pcons
M3 AWD+
I had this commute with this car and the running engine to heat the car would easily equate to 20 mpg (or less) for this ride
Yes that also makes sense. I also have a volt (wife has bolt, i have volt....getting a model 3 because i can use the extra range, plus volt/bolt are too similar in name )....I mentioned the Volt because on a 7 mile commute you would never need the gas engine. That would be there for longer trips only. On my volt I have 50k km, of which about 5k are on the engine and 45k on EV.
Back on point: an ICE car under these 7 mile commutes is horribly inefficient, because they will run 'rich' until the engine heats up. Before the bolt my wife had a TDI golf, which got close to 60mpg on the highway when warm, but about 16mpg when cold and on short commutes...a big factor why we got her a bolt since she does a mix of short and long trips and the bolt is a similar size to the golf (and the m3 wasn't out yet).
In an apples to apples comparison an EV still wins hands down. Let's do a more fair comparison of 20mpg/7 mile commute for regular gas vs an EV with typical heat use...
ICE under these conditions:
7/20 = 0.35 gal @ 1.30/L (avg price of regular where I live), that gives a cost of $1.72 for a 7 mile commute, or $0.25/mile
EV under these conditions (assuming 50% of normal range, which is extreme and only valid for this use case):
Model 3 rated for 500km/75kwh x 0.5 ~ 250km/75kwh = 3.33 km/kwh, or 2.1 miles/kwh (that is horrible btw....)
At $0.13/kwh (typical cost where I live) that would mean the 7 mile commute would cost:
$0.43....or $0.062/mile....
That's still 4x less that an ICE, and things only get better as temperature warms up. ICE cars also get better as the temp rises and commutes get longer, but in that case an EV will still be upwards of 100mpg 'equivalent'
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