Featured Real-World Electric Vehicle Fueling Costs May Surprise New EV Drivers

The past four holiday weekends, while traveling around, I received free charge-ups at the Electrify America stations. The last time I got free gas was, uh... never.

 

More often, gas stations jack the price up when there's an approaching hurricane. Tesla? They will even open up battery range.
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Is It Really Cheaper To Fuel An EV Versus A Gas Car? (insideevs.com)

 

Anybody that needs 240v right away simply have to get on Amazon and buy one of these;


Plug in 2 opposite 120V legs & you're good to go. 240v out the other side. Highest rated units can deliver 60kWh overnight (14hrs).Wait for days just for an electrician? That's nuts, just like the electricians' hefty hourly rates.
Some folks find a reason why it's not practical, while other folks find a way to make things practical.
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Primes aren’t as cheap as they used to be either, used to be the base was $22,000 not $28

Price parity comparing very different standard equipment vehicles is difficult at best to account for

 

Your math is rather dodgy. The dealer gave you $18K for a low mileage Prime that had a KBB value of $25 or more. You gave them a car worth $25K and they charged another $24K for the balance of the price for the Tesla. You ended up paying $49K.

In effect that trade cost you about 1/2 of the price you paid for your Prius. In less than 2 years you managed to depreciate your car by about 50%

I bought my 2017 Prime for $24K. It had 17K miles on in. I traded in a 2002 Prius with about 180K miles on it for $3K. The KBB for the 2002 was $2K.

I charge daily at home. The local energy prices are terrible, but so is the gas. On gas I pay about $6.66 per 100 miles. On battery it's currently about $4.92 per 100 miles. Our electricity rates change periodically.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the Tesla supercharger rate more than $0.30 or more per kwh? That's what I would compare against my gas prices since both are only used when on a long trip. At 30 cents per kwh the Tesla would cost $7.50 per 100 miles.

And the last point... It all depends on what year and model of Tesla you are comparing. The 2020 Tesla Model 3 Mid Range is slightly less efficient than a Prime. The 2021 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus RWD is slightly more efficient.

 

Fair enough as your arithmetic does not match what happened:

• $41,000 - 2019 Monroney sticker price
• $18,300 - trade-in value of 2017 Prius Prime which avoided the equivalent sales tax on new car
• $22,700 - net cost Tesla Model 3, does not include the destination charges
• $24,000 - the amount financed via Redstone Federal Credit Union

Your 'inventive' arithmetic reduces my interest in the original paper.

Regardless, this is our SuperCharger costs for a recent trip to Biloxi:



Per the USA Energy Information Administration 11/22/21, $3.03/gallon or about 18.15 gallons for 842 miles or 46.4 miles/gallon.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob,
Nine charging stops to drive 842 miles!
The frequent stops makes me question my thoughts of purchasing a BEV.
That trip would only require 2 stops and about 15 minutes in my Prius.

Driving a BEV may be a bit cheaper than a PHEV but the frequent charging stops seem to be a huge nuisance.

 

Thanks for the info on Supercharger prices in your area. It looks like when you are on a long trip in the Alabama area the cost to run your model 3 is almost exactly the same as my cost running Unleaded Regular. I paid $15,000 less for my car than you did, and I can complete my trips an hour or two faster, so there is that.

I'm curious though.. why was there a need to charge the car at a supercharger multiple times in the same day and same city?

Bob, your $18,300 "trade-in value of 2017 Prius Prime" was not the value of the car. It was the simply the amount that Tesla paid you for your car. The value should have been closer to the trade in price listed on the Kelly Blue book at that time. If I recall correctly, in October of 2019 the trade in value was over $25K for a low mileage 2017 Prime. According to the post above, your car depreciated more than $10,000 in a bit over a year despite claiming that is was very low mileage and almost never driven. You got taken man.

