5 ms·

I know diesel owners overbrim with smugness reading these articles but I've driven 14,0000 miles in the UK in my electric car this year and the total cost was £

by bb123 4y ago

I know diesel owners overbrim with smugness reading these articles but I've driven 14,0000 miles in the UK in my electric car this year and the total cost was £280. That's 10x less than even the most efficient mid size car before you even factor in service costs. The reality that these articles obfuscate for the sake of clicks is that most electric car owners are still massively in front on fuel costs.

cjrp 4y ago
Presumably most of the charging done at home? It seems to be when you're reliant on premium (fast) public chargers that the costs add up. At home you can take advantage of things like the Octopus EV tariff and pay 10p/kWh overnight for EV charging.
- ben7799 4y ago
  The article is talking about public chargers. I don't have an EV.. but my driving pattern would put me at 99% home charging. Basically I'd never need to use a public charger other than 4-5 road trips a year.
- bb123 4y ago
  That's correct. It's like arguing that food is too expensive when you only eat premium take-out. For most people it's something you do maybe once a month.
Kon-Peki 4y ago
Is it safe to assume that you have a small, relatively inexpensive EV? For a lot of the big luxury EVs that manufacturers prefer to advertise, the upfront cost difference means that it will take 5+ years to catch up if you "only" drive 14,000 miles per year.
- bb123 4y ago
  I have a Tesla Model 3. Your reasoning only holds true if you assume that the alternative to buying an electric car was to buy no car at all. In reality if it wasn't a Tesla it would have been an ICE car in a similar market segment such as a BMW 3 Series. That means similar initial cost + all the fuel and servicing it needs. It ends up way more expensive.
  - Kon-Peki 4y ago
    USA cars, USA gallons, and USA dollars: The cheapest Model 3 available near me is $58k according to Tesla's site (Dual Motor LR). A BMW 330i xDrive has a base price of $46k and includes the first 3 years of maintenance costs for free. Now, it's a BMW so you need to buy a bunch of options just to get front seats and a steering wheel. Should we put it up at $50k for the equivalent equipment level as a $58k Model 3? How much does 14,000 miles worth of 3-series gas cost? If you average about 28mpg (it's rated for 33mpg highway), you'll use 500 gallons. If you're paying $4 per gallon, that's $2000. The Model 3 is apparently a few hundred dollars in electricity for the same distance - let's say $300? So, (58000-50000)/(2000-300) = 4.7 years to break even. I'm not arguing against getting an EV. But you need to drive a lot of miles before you pay off that really big battery. Smaller, cheaper EVs that don't need such big batteries pay off a lot sooner. If that kind of car works for you ;)
  - lbwtaylor 4y ago
    >> In reality if it wasn't a Tesla it would have been an ICE car in a similar market segment such as a BMW 3 Series. I see this comparison proposed very often. But I don't think it's fair -- a model 3 is expensive but it's not a luxury car in anything other than price. I think you can argue that an equally fair comparison is a Toyota Corolla or similar, which is in a very different total cost of ownership class.
djaychela 4y ago
I'd no longer say 'massively' in front. I have a Renault Zoe - 2020, 50kWh battery, gets 200 miles in the summer, and was down to about 120 miles when it was sub-zero here. On the current 34p/kWh home charging, that works out to 8.5p per mile on the high range, and 14p / mile when it's cold. I also have a Renault Trafic that I get 39mpg on similar driving routes. That's about 19.5p/mile. However, we sold a Citroen DS3 1.6HDi to get the zoe. That gave about 60mpg, and that works out to around 13p/mile... I know I'm doing the right thing having the EV (and I love it), but it was a bloody expensive purchase for us, and is currently not going to get anywhere near making up the £15k or so extra that we had to put in to change from the DS to the Zoe. Had we not had the home charger put in (which cost £1100!), then we'd be way down, as the nearest fast charger is now 50p/kWh, which would have taken the costs to 12.5p/mile and 20.8p/mile respectively - more expensive than my 240,000 mile 2.5 DCI van!
- bb123 4y ago
  There are plenty of tariffs that offer cheaper home charging than that. I get 6 hours of 7.5p/kWh. On a 7kW charger that's enough for a 0-80% charge every night.
  - mprev 4y ago
    Is that an Octopus plan? If not, are you able to share the name of the provider and the tariff?
  - iso1631 4y ago
    Is that open to new customers? Forget the car -- topping up a 20kWh battery for £1.50 a day sounds like a great deal for people paying 34p per unit at the moment, would save £150 a month.
  - SimonPStevens 4y ago
    I can't find any plans that are actually accepting new customers for less than £0.27/kWh overnight. I'm pretty sure anything as cheap as £0.075/kWh is grandfathered into a legacy plan. I would be happy to be proven wrong, I'd love to switch plans right now.
SanjayMehta 4y ago
Does that factor in the cost of replacing the battery system every so many years? I've only looked at two wheelers i.e. electric scooters and the replacement cost of the battery pack is 40% of the cost of the vehicle, every three years.
- bb123 4y ago
  The battery is warrantied for 120,000 miles or 8 years. The stated design life is 3-500,000 miles.
melling 4y ago
Diesel emissions are not particularly good for one’s health. https://www.epa.gov/dera/learn-about-impacts-diesel-exhaust-and-diesel-emissions-reduction-act-dera https://www.epa.gov/dera/learn-about-impacts-diesel-exhaust-...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
traceroute66 4y ago
> car owners are still massively in front on fuel costs For me fuel cost is only half the story. Refuel time is the other half. "Fast chargers" are anything but fast. I've got better things to do with my life than sit around twiddling my thumbs at some godforsaken recharge station for 40 minutes. Meanwhile with petrol/diesel, I can turn up with the car on the red-line and I can be full to the brim in what, 5 minutes ? 10 max ? Especially if I'm paying using the app on my phone. The other elephant in the room that the electric world carefully skirt around is that those massive batteries in their car are not exactly environmentally friendly, especially when it comes to EoL time. For me the whole electric car thing is still a bit immature, I'll wait a bit longer.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  I have never once waited for my car to charge. Between home charging and charging during errands it's never run out. I have wasted countless hours at gas stations waiting for my car to fill up, which was considerably more annoying than just plugging the car in when I get home or go to the grocery store.
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  Also from my experience: Arriving at a charger, have last 30km left and charger refuse to charge my car. No explanation given by a charger and car telling me to find some other charger. Both CCS. That is something what can really screw your day and made my opinion on electric cars even more entrenched in "worthless piece of s..." If somebody would like to know: Freshmile network north of Troyes, France. Was forced to go 50km/h down to Troyes to Ionity charger, network which always worked, but is bloody expensive. Wasted 4 hours on something what was supposed to be 1 hour charging stop.
iso1631 4y ago
14,000 miles would be about 4,700kWh at typical EV 330Wh per mile, or 6p per kWh. Where are you getting electricity for 6p per kWh? Most people in the country are paying 35p now. Are you charging at home with rooftop solar?

