Which goes further for $43 - a Tesla or a Gas Car?

[jerry505]

In 2015, when I bought my Tesla Model S, critics with gas cars told me that no matter the 5 to 6 times higher efficiency of EV's, that the charging stations would just charge more for electricity, and we wouldn't benefit from the higher efficiency of EV's. They would take advantage, and we would pay the same per mile as if we had a gas car.

Were they right? Electrify America charges 43 cents per KWH. A 100KWH Tesla costs $43.00 for 100 KWH.

So, which goes further on $43 worth of fuel? An EV or a car with an internal combustion engine?

(Example: Comparing a highway trip where we need to buy from a charging station: A Toyota Corolla does 40 MPG highway, and $43 today would buy 17 gallons of fuel in my town, so 40 times 17 is 680 miles. The Long Range Tesla Model S goes 412 miles on 100KWH for $43.)

 

[jpvdheijn]

Yes but here your comparison goes off. Your are comparing a model s with a corolla. It is like the same question for comparing a corolla with a Mercedes s class.

 

[J1mbo]

. A 100KWH Tesla costs $43.00 for 100 KWH.

Nope.

Assuming you managed to start on exactly 0%, and had a battery that could charge to exactly 100kWh, charging losses will mean that you consume more than 100kWh.

So let's say $50.

Now, where do you buy your fuel? Gas prices vary from street to street. Gas, diesel or hybrid? Which car is a good comparison to the Model S for size, performance, etc.? What is the MPG of that car?

 

[SO16]

In 2015, when I bought my Tesla Model S, critics with gas cars told me that no matter the 5 to 6 times higher efficiency of EV's, that the charging stations would just charge more for electricity, and we wouldn't benefit from the higher efficiency of EV's. They would take advantage, and we would pay the same per mile as if we had a gas car.

Were they right? Electrify America charges 43 cents per KWH. A 100KWH Tesla costs $43.00 for 100 KWH.

So, which goes further on $43 worth of fuel? An EV or a car with an internal combustion engine?

(Example: Comparing a highway trip where we need to buy from a charging station: A Toyota Corolla does 40 MPG highway, and $43 today would buy 17 gallons of fuel in my town, so 40 times 17 is 680 miles. The Long Range Tesla Model S goes 412 miles on 100KWH for $43.)

One counter point to those people is that when charging at home (which is probably 95% of the time for many owners), it is MUCH cheaper than gas. For me it’s about $7.00 to fill my 2017 S90D. It does help to be on the EV plan with the electric company for night time reduced rates.

Road trips are more expensive. So even if on par with gas cars for road trips, total annual cost is still no contest.

I am grateful for the FUSC on my Model S.

 

[ATPMSD]

Electrify America charges 43 cents per KWH

And Tesla charges 28 cents per kW at a Supercharger

 

[jerry505]

The disparity is that 43 cents per KWH is 4.3 times higher than the 10 cents per KWH that I pay at home to charge.

What business buys a product for 10 cents and sells for 43 cents - 4.3X higher? That's would be a 330% markup.

This high price does not promote the use of EV's, and negates completely the fuel efficiency of an EV relative to price. Gas or electric, the price per mile is about the same.

How much does Electrify America pay for a KWH?

 

[ATPMSD]

What business buys a product for 10 cents and sells for 43 cents - 4.3X higher? That's would be a 330% markup.

1. Commercial power rates are MUCH more expensive then residential
2. The seller has to cover their costs beyond the price of power. The land, the power station, maintenance, the network…

 

[ucmndd]

Put bluntly:

Who gives a squirt if the ~5-10% of your driving that requires commercial DC fast charging is equivalent in cost to gasoline, when the other 90-95% fueled by home charging is 3-4x less expensive?

Maintaining a commercial DC charging site is expensive. The equipment is expensive. The real estate is expensive. The utility demand charges are REALLY expensive.

But hey, if you’d rather take a Corolla on your road trips than the Model S, on the grounds of them being cost equivalent, then I guess more power to you?

 

[ucmndd]

Furthermore, the numbers you’re using to illustrate your point are super deceptive.

A Corolla is not equivalent in any way to a Model S. As others suggested, why don’t you compare with an equivalent car like a Mercedes E Class or BMW 5 series?

Your math implies a fuel cost of ~$2.50/gal, which is currently 57 cents below the national average.

Your EA pricing of $0.43/kWh neglects to mention that for a $4/mo membership fee you can reduce that to $0.31/kWh (break even at 33kwh, basically one charging session).

If you’re gonna run the numbers, at least run them honestly.

 

[jerry505]

A KWH at home is 10 cents. Why should it be 43 cents at a charging station, or even 31 cents if you are a member, and what does that cost? Price gouging?

