When gas/diesel owners learn about EV operating costs

I'm not sure what that post meant. If you go with total cost of ownership, the high initial cost of the Tesla and BMW will overshadow the modest savings that would otherwise be enjoyed.

Since the Tesla model 3 std plus has a range of 240 miles, you had to charge along the way. The only way that I can get that $16.74 for your electricity costs is if you ignore the cost to charge the battery before the start of the trip. I'm seeing EVgo charging stations in your area at $0.30 per minute at 50 kw. To get the entire 96 kWh needed for the trip you would have needed to charge after the first 200 miles, and that should be at retail rates.

So what point was the post trying to make???

 

As with many threads dealing with the topic, cost per mile turns on where you live. But considering most drivers are in California, look what these poor slobs are having to pay right now;



It's part of the reason we got the heck out of the state last August. Our PV solar (8kW AC rated) covered the cost of BOTH of our plug-ins so driving around (& all the home's juice) was essentially free fuel because with these typical country/high gas prices, our PV amortized in 6 YEARS.
Home fuel refining is something you can't build in your garage utilizing fossil fuels.
Your personal situation & different states may have huge varying differences - so YMMV.
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Bob, I understand your love of M3. And I don't doubt your numbers for your situation, but please understand that it is not universally applicable, everywhere in the US for everyone in every situation. It has been pointed out in many threads of similar contents that "DO YOUR OWN MATH" is the only way to get the right answer. You said that yourself.

If I apply your rule on my case, even using the EPA number of fuel-saving based on the EPA pre-set values (15Kmiles annual drive, 45% Hyway drive, $3.61/gal gas cost, and $0.13/kWh electricity cost), then the difference in the annual cost for the fuel is $450 Tesla Standard Range Plus vs. $750 Prius Prime. That's a difference of $300/yr or $25/mo. I can't imagine $25/mo one month's car payment for any car, let alone for M3. For the life of the car ownership, say 15 years (which is a stretch for our salted road), that amounts to only $4,500 saving on the fuel cost compared to M3 and PP in 15 years. If a brand new M3 is available for $4500 more than PP... I am sure, no PP would be sold this year.

EPA fuel site is good in that it allows personalizing the underlying numbers. For my own situation, EPA's default settings 15Kmiles annual drive, 45% Hyway drive, $3.61/gal gas cost, and $0.13/kWh electricity cost are way off. My real driving situation and cost are more like... 8Kmiles annual drive (including longer ~600miles trips without available destination charge several times a year), 10% Hyway drive, $4/gal gas cost current as of 3/6/21 and highest price in more than 10 years), and $0.25/kWh electricity cost current as of 2022 (also the highest in the last 15+ years).

With those numbers, I get the estimated cost of fuel for the PP is $501 annually. Compare that to three BEVs. M3 $450/yr, Mach-E AWD $700/yr, and Leaf (short-range) $550, you see the true story. The only BEV that is price-wise comparable to PP after the incentives is a LEAF. And I will still have to pay MORE annually to operate it. If I go with my dream car Mach-E AWD, then I will be paying ~$6000 more upfront for the purchase (with $7500 tax cred) and paying $200/yr more for fuel. For M3, even if I can find one at MSRP $42K, which may not be possible now, without incentives, the upfront cost I have to pay for the purchase is ~$18K more than the new purchase of a PP LE at ~$24K after tax credit. To recoup that cost difference purely by the fuel cost saving of $51/yr, I would have to keep driving the M3 whooping 353 years over a PP.

 

I agree with the point of your post. Just wanted to say that your amount of highway miles is likely low. What is highway driving today is different than what it was when the EPA test cycle was developed. The top speed of the test is 60mph, with an average speed of 48.3mph. That is closer to what I see on main throughfares and country roads than what one would call a highway today.

With 23 stops in 31 minutes, the city test more represents a city's center. Maybe the tertiary and lesser roads of a town. The EPA's GREET model default city:highway mix is 43:57.

Most car displays now include an average speed for trips. A poster on Fuelly uses that falls between the tests' average speeds for determining their city:highway mix. City average is 21.2mph if anyone wants to try it.
Detailed Test Information

 

Really??? If you are spending many times more operational costs on a car than the initial capital cost to purchase it, then you must be living in a totally different economic world than I have been. I can't remember any new or new-ish used cars I have purchased that ended up with operational costs more than the initial capital expense. I may have owned one or two really cheap beat-up cars over 10 years old and very high mileage, and ended up spending more to repair it. But at least for the fuel cost alone, I can't think of any car that ongoing cost of gas was more than what I spent on the car initially.

