then anywhere else simply due to population density.

I can only imagine that it's a means of trying to keep usage down so they don't have to build more plants? That or it's a payoff from the political elite to the utility elite.

 

To answer the first question....it's easy to charge an electric during the cheapest off peak times. Plus, their gas prices are higher. And they sit in traffic more meaning a regular gasser gets horrible gas mileage just sitting there with the engine idling.

Second question....I'm no energy expert, but I would have to think part of it is higher general cost of living. Second, they have a much higher ratio of renewables. Those take a bigger outlay of money upfront. Thirdly, I'm sure some of it is a behavior modification tool. Just like packs of cigarettes are super expensive because of all the taxes, they are probably making energy more expensive to people use it less, especially at those peak times. Those are just conjectures, I'm sure someone living there could give a more concrete answer.

 

These EV rates are half (or less) the normal tiered rates and also much less than the different time-of-use options available to non-EV owners. If you live in CA these rates significantly lower your electric bill.

 

I will also add that in CA gas is averaging a bit over $3/gallon. NJ has always had about the cheapest gas in the country, despite the weird no-self-serve rule.

 

Currently in San Francisco, it's up to $3.60/gallon at many stations! Luckily with my Prime it's been two months since I filled up and still have 4/10s of a tank... And my electric is covered by solar!

 

There are many electric utilities in California, and which one you use depends on your location, and the rates vary considerably. If you are served by an investor-owned utility like PG&E (northern California) or SoCal Edison (southern California), I believe the rates tend to be higher than if your utility is municipally owned. Mine is a municipal, and is a two tier, non-Time Of Use rate of $0.093/kwh for the first 500 kwh, $0.143/kwh after that.

 

They will swell due to gassing. My guess however that Toyota knows this and would have the vehicle programmed to discharge these cells down to the 40% rate. Any "lithium" based cell should always be discharged for storage. I failed to do this in a Lipo battery - what was once the size of 2 fingers doubled in size in 4 months.

 

I don’t believe this is an issue for automotive grade batteries. Not sure if that is because of the chemistry, or they have designed other ways to handle it.
The only reason even the earliest automotive batteries had issues was being drained over time and then bricking because they reached 0%.

 

Yeah, it's an issue, and the way they "handle it" is primarily by reducing float voltage from 4.2V to something like 4.1V or 4.15V.

 

Really? I’ve never heard of any automotive grade battery “swelling”. Not in a Tesla, Leaf, Volt, Bolt, Prime, or any hybrids.
When they eventually fail, is it due to swelling?
I have seen warnings not to do certain things, such as letting the battery actually reach 0%, or for a few batteries (Leaf) not to allow them to sit at a high SOC in high temps. The later just warns about loss of capacity, not swelling.

I did have a lawnmower mower Lead battery that once swelled as a result of overcharging. But have never heard of a similar issue with automotive batteries.

 

That's because the cars take care of them, not because of the battery types.

 

We have solar panels on our roof, and had all our investment back in 4 years, so electricity for the past three years is now free from them. Recharging our Prius costs us zero.