Featured Cost to operate BEVs through Diesels

Unfortunately, that's is an article of the "estimated annual fuel/electricity costs" and it's based on a lot of assumptions. One of the flaws is that 1/2 of all BEV in the USA are in California and the estimated electrical cost is way lower than is available from any of the big three public electric companies in California.

The result is that for at least 1/2 of the BEVs in question, the numbers are invalid.

 

A further wrinkle, sending the pendulum perhaps the other way, a large percent of BEV drivers have solar PV and are on TOU plans and charge effectively at lower cost than the average national rates.

 

Yap, I totally agree with @dbstoo.

According to the article. "the following fuel prices: $2.39 regular gasoline; $3.03 premium gasoline; $2.72 diesel; and $0.13 per kilowatt-hour electricity". The numbers may be US average, but in NE, the electricity rate can be as high as $0.29/kWh, while the rest of the prices are OK. I don't know how many BEVs are in NE, but I suspect the number is substantial. Together with CA, the estimate presented is way off.

 

The numbers are exactly correct, for what the article says they are.
Which is, the average cost in the USA for the average BEV, PHEV, HEV, ICE and ICE diesel.

I wish people would stop complaining that a ruler isn't a weight scale.

For example, just because my annual fuel cost to drive my BEV last year was about $10 doesn't mean the article is wrong.
It just means my specific case is much less than costs based on US averages.

 

That does introduce a wrinkle. I have friends with solar and there seem to be as many ways to handing the billing for those as there are states in the union. I have no idea how I'd assign a dollar value when the hardware was $30,000 and you are on a net meter plan.

 

Yeah, the math gets more and more challenging. Amortization, cost opportunity, among other things...it gets messy and somewhat subjective.

 

See? Even a smart guy like Zythryn gets it wrong. It's not "the average cost in the USA for the average BEV, PHEV, HEV, ICE and ICE diesel". They say clearly in the article that it's an ESTIMATE of what it would cost IF each type of car were driven a given number of miles with fuel/energy available at given prices and if the vehicles actually matched the EPA estimates with 100% accuracy.

And that, just ain't gonna happen in real life. What will happen in real life is that people will think that the numbers are "the average cost in the USA for the average BEV"...

 

Eeek - $0.13 per kilowatt-hour. Wish we could get that here in Australia. At home, it costs me about 25 cents.

But a TESLA SuperCharger is 52 cents/kwH - according to a recent report on WhichCar, Australia.

 

Off-Peak discount rate for me here (Minnesota) is 7 cents/kWh.

Electrify America's standard DC fast-charger rate is 43 cents/kWh.

 

The most interesting is annual distance: 15,000 miles.

If you annualize RAV4 Prime's overnight-only recharge range of 42 miles (multiple times 365), you get 15,330 miles.

That standardized perspective gives you an effective means of countering those assumptions.

 

Is that in Australian dollars or converted to U.S.? At the moment 1 AUD = 0.76 USD.

 

Australian - that's what we get here.

 

Understood, and still more expensive than on average on this side of the Pacific. But at our USD which we were comparing that would $0.19 per kWh and at at Tesla supercharger 40 cents/kWh.

Your prices are more like us here in California. Even superchargers have recently started time of use in many places, some max ~40 cents/kWh now.

 

You are really splitting hairs.
Their Estmate is based on average costs at a chosen number of miles driven.
Again, don’t ask a ruler to measure weight.

 

I think you both are right.

It is an average that you can use to compare efficiencies.

Depending on where you live, it has no bearing whatsoever on your real world cost.

"The average American man 20 years old and up weighs 197.9 pounds . The average waist circumference is 40.2 inches, and the average height is just over 5 feet 9 inches (about 69.1 inches) tall. As time wears on, American men are increasing in both stature and weight."


I happen to be an American male and am about 6 foot tall and weigh maybe 160 pounds on a good day.

The average for an American male would have no correlation to your own height or weight.

 

They didn't come up with an average car for each class. They just went to Fueleconomy.gov, and found the least and most expensive annual fuel costs from the cars of each class.

Which is why PHEVs have such a wider range of fuel costs compared to BEVs. There are ones with short EV ranges, plus the power models. The Rav4 Prime has a $750 annual fuel cost under these assumptions, meaning it calculates in the gas used during the EPA test.

In addition to power hybrids, the HEV numbers also include mild hybrids. of which, the Ram truck and Jeep Wrangler are likely the most sold.

 

But, but...
If you take a 12" ruler and put the 6" mark on a fulcrum you CAN compare the weight of two objects very easily.
And by adjusting the fulcrum point you can find the ratio of the weights


Mike

 

regarding $30k for PV .... that hits the nail on the head (our cost some 12 years ago, for an 8kW AC rated system). Our power usage meant the PV paid for itself in 6 years. Now, we no longer have to earn State & Fed income tax money, just to have money left over to pay for (2 plugin's) transportation ... lighting ... cooking ... and AC. In short, our investment roughly yields a (California) value of $5,000/year (increasing ~3%/year forward looking) . . . . which is roughly a 16% return (per year) on our investment. Can't get a guaranteed return like that from the market ... or at a bank. We experimented with net metering. Works for some, but not ideal for us. The nice thing about the different plans is if users take the time, they can make at least one plan work for them, better than others.

Here in So Cal, Tesla just introduced night time charging (off peak) ... gets the price way down.
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