I don't have the record of the pure gasser cars I have owned prior to 2011, but for hybrids, I drove 2008 HCH the longest. 83 months 83073 miles to be exact. The car was purchased used 3 years old at $16727 and was totaled at the end of commission with no value left. The lifetime mpg was 43mpg, the average gas price at the time of operation was $2.84/gal. The total gas I purchased was 1930gal or a total of $5482 which is only 33% of the initial purchasing cost.

The table below is the cost analysis of my last 6 cars including 2 currently owned. The cost/mile column is the TOTAL cost to own and operate the car which includes the initial purchase price minus price sold (if sold) and added cost of fuel, maintenance, repair, accessories purchased, insurance, tax, registration fees. As you can see for all the cars, the gas cost under Gas (HV) $/mile is a tiny fraction of the total cost which the initial capital expense and depreciation are the major portion of it.



Similar to your analogy of PC vs Mac, I can compare the cost-saving of my coffee drinking habit. Although I have to say, your example of PC vs Mac is not fair for it is like comparing many different PC vs a single model of Mac, akin to the comparison between Android vs iPhone debate, but that is a totally different topic. So I will let it go.

Back to cost saving on coffee. I am a coffee lover ever since I was in college. Back when I started working in the city, with the boom of 2nd wave coffee shops starting to open in the region, I use to spend ~$5 a day on a cup or two of coffee or espresso ($1.50-$3 /cup) served in local cafes on my way to work or at lunchtime. I was spending close to $2K/yr on coffee. When I realized how wasteful that was, I stopped going to a cafe, but still wanted to have a good coffee. A cup of Folgers in a cheap automatic drip coffee machine was not going to cut it.

I started brewing my own coffee at home and sourced locally roasted specialty coffee beans. The roasted coffee bean was around $10/lb at the local roaster at that time, which is now around $15/lb, but there were plenty of good micro-roasters in the area we use to live. However, finding good roasted coffee beans of my liking became difficult when we moved out of the city. The online order was not as prevalent back then, and local grocery stores' packaged specialty coffee was just never tasted good enough. That's when I started roasting my own coffee. Green unroasted coffee beans are about half the price of roasted packaged whole coffee beans. The good thing is that, unlike roasted coffee, green coffee beans are stable and store very well up to a year or sometimes longer, so buying in a bulk would save more on shipping costs. But the home roasting equipment can be expensive. Some semi-professional level model will cost thousands of $$$. Similarly, I had taste for a good shot of espresso, but in order to replicate the full flavor profile of a shot pulled by a professional barista on a commercial espresso machine, I would have to invest $$$ on expensive burr grinder and home espresso machine.

In the end, to save the cost and still have decent-tasting espresso, I went with not-so-expensive options of the roaster ($179 Nesco Coffee Roaster), grinder ($200 Baratza Preciso), an espresso machine ($100 Delonghi EC155), and a few other budget-priced coffee brewing equipments such as $30 AeroPress or $10 plastic Hario V60 dripper. I think the total capital expenditure on my coffee equipment is around $500 total. No, my setup does not pull the greatest shot I have had at the 9 Bar Cafe, but it does a darn good job and I am saving tons because I did not spend thousands of $$$ on equipments. I actually kept a record of all the coffees and equipments I purchased in the last ~15 years. According to my record, the calculated cost of my cup or a shot of coffee/expresso comes out to be $0.42/cup or shot. If I had spent $1300 on the Hottop roaster, $1200 on the niche zero espresso grinder, and $1500 on Rancilio Silvia full automatic espresso machine, I am sure I can get a superb shot of espresso at home. But the cost per shot would jump to $0.95/shot. The point is, to save the overall cost, you have to cut costs not only on the ongoing operational cost but also on the initial capital expenses. The car is the same way. If a BEV cost twice as much, I am not going to see much of the benefit of cost-saving efficiency even if the ongoing operating cost is less.

 

Thank you for the explanation of the EPA's definition of highway driving vs city driving. I was assuming the "highway drive" to be meant a speed over 60mph which is rare for me to drive that way. I thought only ~10% of the total distance would fall in that category. On the other hand, I almost never drive in the "stop-and-go" traffic the EPA asked in the personalized calculation. My drive is over 90% rural road, going an average of 30-40mph with no stop-and-go. The rest of 10% is on the interstate highway going over 65mph. or on the state highway going over 50mph again with no stop-and-go. I would say less than 1% of my driving distance is true "stop-and-go" traffic of a large city traffic situation.

