Cost of Electricity in New York State

When you are talking about how much you electric bill costs due to having an EV it makes no sense to express fixed costs as cost/kWh.
When talking about how much your electricity costs, you certainly should include them.

An example. Say you use 100 kWh, your delivery charge is $5, and your electricity cost is 10 cents/kWh and your EV uses 100 kWh.
One month you use your EV, the next you don't at all.

If you fold your fixed delivery charge in, you would express your cost/kWh as .15$/kWh.
But if you are asked how much the EV adds to your electric bill the correct answer would be $10,
First month bill would be 25$, the next $15.

If you for in the fixed cost, what answer would you give?
((200 kWh * $0.10) + $5)/200 kWh? That would give an answer of 12.5 cents/kWh. Your EV used 100 kWh so that would be an additional cost of $12.50 which is incorrect.

 

Which is fine unless delivery charges are 100% variable and correlated with usage, which is the case on Long Island.

 

If I'm understanding Zhenya (and USB, for that matter) correctly, they would calculate thus for their EV on different months:

$20 fixed charge, +10 cents/ kWh variable charges

Example #1:
100 kWh total used: No EV
Bill: $30
Cost per kWh: 30 cents

Example #2
200 kWh total used: 100 kWh EV, 100 kWh other
Bill: $40
Cost per EV kWh: $40/200 kWh = 20 cents

Example #3
110 kWh total used: 10 kWh EV, 100 kWh other
Cost per EV kWh: $31/110 kWh = 28.2 cents

Same zhenya, same home, same EV. But as his EV miles fluctuate, so does his EV $/kWh.

 

Absolutely!
This is one of the factors that makes comparisons complicated. Some places have fixed delivery, others variable.

 

Potential EV customer: So, how much does a mile of EV fuel cost ?
Dealer: Let me put it this way: the more you use your toaster, the cheaper it is !

 

...and the faster your meter spins!

 

Dealer: sure ... but the EV *off-sets* your toaster cost use, because it gets cheaper!
------------

 

You use less gas on your toast...

 

That is the point. We can even make Ex 2b where his charging time is different and so would the rate.

Elecyricity cost will flatuate on daily basis, so is the gas prices.

 

That's true, but it is dependent on your specific phrasing. That extra 2.5 cents is the cost of having the electric infrastructure that allows you to charge the vehicle at all. You want to assign all that cost to the legacy devices you already had; I'm arguing that it should be spread out among ALL your electric devices, regardless of whether they are old or new.

I understand where you guys are coming from, but it just seems to me like a convenient accounting trick to make the price seem as appealing as possible. EV's are new 'appliances' attached to our existing electric infrastructure, that is true, but at what point do you draw the line? In calculating the cost of your electric, at some point you have to include the fixed costs. Choosing the assign it to only the legacy devices and excluding a new one strikes me as a sleight of hand.

 

I think the light bulbs should take the fixed cost as fridge and microwave came later.

 

I don't think you do understand where I am coming from.
I am not suggesting we ignore the fixed costs at all. I am suggesting you don't apply the fixed costs for any devices.

Take this example, you buy a new toaster and it draws 1kWh each month.
What is your additional cost per month for using it?

The fixed costs are paid weather you use the toaster or not. So why attribute any of the fixed costs to the increase in electric costs.

The bill without the toaster is X, the cost with is X + 1 kWh cost. Not X + 1 kWh cost + a fraction of the fixed cost.

 

The cost is its share of the infrastructure cost plus the actual electric use. You can distill your argument to the simplest hypothetical case where you have a single lightbulb as an electrical load. It uses 1kWh in a month so your cost is X+1kWh. You seem to be saying its cost is only 1kWh, ignoring X. Again, at what point do you attribute that cost of X if not to every device that uses the infrastructure?

I'll ask my previous question again, in a slightly different way. If you were selling electricity and had a fixed cost and an ongoing business, and you decided you would now start letting EV's charge on that existing infrastructure, would you only charge the 'new' EV users their additional straight electric cost? From my perspective certainly not, they'd be charged a rate based on my total cost just like everyone else. Just because they are new doesn't mean they get a free ride for a portion of the costs. It's easier to justify that they would when we are viewing it through the lens of our own individual use as opposed to that of a business owner.

 

You misunderstand my position.
I do not, as you say, "...want to assign all of that fixed cost to that single original load".

Your cost is the fixed cost plus all of the load.
The fixed cost, if it is truly fixed does not change if you add devices.

To answer your question...
If a user starts charging an EV on their existing system? The users I know of like that pay no additional fixed cost (including me).
I pay a basic charge to be hooked into the grid. When I added my EV I continued to pay the same basic charge. When I added my second EV I continued to pay the same basic charge.

If a supplier charges an additional fee for having a plugin vehicle, that definitely should be included in the EV costs.

 

Why do you not consider it as the cost of getting electricity from the grid?

 

I do consider the basic charge as part of the cost of getting electricity from the grid.
I don't consider it an incremental cost as I pay the same amount for the basic service charge of I use 10000 kWh or 0 kWh.

 

It is a flat fee prerequisite, not an incremental. Therefore, it needs to be spread for any kWh drawn afterward.

The more you use it, the lower the share of basic charge per kWh.

 

Unlike 100% variable delivery charges, 100% correlated with usage, which is the case on Long Island.

 

It is a useless number.
It gives no predictive calculation, does not allow you to see how your use going up or down would affect your bill.

It gives incorrect information if you are trying to answer the question of "how much does your bill go up due to an electric car?"

 

Bingo.

Two neighbors have the same car, and drive it exactly the same way -- say, 3 miles/kWh. I at least want them to report the same cost/kWh for EV use to the spreadsheet in this thread. I don't care how many EV miles a month each drives, or their non EV electric consumption.