by bb123 4y ago

cjrp 4y ago

Presumably most of the charging done at home? It seems to be when you're reliant on premium (fast) public chargers that the costs add up. At home you can take advantage of things like the Octopus EV tariff and pay 10p/kWh overnight for EV charging.

ben7799 4y ago
The article is talking about public chargers. I don't have an EV.. but my driving pattern would put me at 99% home charging. Basically I'd never need to use a public charger other than 4-5 road trips a year.
bb123 4y ago
That's correct. It's like arguing that food is too expensive when you only eat premium take-out. For most people it's something you do maybe once a month.

Kon-Peki 4y ago

Is it safe to assume that you have a small, relatively inexpensive EV? For a lot of the big luxury EVs that manufacturers prefer to advertise, the upfront cost difference means that it will take 5+ years to catch up if you "only" drive 14,000 miles per year.

bb123 4y ago
I have a Tesla Model 3. Your reasoning only holds true if you assume that the alternative to buying an electric car was to buy no car at all. In reality if it wasn't a Tesla it would have been an ICE car in a similar market segment such as a BMW 3 Series. That means similar initial cost + all the fuel and servicing it needs. It ends up way more expensive.
- Kon-Peki 4y ago
  USA cars, USA gallons, and USA dollars: The cheapest Model 3 available near me is $58k according to Tesla's site (Dual Motor LR). A BMW 330i xDrive has a base price of $46k and includes the first 3 years of maintenance costs for free. Now, it's a BMW so you need to buy a bunch of options just to get front seats and a steering wheel. Should we put it up at $50k for the equivalent equipment level as a $58k Model 3? How much does 14,000 miles worth of 3-series gas cost? If you average about 28mpg (it's rated for 33mpg highway), you'll use 500 gallons. If you're paying $4 per gallon, that's $2000. The Model 3 is apparently a few hundred dollars in electricity for the same distance - let's say $300? So, (58000-50000)/(2000-300) = 4.7 years to break even. I'm not arguing against getting an EV. But you need to drive a lot of miles before you pay off that really big battery. Smaller, cheaper EVs that don't need such big batteries pay off a lot sooner. If that kind of car works for you ;)
- lbwtaylor 4y ago
  >> In reality if it wasn't a Tesla it would have been an ICE car in a similar market segment such as a BMW 3 Series. I see this comparison proposed very often. But I don't think it's fair -- a model 3 is expensive but it's not a luxury car in anything other than price. I think you can argue that an equally fair comparison is a Toyota Corolla or similar, which is in a very different total cost of ownership class.

