Public charging vs ICE running costs

[NSS89]

So had my first EV delivered on Thursday (Model Y) and really enjoying the car. I was a bit lazy with my smart charger install so as a result I'm relying on public charging until later this month. I've charged up a few times using a SC and a third party charger - been paying £0.40 kWh.

I downloaded the Tessie app last night as I can't see the charge stats section within my app and I was a bit surprised at some of the calculations. For reference in the Tessie app fuel comparison settings I put MPG as the efficiency, £7.32 as the cost per gallon and 43.4 as the MPG as that was the long term average on my last car.

What has surprised me is the trips are showing as costing more in electric then they would have in fuel - is that right? I know public charging isn't the best way to run an EV but I still thought it works out cheaper than an ICE car. I'm not sure if the parameters I have entered are incorrect or I need more drives for an accurate reading?

Example trip:
24 min
22.7 miles
Energy used 8.86 kWh
Electric £3.99
Fuel £3.83

 

[Mrklaw]

That’s 2.5 miles per kWh whihc is quite low. Short trips use more ‘fuel’ you’d need more drives to get a better picture but ‘long term mpg’ you’d probably aim for 3.5-4 miles per kWh. That’d make that trip £2.27 at 40p per kWh. Or if you get octopus go at 7.5p/kWh it would be 42.5p. So get that charger installed pronto

Also for short trips an alternative could be to understand your mpg in your old car would have been probably half your long term average, which can help contextualise the results you’re seeing

 

[NSS89]

That’s 2.5 miles per kWh whihc is quite low. Short trips use more ‘fuel’ you’d need more drives to get a better picture but ‘long term mpg’ you’d probably aim for 3.5-4 miles per kWh. That’d make that trip £2.27 at 40p per kWh. Or if you get octopus go at 7.5p/kWh it would be 42.5p. So get that charger installed pronto

Also for short trips an alternative could be to understand your mpg in your old car would have been probably half your long term average, which can help contextualise the results you’re seeing

Yeah definitely hasn't felt like its at its most efficient state right now but I put that down to the weather (2-3 celcius) so hoping it improves once it warms up a bit. Or is it a bit too low in general? I did wonder if EV's have a 'break-in' period...

Totally agree with the Octopus point you made and I am in the process of switching to them. I've been running the same calculations you did as a comparison so yeah can't wait to get it installed lol

Also agree that the MPG I put in will be used for each and every journey it compares which definitely isn't accurate but I thought that it's as close as I could get to real world cost, as that MPG was over 15k miles, so as you say maybe over time (similar mileage) the overall savings/costs will be a more accurate comparison.

 

[Mrklaw]

weather and short trips means the car will be using more energy to warm the battery and can limit regen into a cold battery so less efficient. Likewise if you're preconditioning or just heating the cabin not plugged in that'll burn some battery.

Thats kind of a sunk cost in cold weather that will be mitigated on a longer trip so you'll see better efficiency for longer drives

if you do only small drives your efficiency will remain low. If you do longer drives (your 15k miles and 43mpg suggests so) then you'll definitely see the miles/kwh increase

 

[Burley]

If you're public charging, you may also want to disable sentry mode when you're parked at home. It uses a fair bit and with pre-heating and short trips you'll use a fair bit of incidental energy.

 

[Overworked]

When you are new to the car and enjoying the rapid acceleration (and then demonstrating it to all who will listen to you going WOW!) is also a little harder on the juice

 

[Adopado]

So had my first EV delivered on Thursday (Model Y) and really enjoying the car. I was a bit lazy with my smart charger install so as a result I'm relying on public charging until later this month. I've charged up a few times using a SC and a third party charger - been paying £0.40 kWh.

I downloaded the Tessie app last night as I can't see the charge stats section within my app and I was a bit surprised at some of the calculations. For reference in the Tessie app fuel comparison settings I put MPG as the efficiency, £7.32 as the cost per gallon and 43.4 as the MPG as that was the long term average on my last car.

What has surprised me is the trips are showing as costing more in electric then they would have in fuel - is that right? I know public charging isn't the best way to run an EV but I still thought it works out cheaper than an ICE car. I'm not sure if the parameters I have entered are incorrect or I need more drives for an accurate reading?

Example trip:
24 min
22.7 miles
Energy used 8.86 kWh
Electric £3.99
Fuel £3.83

I'm afraid the days of cheap public charging are mostly behind us now. Still a few cheap or free opportunities if you search them out (Zapmap) but they'll usually be slow so you need to be able to leave the car for a long while. Chargeplacescotland chargers are usually still good value or free but this is inevitably changing too. You need cheap rate at home to take advantage... but you know that already.

 

[Dilly]

Short winter trips are power hungry. 4 mile round trips to the shops in winter with prewarming the car and the heater on can cost 12 miles or more of battery. At the other end of the scale a long run in summer can give as much as 6 miles/Kwh in some circumstances.
I always thought my Subaru Outback averaged 30mpg but ignored the 15mpg trips to the shops!

 

[avionos]

With this (likely) US oil ban on Russian petroleum coming today — watch how the ICE owners start panicking with that £2/litre petrol coming soon.

 

[Masklin]

Schadenfreude is not very becoming given the circumstances.

 

[prabhu]

So had my first EV delivered on Thursday (Model Y) and really enjoying the car. I was a bit lazy with my smart charger install so as a result I'm relying on public charging until later this month. I've charged up a few times using a SC and a third party charger - been paying £0.40 kWh.

I downloaded the Tessie app last night as I can't see the charge stats section within my app and I was a bit surprised at some of the calculations. For reference in the Tessie app fuel comparison settings I put MPG as the efficiency, £7.32 as the cost per gallon and 43.4 as the MPG as that was the long term average on my last car.

What has surprised me is the trips are showing as costing more in electric then they would have in fuel - is that right? I know public charging isn't the best way to run an EV but I still thought it works out cheaper than an ICE car. I'm not sure if the parameters I have entered are incorrect or I need more drives for an accurate reading?

Example trip:
24 min
22.7 miles
Energy used 8.86 kWh
Electric £3.99
Fuel £3.83

There are 50 kWh pod point chargers at Tesco or Aldi that would cost you just 28p per kWh. You can get the bonnet app which usually offers 1 month of free charging and a capped charge rate of 35p at most places. Some Tesla SC has a cheaper off-peak rate past 9 pm.