Yeah something like this people often overlook. We need to pick a similar car to compare. Their average gas cost is above some and lower than others. So if one really wants to see how much they save, do the math themselves. My previous vehicle is a more expensive SUV but similar size. I averaged low to mid 20. I don't have very cheap electricity rate either but the saving comes out fairly close to their number on their app.
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Bogus "Gas Savings"
- Thread starter rwiegand
- Start date
Ok fine take out the non-plug in hybrids and the results are still skewed. The point is the "gas savings" estimate was meant to compare a pure gas car to an EV and not against hybrids (non-plug in or plug-in) or those that have really short commutes or usage of their cars.
To me its silly to even care what the Tesla gas savings metric says. since it doesn't even allow you to enter how many miles you drive a year. No matter what it is always going to draw criticism for being inaccurate anyways because if you drive less you won't fill up gas as often and will complain that they didn't "save" as much in gas as what the Tesla website says OR gas is much cheaper or more expensive in certain part of the USA so it is inaccurate and gas prices are always changing throughout the year.
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So, just arguing for the sake of same..
I have, several times over the past years, had cause (usually, I got asked) about how much one would save in fuel costs running a BEV around the landscape. Usually the people asking me had a no-kidding ICE. And no-kidding ICE's get somewhere between 24 (most "normal" sized cars) and 30 (dinky, light cars) mpg. This got bad enough that, at one point, I actually sat down and worked up a spreadsheet with cents per mile on it and all that. Not that I was passing out the spreadsheet; it was mainly to get the numbers roughly fixed in my head so I could remember, when asked.
In that spreadsheet was a "normal" ICE, a Prius, and the trusty M3 I had at the time. There's been inflation, but fuel costs per mile for the Tesla was about 5 cents per mile and about three to five times that for Ye Typical ICE. Throw in an average of 15,000 miles per year driven and the fuel costs at the time and, yeah, there's the "Fuel Savings" that Tesla is talking about. All very legit and supported by data from people like the EPA and their, "MPGe" for BEVs.
The moment one starts putting in vehicles that look like always-on hybrids the waters get murky. First, because a typical Prius gets 2X the mpg of a typical ICE; second, because if one uses Superchargers and their somewhat inflated costs over the standard home electric rates, BEVs and Priuses are in a dead heat.
So, does Tesla's advertising of "Fuel Savings" hold water? Sure, if one is driving a typical ICE. If one is Not Driving A Typical ICE (and hybrid owners know they're not), then those numbers don't make sense. But I would argue, I suppose, that the majority of vehicles on the road are ICEs, as are the people showing up at tesla.com. In which case, for the hoi polloi, that "Cost Savings" number has some serious merit and is informative.
EVer Hopeful
Active Member
True - When I bought my Civic (back in 2007) I got the full ICE instead of the Hybrid
The reason was that the quoted numbers were 30/40 and 40/50 and with the price of gas at the time ($3,75 IIRC) I would have had to drive 300,000 miles before I reached the break even point between the two vehicles as the hybrid was significantly more expensive
As it was I got about halfway through that before the engine died
Um. 2007 Civic Hybrid?. I'm about to check, but, when I was looking for a New Car in late 2009 (my son was heading off to college with my 2002 Civic), most hybrids that weren't Toyotas or maybe the Insight were that weird variant of a hybrid that, more or less, had an electric motor geared into the cogs on the ICE flywheel. It was "hybrid" in the sense that a little electric energy from a smallish battery could make the car accelerate somewhat faster; but running around purely on electric power was literally impossible. Those cars often had worse gas mileage than their ICE equivalents. One sec.
Bummer. One thing for sure: There's all sorts of warnings about that car, including, "Don't buy if the block hasn't been replaced." Couldn't find out if it was a "power assist" or "always-on", although the comments about the car shaking when the engine turned on and off at stoplights seems to indicate the former.
Interestingly, the EPA says that the original EPA rating was 49-51 mpg; the rating for that car using more modern (?) methods says it's 40-45 mpg.
That's not a "weird variant". That's simply what a hybrid actually IS. And it was that for a very long time, before the different version came out that also allowed plugging it in. I guess if people wanted to use words to spell out the distinction, those were a hybrid drivetrain. They were not hybrid as far as fuel input. Just last year we sold our 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid to replace it with a Tesla Model Y. It was the last gas car we had.
That's simply not true at all, ever.
Yeah, we always consistently got around 42 to 44 mpg year round on our 2005 Civic Hybrid.
