Gas Prices Cheaper than Electricity Prices?

Electricity here is 5 cents off-peak, and I have permission to charge for free at work.
Gas isn't ever going to be that cheap.

However (comma!) I'll have to continue to drive my 06 SUV for a while longer.
My current car note is $0.00 a month, insurance and tags are almost nothing and I have a < 3 mile commute so I'm going to have to wait for the new Volt or Prius for a while.

 

sounds like you know your way around these engines and I absolutely don't
But
from where I'm sitting - what's the extra cost ? Since using 3 gallons on a trip in August I've used just 1/2 gallon to go 4,000 miles.
Maybe I'll need a fill-up in a year maybe not. Guess I'm thinking its a small price to pay...

edit : looks like 20 cents extra so $2 a year for me - at most

 

Yep.

OTOH, it is equally silly to only talk about fuel costs and ignore e.g. car purchase costs.

 

Now that the octane question isn't cleared up how about leaving all the same gas in your tank for over a year. Toyota recommends adding gas at least every 6 months. Of course going that long in a PiP without using a tank of gas is fairly uncommon.

 

Looking at VoltStats there are owners who are clearly on their first tank of gas after 4-5 years
PlugInOne has 65,000 miles on 4 gallons.

having said that it appears I would have to add some gas after a year - similar to the PiP requiring 50% be added after 6 mos
Found this on the Chevy Volt site :

" Q. Will old gas sitting in the tank damage my vehicle? I do not drive too far and I plan on using very little gasoline.

A. Part of the allure of Volt is the ability to drive gas-free and tailpipe-emissions-free. However, that means the gasoline in the tank might sit there for an extended period of time but with a couple of automatic processes that help make this worry-free.
First, the gasoline tank is pressured – this allows the gasoline to stay fresh longer. &nbsp;
Second, Volt actually monitors itself and automatically notifies you if it senses two conditions:
Automatic Engine Maintenance: Volt will alert you, as required, about every 6 weeks, to run the engine to keep it properly maintained and lubricated. Note: This occurs only if the engine has not been used for the last 6 weeks.

Automatic Fuel Maintenance: Volt will alert you that the engine will run to use up some of the older gasoline in the tank (over one year old). If the fuel in the tank is over 365 days old, Volt will also remind you to add some fresh gas (gas will stay good in Volt's unique pressurized tank for approximately 365 days). I guess if you’ve got that problem, it means you’ve managed to stay gas-free and tailpipe-emissions-free for a significantly long time. Good job! "

 

But there are incentives to purchase the vehicle and also to manufacture it.

 

91 octane gas after a year in a Volt would probably be only 87 octane at best. 10% Ethanol would not help as well.

 

In California, communities can form Community Choice Aggregators which become the default electric supplier. You pay PG&E (or SCE) for transmission, but buy the energy from the CCA.

Here in Marin, I feed my solar into Marin Clean Energy, which credits me monthly for excess kWh at exactly the same price I would pay if I were a net user, for each TOU period. Plus I get an extra penny per kWh for giving them green energy, and $4 for every month that I'm a net overall generator. If the balance gets large they can write me a check. PG&E still screws me on the transmission costs, but at least I'm not giving them free or cheap kWh any more.

So you can try to get Berkeley to reconsider joining a CCA. They considered it in 2010 but turned it down. MCE might have them - we serve Richmond and San Pablo now.

In response to the OP - utility rates can be counterintuitive. Putting up solar, you might think you'll cash in by generating high tier kWh in the summer peak period. Turns out it's hard to get into a high tier in summer, and a lot of the payoff comes from keeping you out of a high tier in winter off-peak. Go figure.

Then go put LED or CFL lamps in all those lights that burn long hours during winter nights.

 

do you know this to be true or is this conjecture ?
and if true - what do you think about adding say 93 octane - not filling from zip - adding when tank is half full or so

 

I don't own property anywhere. If I were installing solar, it would be for my parents in Torrance, which I suspect has none of these things you speak of (which sound great btw).

 

Funny you should mention that. Just last month, the Torrance City Council voted 6-1 to move ahead with an initial study of Community Choice Aggregation. Likely partner cities are Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach.

Utilities fight hard against CCAs, so local support is essential for these efforts to succeed. I urge you and/or your parents to communicate with the Council and its committee in support of a CCA.

More details here.

 

Well, it's happened folks.

I got a fill-up in gas the other day at $1.99 a gallon. From my nifty spreadsheet of calculations with that fill up the cost per mile was $0.048 while the cost per mile with electric was $0.0644 - gas trumped electric this time!

However, I do have solar so my average cost for electric was 0.0323 per mile but damn, if gas prices go even lower....I wonder if they'll hit $1.50 a gallon? Is that even possible. That'll definitely hurt plugins and maybe a little bit with hybrids in general.

However, I enjoy filling up my PiP at just $16 lol. I'm sure a regular gas guzzler would yield like $20 or $25 or so because of the larger gas tank,

 

I would not expect any octane degradation with time, as far as I know that is not a concern. If you are leaving fuel in a car for 1-yr I would at least try to use TopTierGas.com gas. May make sense to use some Stabil not sure.

I suppose it's possible for light ends butane to evaporate. So if you filled up on summer blend there would be less butane in there.

 

The price of crude is already rising. I'd enjoy the cheap dino fluid while it lasts. (Though I'd prefer we humans collectively burn less in the first place.)

 

Based on my own rough calculations, 12 miles (19 km) of EV power costs me 42 cents by plugging in. A liter of fuel here is around 77 cents (2.91/USG) right now. Since my average winter fuel economy is around 5L/100km, (45 USMPG), it takes about 0.95 liters of gasoline to travel those 12 miles, which costs 73 cents. Still cheaper to use electricity.

 

Yet you eschew charging your PiP. I'm confused.

 

Don't be confused; it's not often worth my while to go out of my way to plug in and save 35 cents. It's not like bending down to pick up a quarter.

 

The only way cheaper gas has affected my behavior is to make me slightly more likely to use heat for medium length trips.

 

Until now, you hadn't struck me at the type to self-inflict discomfort to achieve small gains in fuel economy.

 

Haha, true. But for pretty short trips the ICE doesn't even have much time to warm up anyway, so it's not really worth it to start the ICE just for a tiny bit of heat for the last minute of the trip.