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> It's now more expensive to fuel a vehicle with electricity than gas How is that possible? Even at 20c/kWh it's still a good 4x cost difference I though

widdakay 3y ago
PGE goes up to 66c/kwh during peak now and in San Diego I think is >70c/kwh. Off peak base is 34c/kwh for PG&E. Gas is $4.5-$5/gal so break even I think ends up being near 50mpg ish for a 300wh/mi EV.
- brewdad 3y ago
  I'm not in CA, so genuinely curious. When you quote 66 cents/kwh is that the marginal rate for an addition kwh or is that averaging in fixed costs? I pay about $20/mo just to have an active service line to my house, even if I were to shut off the breaker and not use any power. But my marginal rate is about 18 cents/kwh. I would call my rate 18 cents but not sure if we are doing an apples to apples comparison.
  - svachalek 3y ago
    Marginal rate. SDGE is insanely expensive.
  - FullyFunctional 3y ago
    I find my (NorCal) PG&E bill extremely (and deliberately?) inscrutable, but for the most recent statement, the Off-peak net price was $0.427/kWh and $0.466/kWh on-peak.
floatrock 3y ago
Napkin math: My crossover EV gets 2.5-3.5 mi/kWh. Call it 3. / $0.2/kWh = 15 mi/$ Avg fuel economy in US ~ 25mpg. At $3.50/gal that's 7 mi/$ So at 20c/kWh, your dollar goes roughly twice as far on electric. California has been seeing brutal rates, though -- 40c/kWh not uncommon. Californians can play games with Time-of-Use rates (charge at night), get onto EV-specific rates, be on a CCA which tend to not have the try-to-not-burn-down-the-state adjustment fees, get solar +/- NEM2 vs NEM3, etc., so your numbers may vary. And different cars will have different MPG's of course. But all of that is to say, "more expensive to fuel a vehicle with electricity than gas" is not necessarily wrong in California.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  Where in California can you get gas for $3.50/gal?
  - qmarchi 3y ago
    Yuba City, CA. According to GasBuddy ZIP: 95950 https://www.gasbuddy.com/gaspricemap?lat=39.08984244471869&lng=-121.63275728486354&z=12 https://www.gasbuddy.com/gaspricemap?lat=39.08984244471869&l...
- burkaman 3y ago
  Gas in California is $4.50+ at the moment.
  - zbrozek 3y ago
    3.78 at Mathilda and Maude in Sunnyvale
- naijaboiler 3y ago
  A car of similar size to Tesla 3 gets close to 30mpg. At $3/gallon in mass currently, 10mi/$. My electricity is 0.35/kwh. So that’s also ~10mi/$, except I don’t have the added headache of worrying about range
callalex 3y ago
PG&E charges more like $.50 and it will soon be $.60-&.70. The regulator is corrupted and the infrastructure is failing because PG&E spent money that was supposed to be for infrastructure maintenance on share buyback programs. As a result the infrastructure failed and killed a ton of people, so now the utility is in even more debt because of the restitution owed.
gertlex 3y ago
20c/kWh? Not in California... Try 35c/50c peak or worse. Even if you have solar, and got in before NEM3.0, that's still not an incentive to electrify, when you're just selling the non-peak energy to the grid for the increasing rates that PG&E is charging/planning... (if that income-based minimum monthly bill thing happens, this maybe changes a bit) Not sure about the current gas/electricity per mile costs as I'm still driving a 15 y/o gas car.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  > (if that income-based minimum monthly bill thing happens, this maybe changes a bit) FYI, some legislators (including very left-leaning ones) are moving to repeal this pending change: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-progressive-california-epiphany-over-soaring-electricity-rates-climate-energy-7f564c60 https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-progressive-california-epipha...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sokoloff 3y ago
At 20c/kWh, that's ~5c/mi. For there to be a 4x cost difference, a gas car getting 30 mpg would have to be paying $6/gal for gas. In MA, I bought gas yesterday in our ICE car for $3.10/gal. Our electricity is $0.27/kWh. An ICE car getting 31 mpg is $0.10/mi for energy. Our EV getting just under 4mi/kWh is $0.07/mi for energy.
gnicholas 3y ago
I have a not-terribly-efficient PHEV (2014 CMAX), and depending on where we are in our tiered monthly usage it may be more expensive to use electricity. We still do, since the cost difference isn't huge and it's nice to ride with less emissions/noise. But it is maddening that PG&E charges so much that this is even possible (in CA, where gasoline prices are also sky-high!).
turquoisevar 3y ago
Can’t speak for PG&E, but I know from experience that it’s cousin SDG&E (the most expensive in the country I believe) will charge more than 60¢/kWh in the summer during certain times of the day and I’ve even had it be over 80¢ at certain times if memory serves me right. They’ve recently retired and restructured a bunch of rate plans, but almost all historical and current rates can be found on their website[0]. Somehow they still managed to keep things nice and complex. Keep in mind that none of these reflect so called CCA pricing, which is another story in of itself. Same for the “baseline allowance” after which rates go up, although they’ve now seemed to have structured is a discount to somewhat simplify rate comparisons. 0: https://www.sdge.com/total-electric-rates https://www.sdge.com/total-electric-rates Edit: Got curious so looked at some statistics. Top lists of most expensive electricity rates all mention Alaska and Hawaii, ok fair enough, but even in the contiguous states California isn’t even mentioned somehow. At the same time there are articles like[1] these[2] that claim SDG&E was the most expensive (at the time). So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not sure. 1: https://fox5sandiego.com/news/local-news/fox-5-asks-sdge-why-our-electricity-is-among-most-expensive-in-u-s/ https://fox5sandiego.com/news/local-news/fox-5-asks-sdge-why... 2: https://www.cbs8.com/article/money/amped/san-diego-has-the-highest-electricity-rates-in-the-country/509-b33c2aa1-5414-431d-a060-273059f1e0da https://www.cbs8.com/article/money/amped/san-diego-has-the-h...