Car cost more compared to something equivalent in gas. $300 for charger, $500 for install…. It’s not cheaper to own an EV. It’s the “I have an EV” badge people want.
EVer Hopeful
Active Member
Um. $800 bucks.
Electricity-based Model 3: $0.051/mile.
BMW Model 3.. Looking it up on the EPA's site.. 19 mpg. $4.50/gal * 1 gal/19 miles = $0.237/mile.
Difference = $0.237/mile - $0.051/mile = $0.186/mile.
How many miles before the Tesla is cheaper, not including the cost of the car, but including the cost of the charging equipment you mentioned?
$800/($0.187/mile) = 4,305 miles.
So, throwing in plus or minus, if one drives more than 5000 miles a year, one'll have made up the cost difference the first year.
That was a 2022 BMW M3; admittedly, 19 mpg is on the low side for an EV. But, I dunno, most people drive 15,000 miles a year, so even at 20-24 mpg, one'll get one's money back relatively soon. And that doesn't even begin to consider maintenance on an ICE, oil changes and all. Which the Tesla doesn't really have.
And the Teslas are getting cheaper. That's not because of Elon chasing people away, although that might, I suppose, be part of it: It's because the Tesla line-up is a bunch of white-paper, we get to do this from scratch as efficiently as we can, designs. As Tesla gets better at manufacturing, as the economies of scale improve, and, flat-out, the cost of an electric motor and battery are 'way cheaper, fundamentally, than the cost of an ICE and that automatic transmission, those costs are going to continue to drop. And Tesla's doing its bit: By dropping prices, they're forcing the rest of the competition to lower theirs as well to stay in business at all, and some of the biggies, possibly Toyota, may go under as they try to play catch-up.
This really isn't accurate - it was true five years ago but it's no longer true today. The average cost of a BEV vehicle MSRP in 2023 now sits below that of the average ICE vehicle. An ICE vehicle has roughly 2000 moving parts - a BEV has 90% fewer moving parts - really 20 core moving parts in comparison. The inherent complexity of ICE vehicles means more maintenance - especially over the long term. Home charging for most Americans is vastly less expensive than gas prices - and gas is going nowhere but up as exploration has effectively been on pause for years now. We almost exclusively drive our MY LR these days because it's so much less expensive to drive and maintain compared to my truck. We own both ICE and BEV vehicles just to be clear. Don't knock it until you try it.
I wish you could set the MPG of the comparison car, and have 2 Home prices:
Price on solar
Price on grid
We got a large solar and Powerwall arrangement here in Florida because we don't like losing power, which for Duke Energy is a guarantee. In just 2 years of having these the grid has gone down 6 times already, and we just get a notification "The grid is down" from the Tesla app and keep having power. It is still cheaper than paying for electricity, but we have more than we need to ensure we never lose power.
So, charging this Tesla Model Y is basically free. Duke Energy doesn't pay a dime (way to bribe Florida legislators) when we give solar back to the grid, so I'm happy to see more of it go to the car than Duke. But my real added cost of energy on solar is $0.
If it's hot af and the AC is running all day and it's cloudy, then we're going to run the Powerwalls down to 0 and we'll use Duke Energy electricity, and then it does cost us money. So I wish the app let us set a grid and a solar cost of charging at Home.
I also wish I could set the MPG to the embarrassingly low number my friend's truck gets so I could more efficiently harass her about how much she's wasting. They really need saved money on Oil Changes here too.
Price on solar
Price on grid
We got a large solar and Powerwall arrangement here in Florida because we don't like losing power, which for Duke Energy is a guarantee. In just 2 years of having these the grid has gone down 6 times already, and we just get a notification "The grid is down" from the Tesla app and keep having power. It is still cheaper than paying for electricity, but we have more than we need to ensure we never lose power.
So, charging this Tesla Model Y is basically free. Duke Energy doesn't pay a dime (way to bribe Florida legislators) when we give solar back to the grid, so I'm happy to see more of it go to the car than Duke. But my real added cost of energy on solar is $0.
If it's hot af and the AC is running all day and it's cloudy, then we're going to run the Powerwalls down to 0 and we'll use Duke Energy electricity, and then it does cost us money. So I wish the app let us set a grid and a solar cost of charging at Home.
I also wish I could set the MPG to the embarrassingly low number my friend's truck gets so I could more efficiently harass her about how much she's wasting. They really need saved money on Oil Changes here too.
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They used to allow you to modify gas and electricity prices. However, I can’t find that on Tesla’s site anymore
In general, the quickest way I have found to do it is:
- Take the MPG rating of the gas vehicle.