 

I noticed the same thing. That's an awful lot of stops. You might look at my post where I listed my gas cost as $6.66 per 100 miles, or $0.066 per mile. That's virtually the same cost ($0.065) as Bob pays for supercharger use.

 

At Greenville, I often moved my Tesla to maximize charging rate. These older style SuperChargers share power to the A/B stalls. Moving from a shared stall to a single, unshared improved the charging speed. Curiously, the adjacent 'Cracker Barrel' food service service speed matched this oversubscribed, old style SuperCharger site.

In contrast, the Mobile SuperCharger was nearly 200 yards away from the Target store. So it was easier to drive over; do our business, and; drive back to complete the charge. So I dropped my wife off and got on the SuperCharger. Then I needed a biology break and drove to the Target. Finally, she was ready to go and back on the charger to eat our sack snack.

Tesla has been upgrading the SuperChargers from V2 to V3, the more powerful, single stall units. All new ones are V3. But nothing happens instantly and the older V2 SuperChargers are still there.

BTW, the hotel had free, L2 charging. So the next morning the car was fully charged and we drove straight to Greenville.

Bob Wilson

 

It simplified a lot of time wasting overhead. Later, it reduced my sales tax on the $41,000 Tesla. In the old rule, GOOD, FAST, CHEAP, pick two, I went with GOOD and FAST. With both parties happy with the deal, it works for me.

BTW, I paid $29K for the new 2017 Prius Prime when I bought it and drove it home. What I did not realize was how feeble the 25 mi EV would be (and other control law problems below 55 F.) We kept the 2014 BMW i3-REx and still have it. The 2017 Prius Prime value was less to me than the 2014 BMW i3-REx.

Bob Wilson

 

I have yet to put the wrong electricity in one of my cars.

 

This is why the "who?" question got asked so often. There are some people who simply never travel that far from home with their vehicle. That's a legitimate market, probably quite large but difficult to identify. It's good to know, since that variable is a rather big influence with the ownership cost calculations. Is that representative of you... purchase a 250-mile range BEV, but never plan to venture beyond 100 miles from home?

 

Yes, I pay very high prices for gas since I'm in California. Down the block I saw Shell regular for right at $5 a gallon this week. A lot of that is taxes.

But I fudged the numbers a little, since the only time I use gas is on long trips to two destinations. When I head north, I still have a decent reserve when I get to Oregon, so I fill the tank at home before leaving ($5 a gal) and again when I hit Oregon (about $3.25 a gal). I top off the tank before the California border on the way home. The cost averages out to around $4 a gal for those trips.

When I head south, I fill up at home before the trip. I fill up at the Navy base when I get to San Diego; They don't charge state taxes, so they charged around $3.50 a gal on the last trip. We top it off at Costco just before heading north again. Again, the gas averages out to around $4 for the trip.

If I don't make either of those trips, I will occasionally exceed my battery range and drive a mile or two on gas around town. I've done that 4 times in two years. The most recent was just yesterday when I was not able to charge my car overnight due to party guests that blocked my driveway. I still had 16 miles range on the guess-o-meter. We drove to an adjacent town for covid tests but then I took the long way home to show the wife the new construction down town. I ran out of juice just as I merged back onto the freeway. I drove almost 4 miles on gas to get home.

 

Doesn't this just show the bias of the study? Who would think that a home L2 charger is only going to last 5 years? Mine will be 5 years old in a few months...and it still works! The charger will probably last longer than my car(s). It cost $515 (Amazon) and $800 to install back in 2017. I've used it for my PIP, Leaf and Model 3.​

 

I’ve been through 2 warranty replacements and one out of pocket EVSE in 7.5 years (or about 2.5 years per EVSE handle)

They don’t appear to hold up to Wisconsin weather, also GM Voltec branded equipment all had factory defects including the units said to be manufactured by Clipper Creek that all had bad crimps on the power pin.

Not saying they can’t or shouldn’t last longer but those of us without a garage in northern states have poor luck with them.