widdakay 3y ago

PGE goes up to 66c/kwh during peak now and in San Diego I think is >70c/kwh. Off peak base is 34c/kwh for PG&E. Gas is $4.5-$5/gal so break even I think ends up being near 50mpg ish for a 300wh/mi EV.

brewdad 3y ago
I'm not in CA, so genuinely curious. When you quote 66 cents/kwh is that the marginal rate for an addition kwh or is that averaging in fixed costs? I pay about $20/mo just to have an active service line to my house, even if I were to shut off the breaker and not use any power. But my marginal rate is about 18 cents/kwh. I would call my rate 18 cents but not sure if we are doing an apples to apples comparison.
- svachalek 3y ago
  Marginal rate. SDGE is insanely expensive.
- FullyFunctional 3y ago
  I find my (NorCal) PG&E bill extremely (and deliberately?) inscrutable, but for the most recent statement, the Off-peak net price was $0.427/kWh and $0.466/kWh on-peak.

floatrock 3y ago

Napkin math: My crossover EV gets 2.5-3.5 mi/kWh. Call it 3. / $0.2/kWh = 15 mi/$ Avg fuel economy in US ~ 25mpg. At $3.50/gal that's 7 mi/$ So at 20c/kWh, your dollar goes roughly twice as far on electric. California has been seeing brutal rates, though -- 40c/kWh not uncommon. Californians can play games with Time-of-Use rates (charge at night), get onto EV-specific rates, be on a CCA which tend to not have the try-to-not-burn-down-the-state adjustment fees, get solar +/- NEM2 vs NEM3, etc., so your numbers may vary. And different cars will have different MPG's of course. But all of that is to say, "more expensive to fuel a vehicle with electricity than gas" is not necessarily wrong in California.

