Is the electricity really cheaper?

Did you figure in all the added charges and taxes on your electric bill? Mine starts 5.76 cents per KwH yet I'm paying close to 15 cents per KwH when I figure in all the charges and taxes.

 

Is this price distribution and supply? 3 times higher than stated rate after tax and fees seems to be extreme.

 

Where I live, electric is FAR cheaper.

 

Current ChargesBilling

Period 1.00 MonthsCustomer Charge $54.49

Demand Transmission 7.3370kW@$1.56 $11.45

Demand Distribution 2.3370kW@$6.54 $15.28

Energy [email protected]¢ $72.92

Energy [email protected]¢ $4.50

Energy [email protected]¢ $17.66

PA EEA [email protected]¢ $2.02

Smart Meter Charge Three-Phase1MTR@$-2.49-@ 2.49

DSIC Surcharge-0.03%-0.03

Pennsylvania Tax Adjustment 0.01

Sales Tax $12.32

Total Current Charges $188.13 DLC

 

I think your Energy cost/mile for gas is calculated wrong. It should be $0.04413. That makes your EV drive even more economical than your current numbers. Your gas price is about the same as mine, yet your electricity is almost 60% cheaper than mine. During winter when I can only get ~22 miles on EV, it cost far more by electric than by gas in my area. The gas price has to become well above $3 to be economical to drive EV.

 

Yes. Thanks. Looked wrong to me too. Right after I posted it I thought... "wait, that doesn't make sense." I had an incorrect formula in one cell. See corrected version in same post above. I was correcting it as you read it and posted. I moved things around too.

 

Include everything with computed from the 1265 kWh, and sales tax on those, but exclude the fixed monthly customer charge and smart meter charge.

Demand charges (from the kW items, not the kWh items)? I didn't yet know that some utilities charge this on residential accounts, these were historically for industrial and large commercial users. How much of these to allocate to your EV costs will take a bit more work.

 

I have seen a number of interesting discussions on electric cost and savings. Yesterday with our electric bill our electric utility informed their customers that they have now integrated a tool on their website where customers can go and use this tool to calculate potential savings if they buy an electric or PHEV vehicle, it is really neat and helpful. The drop down boxes allow you to select any type of vehicle and the gas and electric rates automatically populate for our area. I live in a state that is mistakenly not known for its forward thinking and really appreciate our electric utility putting this interactive spreadsheet together. My point in bringing this to others attention is maybe their Electric Utilities have done something similar on their website. Below is a .pdf on an example of what you can do with the spreadsheet.

 

Thank you for the tip on the utility web site. Yeah, our utility company now provide "almost" real time energy usage of our house with weekly e-mail update of usage log and many tips to save the energy bills. However, they don't have any tips for EV or PHEV use compared to gasser like yours though, for our electric rates are more than twice as much, and average gas price has been less than what you have indicated.

That said, let me ask you one question, did you plug in the two vehicles in the pdf you attached? Comparing 2004 Sienna with 20mpg to 2019 Prime with 50mpg. Even if you don't plug-in the PRIME, you will be saving more than half of gas cost of Sienna. lol

 

Yes I did plug them in. We currently own a 2008 Prius and a 2004 Sienna. I used the calculator to show my wife the potential savings for using the Prius. My long term goal would be to get her buy in on getting a Prius Prime and for our family to begin having a choice of which fuel we use daily, the gas or the electricity to power our trips. I know I will never be able to control the cost of gas but I sure can have the ability to control the quantity of gas I buy. In our area of the country electric rates don't change a whole lot. Utilities must go through a Public Service Commission and present fact based evidence before any electric rate hike is considered for approval. Then the Commission must vote on allowing any rate change.

 

Please let me know how you convinced your wife to switch from Sienna to PRIME, when you do switch. We used to have Sienna as my wife's primary drive, and used it for hauling stuff. When I traded-in my Gen3 for PRIME, we still had running Sienna. Then soon after purchasing PRIME, we had to let go Sienna for mechanical reason. Now, we have a single car between us. My wife likes PRIME, but if we are to buy another car, she does not want another PRIME. She wants, and we kinda need, bigger car (van, truck, SUV) with plenty of cargo space. But, I just could not decide to buy an another car (van, truck, SUV) with 20 mpg. So we are still looking after a year and half.

 

Ironically EVs help the utility companies.

 

For me -- I plug in at home just to avoid going to the gas station. No smelling the fumes or touching the disgusting handle. If I have longer trips I use EV mode in the city, HV on the freeway at ~65mpg, and then EV at the destination. Mostly because freeway noises cover the clatter of the engine. At the end of the day, whatever I am using for power, it is a fraction of most of the cars out there from a consumption and emissions standpoint.

 

A year and a half? Then, apparently you DON'T need a bigger vehicle
What sorts of things do you need to cart around in a van/truck/SUV?
I hauled a lot of fencing materials in my Gen II, couldn't get QUITE as much in the Prime since the deck in the rear is a bit higher. But, with a receiver hitch cargo tray and roof racks, I hauled a 12' pipe gate and six 16' cattle panels on top, thirteen 6" 8' long posts (inside) and a 300' roll of field fence on the cargo tray home from Tractor Supply.

 

If I need to haul anything large I drive up to my local Home Depot and rent one of their trucks for $19 for 75 minutes.

 

Yeah I had to rent a pickup from UHaul to return a log splitter. It was delivered from the factory to my house for $100. Didn't function as it should have so I wanted to return it. They wanted $300 to pick it up and take it to their local distribution center. Nope, couldn't have fit that thing in my Prius, not even with the hatch open.

 

Yeah, we have done without another car for now, for my son still lives with us and he has his car, and I ride share with him. This arrangement may not work forever, once he decide to move out, which I am hoping to be sooner than later. We have a small backyard farm and apiary with ~40 chickens dozens ducks and 6 bee hives. Seems like you have done quite well with your Prius as a hauler. For us, the PRIME is surprisingly roomy with rear seats almost permanently folded down, but I still can not put 16 bails of straws, 300 pounds of feeds, occasionally 4x8 plywood, 10 feet lumbers and such we use to carry with our Sienna. I am extremely weary of putting anything bigger than the car itself on top of a car.

Yap, that's what we do now. For a fraction of the cost of the receiver hitch cargo tray and roof racks for PRIME.

 

Maybe a receiver hitch and a small trailer?

 

Is it even possible to install a hitch on PRIME? The ground clearance being so low, I am not even sure if there is enough room for hitch hardware to attach to the frame. I am saying this without any first-hand experience on installing a hitch on a car. As you may know already, the Prime manual clearly states the vehicle is not rated to tow anything IIRC.

 

There are some threads on buying and installing hitches on the Prime. I searched for "Prime hitch".