I need to search the forums to see how much people in SoCal have paid for their EV meters. Thanks for the input everyone.
Looks like I did a terrible job explaining HV fuel economy increasing with EV use at slower speeds when mpg use is greatest with the ICE. But kudos to others for explaining it succinctly. Anyway, we're talking ~6 cents difference from your rate to my old rate for a full charge. If that is enough for you to calculate cheaper for electricity miles, we're talking ~$60 over 3 years. It's negligible if you think about the indirect environmental benefits of EV mode. I also forgot to mention traffic. I am able to stretch EV range to 20+ miles sometimes. It isn't difficult when you're rolling along at <10 mph. The number of EV miles may be finite but your EV cost per mile can certainly go lower. I currently average 208 Watts per mile. That's $0.06032 per mile at $0.29 per kWh ignoring charging loss and taxes. At 55 mpg, that's like paying $3.32 per gallon gas. Add in charging loss and taxes and I'm nearing $4. This is why I switched to TOU rates. Turn off signatures in Tapatalk Tapatalk
I finally found some threads here on this same topic. I figured I wasn't the first person to notice this in Southern California. There are many variables to consider (a lot of unknowns) when calculating E to G. There are many "hidden" benefits to the PiP. One major that I just noticed is that I don't even have the car yet and I'm already scrutinizing my electricity usage (300Kwh in Tier 4 last month) and thinking about ways to save. I would have never even looked at this stuff without PiP. I appreciate everyone's input on this. I'm not trying to be a pain in the nice person, I just want to understand and be informed. I want to make sure I use this car correctly and for what it was designed for. The HOV stickers don't hurt either.
For others that stumble across this thread. Go here for some good info: electric miles are more costly than gas miles??? | PriusChat
Yeah, we I got my first plug-in (volt), I started looking more seriously at my electrical usage. I did many home improvement things (insulation, lights, etc) and installed a programmable thermostat which helped reduce costs. Then this summer I replaced an aging a/c fan unit that was very inefficient. This greatly reduced my usage to the point that I basically running free EV (my bill is still lower).
I would guess the future would be an alternative-renewable energy (hopefully) and not oil, natural gas, coal, etc. How you use that energy (EV, H conversion, cells, etc) will go to what's most efficient at the time. I really don't have enough info to form an opinion. I do know we need something that won't eventually run out.
You'll never get "free" miles out of the car. What you can get is miles that would otherwise be wasted in another car. eg, a regular gas car without regenerative braking would lose all of its momentum/potential energy to heat when braking, and not recover any of it. A pip may be able to recover a little more than a regular prius if you go down a lot of bigger hills/mountains. That, together with using the more limited but more efficient electric propulsion/power source when the ICE propulsion is least efficient gets more out of the total energy than simply running the engine all the time.
To completely answer this question...it will be a small number. Not ZERO. Of course you can trick it a bit by driving up a hill in HV, switching to EV and going back down and then add to it more with the regen miles. But all the miles came from gas. But you wouldn't have been able to do this with a regular Prius. Very roughly, if you drop 5000' -7000' in elevation you can fully charge the battery, assuming you don't need to brake hard enough to use the friction brakes very much. The computer actually keeps track of how much you charge and uses this to adjust kwh hours used...so you may show some EV miles (from regen) you won't show any (or just a small value) for kwh in the EV ratio screen. I've actually seen it subtract out kwh after long downhill EV. Having both a PIP and 2010 there will be times that you get a mile or two of EV saved up just from regular driving around...long gentle downhills on freeways, hills in SF, etc. When you turn off the car and turn it back on it will automatically default to EV mode and use these before it ever turns on the ICE. Nice, but not going to save you any real money compared to lowering your home electric usage (CFL or LED lights, insulation, energy star appliances, unplugging stuff, etc) and plugging in at home. Mike
Thanks Mike, That's definitely the conclusion I came to. I'm nitpicking the car when I should be nitpicking the house!
I don't hope he is right. We have a ready made infrastructure for EV's and are getting better by the day at using renewable energy (solar and wind). No point in making a whole new infrastructure.