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How are you charging it for free? At the office? My car insurance is very much higher for a Model 3 than a similarly priced car because repairs are more expens

How are you charging it for free? At the office? My car insurance is very much higher for a Model 3 than a similarly priced car because repairs are more expensive. This should be added to the TCO. I like the Model 3 still, because it’s a fun car to drive. It’s not cheap though.

brightball 3y ago
Charge at the house. I haven’t done the math recently but when I had a Chevy Volt the electricity cost was equivalent to about $0.64 / gallon of gas. It is fun to drive though.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Let's hear the electric bill before/after new car.
  - bdcravens 3y ago
    Both my wife and I charge at home. We're probably spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-80 or so a month in charging versus the $200 or so we'd spend on gas (Texas has relatively cheap electricity rates, but our gas is also fairly cheap)
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    I'd rather just see the kwh usage. Rates vary wildly in the US, even within the same state. Some states with average prices have utilities with cheap power. And others with overall low rates have dumb utilities that charge high rates if you use more than 1000kwh, which most EV owners certainly do.
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      Yes rates vary, the point is to have ballpark figures to compare against the cost of gasoline. Without that the conversation is not particularly useful.
      - _ea1k 3y ago
        If we know the kwh, we can extrapolate both that and situation specific numbers. Average $/kwh in the US is ~$.15. This is just like a gas car, where the conversation would start with mpg, not "What's your gas cost per month before and after getting gas car?" It is precisely because of the variation in both gas price and usage that it is important to start from consumption per mile and not a total price.
        mixmastamyk 3y ago
        Asking a random person for their kwh usage is not realistic. Dollars per month change (where they haven't changed driving drastically) is more practical.
        _ea1k 3y ago
        But you aren't asking random people. You are asking EV owners on Hacker News. In general, EV owners are pretty savvy. More than most actually know what they pay per kwh and have a pretty good idea of their consumption. The biggest common mistake that I see is net vs gross.
        mixmastamyk 3y ago
        I was asking brightball.
        brightball 3y ago
        Best answer I can give: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38879366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38879366
  - brightball 3y ago
    It's tough to isolate because we've been charging for a while. Rates where I am are currently $0.12 / KWh. Last time I did the math they were closer to $0.08 / KWh. I've got a Tesla Model 3. My wife had a Pacifica Plugin Hybrid. Any given point of the day, one of them is probably plugged in if we're at home. It took 2-3 hours to recharge the Pacifica for it's 35 mile range. Full recharge on the Tesla is about 5 hours if it's totally drained but the Tesla has much better battery management so you typically set the maximum charge to 80% of the battery for daily driving. Typically, I'll plug the Tesla in when it's still got 50-60% of the battery left. Looking at a graph of the usage at my house from the utility company is pretty hilly and coincides with weather. Goes up a lot during the hotter months as my AC kicks on. I don't notice anything significant from it though. I'm also enrolled in a bill normalization program with my utility company where they give me the same bill every month throughout the year so that we don't get surprise spikes as the weather changes.

brightball 3y ago

Charge at the house. I haven’t done the math recently but when I had a Chevy Volt the electricity cost was equivalent to about $0.64 / gallon of gas. It is fun to drive though.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
Let's hear the electric bill before/after new car.
- bdcravens 3y ago
  Both my wife and I charge at home. We're probably spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $50-80 or so a month in charging versus the $200 or so we'd spend on gas (Texas has relatively cheap electricity rates, but our gas is also fairly cheap)
- _ea1k 3y ago
  I'd rather just see the kwh usage. Rates vary wildly in the US, even within the same state. Some states with average prices have utilities with cheap power. And others with overall low rates have dumb utilities that charge high rates if you use more than 1000kwh, which most EV owners certainly do.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Yes rates vary, the point is to have ballpark figures to compare against the cost of gasoline. Without that the conversation is not particularly useful.
    - _ea1k 3y ago
      If we know the kwh, we can extrapolate both that and situation specific numbers. Average $/kwh in the US is ~$.15. This is just like a gas car, where the conversation would start with mpg, not "What's your gas cost per month before and after getting gas car?" It is precisely because of the variation in both gas price and usage that it is important to start from consumption per mile and not a total price.
      - mixmastamyk 3y ago
        Asking a random person for their kwh usage is not realistic. Dollars per month change (where they haven't changed driving drastically) is more practical.
        _ea1k 3y ago
        But you aren't asking random people. You are asking EV owners on Hacker News. In general, EV owners are pretty savvy. More than most actually know what they pay per kwh and have a pretty good idea of their consumption. The biggest common mistake that I see is net vs gross.
        mixmastamyk 3y ago
        I was asking brightball.
        brightball 3y ago
        Best answer I can give: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38879366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38879366
- brightball 3y ago
  It's tough to isolate because we've been charging for a while. Rates where I am are currently $0.12 / KWh. Last time I did the math they were closer to $0.08 / KWh. I've got a Tesla Model 3. My wife had a Pacifica Plugin Hybrid. Any given point of the day, one of them is probably plugged in if we're at home. It took 2-3 hours to recharge the Pacifica for it's 35 mile range. Full recharge on the Tesla is about 5 hours if it's totally drained but the Tesla has much better battery management so you typically set the maximum charge to 80% of the battery for daily driving. Typically, I'll plug the Tesla in when it's still got 50-60% of the battery left. Looking at a graph of the usage at my house from the utility company is pretty hilly and coincides with weather. Goes up a lot during the hotter months as my AC kicks on. I don't notice anything significant from it though. I'm also enrolled in a bill normalization program with my utility company where they give me the same bill every month throughout the year so that we don't get surprise spikes as the weather changes.