3 ms·

You left out the very important and difference making cost of gasoline. Which over 10 years of driving would more than make up the difference in cost.

geoelectric 5y ago
That may depend on where you live, and what your electricity consumption already is. In CA, for example, with our tiered billing and PG&E's award-winning business practices, it's pretty easy for an electric car to rack up quite an energy bill. If you were already using electricity up to the top of your tier, the add for the car will be at $$$ rate. So they also have non-tiered plans for electric car owners but those are time of use. If you use them at peak for whatever reason, $$$ again. It's a little tricky. It won't be as expensive as liquid fuel, to be sure, but the savings over time might not be as high as you'd expect. Offsetting with solar seems to be the popular option around San Jose, where homeowners tend to be particularly affluent.
- zbrozek 5y ago
  Beware NEM 3.0. Note that the CA utilities are working to try to keep milking you even if you have solar. The most loathsome part of it is that the utilities are trying to charge you $10/month/kilowatt-peak for the array you own, even if they push zero energy onto the grid. From my perspective, that's ridiculous rent-seeking. Personally I'm working towards getting off the grid entirely.
  - throwaway0xa 5y ago
    The $10 a month is a service charge to be connected to the grid with a meter, so you can send energy to the grid to get money back, or use the grid when your solar isn't generating enough energy. I think that's fair. It pays for the meter, the transformer you're connected to, the grid circuit, etc.
    - mavhc 5y ago
      It's only fair if the people making polluting electricity pay to clean up the pollution they create
      - throwaway0xa 5y ago
        Your reply is nonsensical / a non sequitur. Where I live the local utility is 100% renewable anyway.
        mavhc 5y ago
        Then it's fair. However people making electricity by polluting our planet are stealing from us, so should have to pay more, have to disadvantage those people more than you disadvantage solar producers
    - zbrozek 5y ago
      You've misinterpreted the proposal. It's $10/mo per installed kilowatt-peak of solar panels behind the meter. There's _another_ fixed charge that is more reasonable.
mikestew 5y ago
You're paying for that difference upfront, however. Is gasoline in the U. S. likely to go up faster than the, say, S&P 500, where one could put that extra $15K until it's time to buy more gasoline? Historical data say "no". Gas was $3-$4/gallon when I moved to Seattle 20 years ago, and it continues to stay between $3-$4. There's lots to like about electric cars (again, so much so that I'll never buy another ICE), but IMO any cost savings is going to be pretty far down the list. After ten years of EV ownership, I'd almost pay the difference in price so I never, ever have to go out of my way to visit a gas station again. Man, what a hassle that is once out of the habit. But EVs are just generally better vehicles that make an ICE seem like the rattling, primitive contraption that it is. That doesn't sell cars because one needs to own an EV to realize that. So to get folks to the ownership, we tell them it'll save money on gas. Which is technically true, but not the reason to buy EVs.
mikestew 5y ago
We’ve put 50K miles on our Leaf. Assuming 35mpg like our Scion xB, and that’s about $5K worth of gas. Assuming electricity to be free, it still doesn’t make up the difference. Of course the savings go up the more you drive, but how many miles are you going to put on a car that can only go 100 miles at a time on its best day?

geoelectric 5y ago

That may depend on where you live, and what your electricity consumption already is. In CA, for example, with our tiered billing and PG&E's award-winning business practices, it's pretty easy for an electric car to rack up quite an energy bill. If you were already using electricity up to the top of your tier, the add for the car will be at $$$ rate. So they also have non-tiered plans for electric car owners but those are time of use. If you use them at peak for whatever reason, $$$ again. It's a little tricky. It won't be as expensive as liquid fuel, to be sure, but the savings over time might not be as high as you'd expect. Offsetting with solar seems to be the popular option around San Jose, where homeowners tend to be particularly affluent.

zbrozek 5y ago
Beware NEM 3.0. Note that the CA utilities are working to try to keep milking you even if you have solar. The most loathsome part of it is that the utilities are trying to charge you $10/month/kilowatt-peak for the array you own, even if they push zero energy onto the grid. From my perspective, that's ridiculous rent-seeking. Personally I'm working towards getting off the grid entirely.
- throwaway0xa 5y ago
  The $10 a month is a service charge to be connected to the grid with a meter, so you can send energy to the grid to get money back, or use the grid when your solar isn't generating enough energy. I think that's fair. It pays for the meter, the transformer you're connected to, the grid circuit, etc.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    It's only fair if the people making polluting electricity pay to clean up the pollution they create
    - throwaway0xa 5y ago
      Your reply is nonsensical / a non sequitur. Where I live the local utility is 100% renewable anyway.
      - mavhc 5y ago
        Then it's fair. However people making electricity by polluting our planet are stealing from us, so should have to pay more, have to disadvantage those people more than you disadvantage solar producers
  - zbrozek 5y ago
    You've misinterpreted the proposal. It's $10/mo per installed kilowatt-peak of solar panels behind the meter. There's _another_ fixed charge that is more reasonable.

mikestew 5y ago

You're paying for that difference upfront, however. Is gasoline in the U. S. likely to go up faster than the, say, S&P 500, where one could put that extra $15K until it's time to buy more gasoline? Historical data say "no". Gas was $3-$4/gallon when I moved to Seattle 20 years ago, and it continues to stay between $3-$4. There's lots to like about electric cars (again, so much so that I'll never buy another ICE), but IMO any cost savings is going to be pretty far down the list. After ten years of EV ownership, I'd almost pay the difference in price so I never, ever have to go out of my way to visit a gas station again. Man, what a hassle that is once out of the habit. But EVs are just generally better vehicles that make an ICE seem like the rattling, primitive contraption that it is. That doesn't sell cars because one needs to own an EV to realize that. So to get folks to the ownership, we tell them it'll save money on gas. Which is technically true, but not the reason to buy EVs.

mikestew 5y ago

We’ve put 50K miles on our Leaf. Assuming 35mpg like our Scion xB, and that’s about $5K worth of gas. Assuming electricity to be free, it still doesn’t make up the difference. Of course the savings go up the more you drive, but how many miles are you going to put on a car that can only go 100 miles at a time on its best day?