My gas friends, I hate to say, were right. The charging stations would reap the benefits of an EV's efficiency. Not us.

It was the same when computers allowed us to work faster. Instead of workers getting the advantage, the companies took the advantage.

Furthermore, the numbers you’re using to illustrate your point are super deceptive.

A Corolla is not equivalent in any way to a Model S. As others suggested, why don’t you compare with an equivalent car like a Mercedes E Class or BMW 5 series?

Your math implies a fuel cost of ~$2.50/gal, which is currently 57 cents below the national average.

Your EA pricing of $0.43/kWh neglects to mention that for a $4/mo membership fee you can reduce that to $0.31/kWh (break even at 33kwh, basically one charging session).

If you’re gonna run the numbers, at least run them honestly.

I am using the 43 cents per KWH as an example. You failed to mention the KWH price varies per state.Some of these same stations charge per minute. I am looking at the bigger picture. I am not okay with 31 cents (and $48 per year member fee - when maybe I might not use one of these places that much) or 43 cents per KWH when I can purchase at home for 10 cents, and sometimes less. I paid $125,000 for a Tesla 6 years ago, realizing this world is facing an existential threat with climate change and global warming. It makes me very sad when entrepreneurs get in this and pump the prices up on EV charging to wipe out most if not all the extremely high MPG equivalent of a BEV. This gives the gasoline car crowd a talking point of truth. Around town, many BEVs can easily get more than 100 MPGe, while most gas cars struggle to get 20 MPG in stop and go traffic.

 

[ucmndd]

A KWH at home is 10 cents. Why should it be 43 cents at a charging station, or even 31 cents if you are a member, and what does that cost?

I told you what it costs. $4/mo.

It’s more expensive at a charging station because providing a commercial roadside service capable of delivering DC electricity to your car at power levels in the hundreds of kilowatts has next to nothing in common with a 10kw circuit at your home that can charge your car in 8-12 hours.

To use an analogy, think about municipal water service. Your home probably has a 1” or 1.25” main from the water company, based on your usage and expected demand. Then you probably have a ready to serve fee associated with the size of your pipe, assessed before even a single gallon flows through it, because providing that infrastructure costs money.

Now, call your water company and ask what it would cost for a 2” or 4” main because you want to be able to fill your pool and 12 of your neighbor’s pools in 1 hour instead of 12. Really, go call them. I’ll wait.

To sum it up, your comparison is naive. It basically suggests that the only cost involved in providing a network of fast DC charging stations strategically spread throughout the country is the wholesale cost of electricity. Clutching your pearls over the cost difference between that and the plug in your garage is completely ignoring the reality of the world you live in.

 

[jjrandorin]

(personal opinions only)

Its already been pointed out (and this OP is conveniently ignoring it) but why is the OP comparing a toyota econobox (corolla) to a model S? It would be "closer" but still no where near equivalent to compare a toyota corolla to a model 3 SR (not the + version, the one that isnt sold any longer).

We might as well turn it around and compare the model S to a Ford F 350 truck, the comparison is just as silly.

Then, the OP repeatedly states they have a cost of 10c a kWh at home, but talk about road tripping costs as if thats the majority of the cost (the ICE vehicle argument of "if I am on a road trip" as if they road trip all day, every day.

The OP doesnt even use tesla kWh charges, but electrify america ones which isnt relevant in relation to model S charging. Premium unleaded is $4.50 a gallon here where I live right now (today, June 25th 2021). Regular unleaded is over $4 a gallon.

Everything about the OPs argument Seems designed just to "get conversation going". As @ucmndd said, "if you are going to use the numbers, at least use them honestly". Otherwise it just ends up looking like either "misinformation" at best, or trolling at worst.

 

[SO16]

My gas friends, I hate to say, were right.

For road trips. Sure. But if they are gloating over that, they are being ridiculous. Most charging by far is done at home for most EV owners. It isn’t like they can get cheaper gas when they are home vs a trip.

 

[cduzz]

Let's compare:

A 2002 Audi Allroad in Hawaii vs a model S powered with solar power; which goes further for $43?

Please find a road trip on a better route planner where your only options are to fill up with Electrify America.

I consider Electrify America to be a bad faith effort to provide DC Fast charging. They shut down randomly, are in terrible locations, are exorbitantly expensive, and have a terrible user interface.

Nonsense like this just adds bad faith on top of bad faith.

I could probably find a terrible L2 charger that would cost me $300 to fill my S, that doesn't mean I'd use that as my benchmark cost basis, in the same way I wouldn't compare a Geo Metro to a model S for fuel efficiency.