aidenn0 3y ago
Where in California can you get gas for $3.50/gal?
- qmarchi 3y ago
  Yuba City, CA. According to GasBuddy ZIP: 95950 https://www.gasbuddy.com/gaspricemap?lat=39.08984244471869&lng=-121.63275728486354&z=12 https://www.gasbuddy.com/gaspricemap?lat=39.08984244471869&l...
burkaman 3y ago
Gas in California is $4.50+ at the moment.
- zbrozek 3y ago
  3.78 at Mathilda and Maude in Sunnyvale
naijaboiler 3y ago
A car of similar size to Tesla 3 gets close to 30mpg. At $3/gallon in mass currently, 10mi/$. My electricity is 0.35/kwh. So that’s also ~10mi/$, except I don’t have the added headache of worrying about range

callalex 3y ago

PG&E charges more like $.50 and it will soon be $.60-&.70. The regulator is corrupted and the infrastructure is failing because PG&E spent money that was supposed to be for infrastructure maintenance on share buyback programs. As a result the infrastructure failed and killed a ton of people, so now the utility is in even more debt because of the restitution owed.

gertlex 3y ago

20c/kWh? Not in California... Try 35c/50c peak or worse. Even if you have solar, and got in before NEM3.0, that's still not an incentive to electrify, when you're just selling the non-peak energy to the grid for the increasing rates that PG&E is charging/planning... (if that income-based minimum monthly bill thing happens, this maybe changes a bit) Not sure about the current gas/electricity per mile costs as I'm still driving a 15 y/o gas car.

gnicholas 3y ago
> (if that income-based minimum monthly bill thing happens, this maybe changes a bit) FYI, some legislators (including very left-leaning ones) are moving to repeal this pending change: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-progressive-california-epiphany-over-soaring-electricity-rates-climate-energy-7f564c60 https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-progressive-california-epipha...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sokoloff 3y ago

At 20c/kWh, that's ~5c/mi. For there to be a 4x cost difference, a gas car getting 30 mpg would have to be paying $6/gal for gas. In MA, I bought gas yesterday in our ICE car for $3.10/gal. Our electricity is $0.27/kWh. An ICE car getting 31 mpg is $0.10/mi for energy. Our EV getting just under 4mi/kWh is $0.07/mi for energy.

gnicholas 3y ago

I have a not-terribly-efficient PHEV (2014 CMAX), and depending on where we are in our tiered monthly usage it may be more expensive to use electricity. We still do, since the cost difference isn't huge and it's nice to ride with less emissions/noise. But it is maddening that PG&E charges so much that this is even possible (in CA, where gasoline prices are also sky-high!).

turquoisevar 3y ago

Can’t speak for PG&E, but I know from experience that it’s cousin SDG&E (the most expensive in the country I believe) will charge more than 60¢/kWh in the summer during certain times of the day and I’ve even had it be over 80¢ at certain times if memory serves me right. They’ve recently retired and restructured a bunch of rate plans, but almost all historical and current rates can be found on their website[0]. Somehow they still managed to keep things nice and complex. Keep in mind that none of these reflect so called CCA pricing, which is another story in of itself. Same for the “baseline allowance” after which rates go up, although they’ve now seemed to have structured is a discount to somewhat simplify rate comparisons. 0: https://www.sdge.com/total-electric-rates https://www.sdge.com/total-electric-rates Edit: Got curious so looked at some statistics. Top lists of most expensive electricity rates all mention Alaska and Hawaii, ok fair enough, but even in the contiguous states California isn’t even mentioned somehow. At the same time there are articles like[1] these[2] that claim SDG&E was the most expensive (at the time). So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not sure. 1: https://fox5sandiego.com/news/local-news/fox-5-asks-sdge-why-our-electricity-is-among-most-expensive-in-u-s/ https://fox5sandiego.com/news/local-news/fox-5-asks-sdge-why... 2: https://www.cbs8.com/article/money/amped/san-diego-has-the-highest-electricity-rates-in-the-country/509-b33c2aa1-5414-431d-a060-273059f1e0da https://www.cbs8.com/article/money/amped/san-diego-has-the-h...