djaychela 4y ago

I'd no longer say 'massively' in front. I have a Renault Zoe - 2020, 50kWh battery, gets 200 miles in the summer, and was down to about 120 miles when it was sub-zero here. On the current 34p/kWh home charging, that works out to 8.5p per mile on the high range, and 14p / mile when it's cold. I also have a Renault Trafic that I get 39mpg on similar driving routes. That's about 19.5p/mile. However, we sold a Citroen DS3 1.6HDi to get the zoe. That gave about 60mpg, and that works out to around 13p/mile... I know I'm doing the right thing having the EV (and I love it), but it was a bloody expensive purchase for us, and is currently not going to get anywhere near making up the £15k or so extra that we had to put in to change from the DS to the Zoe. Had we not had the home charger put in (which cost £1100!), then we'd be way down, as the nearest fast charger is now 50p/kWh, which would have taken the costs to 12.5p/mile and 20.8p/mile respectively - more expensive than my 240,000 mile 2.5 DCI van!

bb123 4y ago
There are plenty of tariffs that offer cheaper home charging than that. I get 6 hours of 7.5p/kWh. On a 7kW charger that's enough for a 0-80% charge every night.
- mprev 4y ago
  Is that an Octopus plan? If not, are you able to share the name of the provider and the tariff?
- iso1631 4y ago
  Is that open to new customers? Forget the car -- topping up a 20kWh battery for £1.50 a day sounds like a great deal for people paying 34p per unit at the moment, would save £150 a month.
- SimonPStevens 4y ago
  I can't find any plans that are actually accepting new customers for less than £0.27/kWh overnight. I'm pretty sure anything as cheap as £0.075/kWh is grandfathered into a legacy plan. I would be happy to be proven wrong, I'd love to switch plans right now.

SanjayMehta 4y ago

Does that factor in the cost of replacing the battery system every so many years? I've only looked at two wheelers i.e. electric scooters and the replacement cost of the battery pack is 40% of the cost of the vehicle, every three years.

bb123 4y ago
The battery is warrantied for 120,000 miles or 8 years. The stated design life is 3-500,000 miles.

melling 4y ago

Diesel emissions are not particularly good for one’s health. https://www.epa.gov/dera/learn-about-impacts-diesel-exhaust-and-diesel-emissions-reduction-act-dera https://www.epa.gov/dera/learn-about-impacts-diesel-exhaust-...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

traceroute66 4y ago

> car owners are still massively in front on fuel costs For me fuel cost is only half the story. Refuel time is the other half. "Fast chargers" are anything but fast. I've got better things to do with my life than sit around twiddling my thumbs at some godforsaken recharge station for 40 minutes. Meanwhile with petrol/diesel, I can turn up with the car on the red-line and I can be full to the brim in what, 5 minutes ? 10 max ? Especially if I'm paying using the app on my phone. The other elephant in the room that the electric world carefully skirt around is that those massive batteries in their car are not exactly environmentally friendly, especially when it comes to EoL time. For me the whole electric car thing is still a bit immature, I'll wait a bit longer.

HDThoreaun 4y ago
I have never once waited for my car to charge. Between home charging and charging during errands it's never run out. I have wasted countless hours at gas stations waiting for my car to fill up, which was considerably more annoying than just plugging the car in when I get home or go to the grocery store.
TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
Also from my experience: Arriving at a charger, have last 30km left and charger refuse to charge my car. No explanation given by a charger and car telling me to find some other charger. Both CCS. That is something what can really screw your day and made my opinion on electric cars even more entrenched in "worthless piece of s..." If somebody would like to know: Freshmile network north of Troyes, France. Was forced to go 50km/h down to Troyes to Ionity charger, network which always worked, but is bloody expensive. Wasted 4 hours on something what was supposed to be 1 hour charging stop.

iso1631 4y ago

14,000 miles would be about 4,700kWh at typical EV 330Wh per mile, or 6p per kWh. Where are you getting electricity for 6p per kWh? Most people in the country are paying 35p now. Are you charging at home with rooftop solar?