Meh

 

[ElectricIAC]

In 2015, when I bought my Tesla Model S, critics with gas cars told me that no matter the 5 to 6 times higher efficiency of EV's, that the charging stations would just charge more for electricity, and we wouldn't benefit from the higher efficiency of EV's. They would take advantage, and we would pay the same per mile as if we had a gas car.

Were they right? Electrify America charges 43 cents per KWH. A 100KWH Tesla costs $43.00 for 100 KWH.

So, which goes further on $43 worth of fuel? An EV or a car with an internal combustion engine?

(Example: Comparing a highway trip where we need to buy from a charging station: A Toyota Corolla does 40 MPG highway, and $43 today would buy 17 gallons of fuel in my town, so 40 times 17 is 680 miles. The Long Range Tesla Model S goes 412 miles on 100KWH for $43.)

Not a fair comparison.

I'd say an MS is closer to an E class, 5 series or A6 with the mid-high power engines. So figure 22-28mpg highway on premium is much more on par.
If you are using EA regularly, You really should be subscribing to the Plus pass which brings the rate down to $.31/kWh or 12c/min based on the Setec CCS adapter max amperage rate.

 

[SageBrush]

The disparity is that 43 cents per KWH is 4.3 times higher than the 10 cents per KWH that I pay at home to charge.

Supercharging is much more expensive to the vendor than destination charging. What does this have to do with your OP ? Were you asking for help with arithmetic, or was it a gambit to complain about Supercharging cost ? If the latter, read up on cost of installation of a Supercharger and utility demand charges.

What business buys a product for 10 cents and sells for 43 cents - 4.3X higher? That's would be a 330% markup.

Very common, but in this case you are comparing Apples to Aliens because the volumetric charges are a small part of the total vendor cost. You may as well rant about the cost of bottled water being so much more than free.

This high price does not promote the use of EV's, and negates completely the fuel efficiency of an EV relative to price. Gas or electric, the price per mile is about the same.

The fuel price argument is a ymmv. It works out well for people who have and use cheap destination (L2) charging for most of their miles. E.g., in my case about 85% of my miles are charged at home and when my PV array is up and running those home miles will cost about 0.4¢ a mile. Yes, your read that right.

How much does Electrify America pay for a KWH?

Wrong question. How much does EA pay to provide service ?

 

[SageBrush]

It makes me very sad when entrepreneurs get in this and pump the prices up on EV charging to wipe out most if not all the extremely high MPG equivalent of a BEV.

You are convinced that DC fast charging is 'price gouging' because you do not understand the cost of 250 kW service.

 

[ElectricIAC]

There's much worse DCFC networks/hosts to charge at than EA. We ran into a few chargepoint sites in CO that had a parking charge added to the rate.

 

[houstonian]

...and we would pay the same per mile as if we had a gas car.

I would agree, but only up to a point. You want to focus on the idea of "efficiency" beyond just the driving metrics.

Living in TX my home charge uses a TOU plan where the juice is free from 8pm → 5am. Guess when I charge. Yup. 8pm → 5am. Cost: $0.00. Hard to beat that efficiency. Here's a graph of my recent energy usage this past week or so:

Now I should also note I'm about to head out on a road trip after just getting back from a 5k mile road trip. Setting aside the fact I'm grandfathered into FUSC, I can share the following stats from that:

5,046 of miles driven and ~1.47mw consumed. Of the 1.47mw, .42mw came 'free' due to destination charges at hotels, restaurants, etc. while the remaining 1.05mw came from direct DC charging [read: supercharging].

An efficiency inherent to an EV is the ability to charge at the destination - assuming the hotel/restaurant/whatever - has installed the equipment. In my travel locating a lodging provider with such accommodations did not present a problem and a quick review of plugshare will confirm this to even the most ardent ICE skeptics. To use the example provided in @jerry505 post of $0.43/kwh, my total billed for DC → DC charging ~5k of driving would be ~$450 or about $0.09 as the energy added at the destinations chargers for free would be excluded.

Google provides the following data on a Corolla:

...note the estimated $2.39 average fuel cost per 25 miles → ~$0.095/mile.

Again ignoring the size differences between a Model S and a Corolla, I will note in my recent 5k mile road trip my average cost would have been (assuming the $0.43/kw rate in the OP) $0.09/mile which is less than Google's estimate of $0.095/mile for a Corolla. Granted this is made possible by free destination charging at hotels/restaurants but I see this as another dimension of 'efficiency' which I fear critics of EV often overlook.

 

[Rocky_H]

did not present a problem and a quick review of plugshare will confirm this to even the most ardent ICE skeptics.

You may not have been seeing the very ardent skeptics I have been seeing.