- Take the “M” part and divide by 3. (This gives a very conservative # of kWh to go that distance)
- Multiply that number by the electricity price.
You can also calculate $/Mile which is then easier to calculate annual costs.
In my case, cost per mile is about $0.03/mile.
Say car B is a truck that gets 14mpg. Their $/Mile would be $3.50/gallon (made up gas price, substitute for your gas price) divided by 14 = $0.25/Mile.
If the drive 12,000 Miles annually, that is a gas cost of $3000.
Your cost would be $0.03/mile * 12,000 = $360
Note, an electric truck would be less efficient so that cost/mile might be $0.05 instead of $0.03. Still a big savings
Your large solar/power wall arrangement wasn’t free, so some kind of cost needs to be assigned to that power. My solar was $50K out of pocket, $34K after tax credits and incentives, the real cost works out to 16.5 cents per kWh. Grid power here is 37 cents per kWh so the investment is well worth the initial cost for us. We get credits at 30.6 cents per kWh for net metered power back to the grid, I just got my second bill with “No Payment Due” and a month of credit at $219 for March. Time to burn up credits in the MY.
The savings are now heading in the EV's favor , at least around here.They used to allow you to modify gas and electricity prices. However, I can’t find that on Tesla’s site anymore
In general, the quickest way I have found to do it is:
That will give the equivalent cost of a ‘gallon’.
- Take the MPG rating of the gas vehicle.
- Take the “M” part and divide by 3. (This gives a very conservative # of kWh to go that distance)
- Multiply that number by the electricity price.
You can also calculate $/Mile which is then easier to calculate annual costs.
In my case, cost per mile is about $0.03/mile.
Say car B is a truck that gets 14mpg. Their $/Mile would be $3.50/gallon (made up gas price, substitute for your gas price) divided by 14 = $0.25/Mile.
If the drive 12,000 Miles annually, that is a gas cost of $3000.
Your cost would be $0.03/mile * 12,000 = $360
Note, an electric truck would be less efficient so that cost/mile might be $0.05 instead of $0.03. Still a big savings
Regular gas has jumped up to almost 4 bucks a gallon and still rising. Our KWH is ~11cents.
I just replaced the 21" ubers with new 18's and my Performance Y has improved when I keep my foot out of it to over 4 miles per KWh.
My guess is with oil prices cresting $85 a barrel. this will be a full summer of high gas prices.
Could not be happier with the Model Y P's energy costs
I wonder how often Tesla updates the local dino fuel prices in the phone ap.?
I agree with the sentiment that the ap should be user configurable as far as gas prices etc. instead of just KWH pricing.
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Enkei Victory wheels and Hankook Ventus S1 EVO 2 SUV 235/55-18" front 255/55-18" rear. The new Hankook Ions would have been a better choice but these Ventus models are also a high silica rubber low rolling resistance tire. They stick real good as a summer tire also good in rain but the treadwear is going to be sub par but these were inexpensive.
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Interesting. Thanks for sharing. Seems your energy consumption is pretty low, so that’s great
Most of the under 250 watt hours was @ 60-65 MPH with about a 1/3 25-35
Some others have posted that the lighter wheels and larger aspect ratio tires has also dropped the 0-60 times as well.
Definitely less than the HEAVY 21" ubers. Before switching out the 21's lifetime average was 285 watt hours, 29" tall studded snows during winter the average went to 295 watt hours. I am hopeful I an keep the 18's watt hours well below the 21's.
Some others have posted that the lighter wheels and larger aspect ratio tires has also dropped the 0-60 times as well.
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That might make sense for your state's laws but not for mine (Florida). In my area a corrupt coal company, Duke Energy, has frequent outages. We got this large solar/powerwall arrangement to skip those outages, so we need to overproduce in order to be mostly off grid. So, we have this setup no matter what the car uses.
Because Florida is corrupt on Duke Energy's bribes, we get nothing for that overproduction. The excess solar my family produces greens the grid and Duke Energy pays us $0 for it. In fact, they've bribed the Florida Republican State Legislature so well that we pay them for it - we have to be attached to the grid, by law, and we have to pay a mandatory $35/mo for the mandatory service, even when we're giving them power.
So, that power was not getting used by my household, and, we weren't receiving any money for it. Using it rather than sending it to Duke Energy for free is a $0 cost to us. The only "cost" is a less green Florida grid, powered a bit more by a corrupt dirty energy company rather than my family's solar panels.
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