With that information, I personalized M3 vs my 2021 PP annual fuel cost comparison again. With 0% city driving, 100 % highway driving, and my pattern of usual driving 36miles 2 days/week 52weeks two charges a day, 60miles 41 days 1 charge, and 600 miles 3 days no charges.

I get an annual fuel cost of $577 for my PP (at current $4/gal gas and $0.25/kWh electricity). A $76 increase from the last calculation with only 10% highway drive assumption. But M3 annual cost has also increased from $450 to $500. Thus the overall difference is an annualized saving of $77 with M3 at the current rate. Yeah, I only have to keep driving the M3 234 years instead of previously calculated 353 years over a PP. Still, no way to recoup that initial purchase price difference of ~$18K purely by the fuel cost saving of $77/yr even at today's very high gas price.

 

Salamander_King:

You are probably aware but on the http://www.fueleconomy.gov site where you compare fuel cost at the bottom of the page there is a further calculator to add the element of 'Purchase Cost' for the vehicles into the calculations. I did this for the fun of it and the 2022 Prius Prime came out as saving $10,515 over 10 years as compared to a 2022 Tesla Model S when purchase cost were added.

For my variables is used 10,000 miles a year with 75% of the prime driving on its electric power.

I think they are both great cars - just different tools to fit different situations

 

Thanks for mentioning this. I was aware of the link, but I never played with it. I did not know the app had the ability to add the purchase price and even the estimated financing cost of the car in comparison analyses.

Yeah, for a PP owner especially someone like me who purchased the PP with a huge discount and incentives, there is just no other car that can be more economical. FYI, I purchased my 2021 PP with almost $12K off the MSRP ($5.5K cashback, $1K state incentive, $1K dealer discount, $4.5K tax credit). I just used the calculator you mentioned, using $24K for the PP price and $42K for the M3 price with my current driving conditions:

• 8,000 miles annual driving
• plan to keep the car 10 years
• drive my PP on EV mode 70% of miles on electricity

With the above condition

• at the current rate of $0.25/kWh electricity and $4.00/gal gas
  • The total cost of PP in 10 years is $29,730 vs the M3 $47,070.
• at a hypothetical rate of extremely cheap $0.01/kWh for electricity, say I got free solar installed and all my electricity is generated by it. and the gas price shoot through the roof to $6.00/gal gas

• The total cost of PP in 10 years would be $26,870 vs the M3 $42,200.

As long as I am driving my PP 70% of the time on EV mode, there are not many BEVs that can be cheaper to own and operate even if the electricity is free and gas price is rocket high at $7/gal that some are predicting. That's why I am so ambivalent about switching to a BEV.
Expert warns drivers gas prices could reach $7 per gallon

Currently, the only BEV on the market that can replace my PP and save money is a LEAF S (base model) purchased with no option or no markup while taking a full tax credit and other incentives. But that means I will be downgrading from the quality and reliability of PP and betting on the future price of gasoline remaining as high as it is now or higher and the electricity rate is staying the same or going down. IMHO, that is very unlikely to happen.

As much as I want to switch my daily driver to a full BEV, it is not likely to be very cost-effective. If I do it, it will be out of my desire to eliminate gas engines on my daily driver or pay up a huge upfront cost to upgrade to the latest technology of some of newer BEVs such as Kia EV6, Mach-E, or bzX4 (or Solterra). Knowing that Toyota is running out of tax credit soon, I did put a refundable deposit down to reserve the purchase of the upcoming 2023 Subaru Solterra. The price has not been announced yet, but it will be ~$45 I suspect. Yep, even more, expensive than M3...

 

Speaking of gold, folks in Beverly Hills are having to Shell (pun coincidence) out a bit more gold;



Looks like shutting down the keystone pipeline & outsourcing our carbon to the Middle East & Russia is working out just great!

Watch .... folks will now pay outrageous premiums for plugins. History .... it's just like before - being held hostage to fuel.
Anywho ... for current plugin owners, our rides will be paying back quite a bit more quickly
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You forgot one.....
U.S. officials visit Venezuela for talks with Russia-aligned Maduro government - The Washington Post
U.S. Officials Meet With Regime in Venezuela, to Discuss Oil Exports to Replace Russia’s - WSJ

Why is it again that we cannot just get oil from those nasty old Canadians again?

Is it the fact that pipelines are so much more dangerous and less energy efficient than oil tankers, or do we just like making things harder than they have to be?

 

The US imported 8.6 million barrels of petroleum products a day back in December 2021. Which is about 800k more back when the US was a net exporter in 2020. About 1 million comes from OPEC, with 860k from the Persian Gulf. The rest is from non-OPEC countries. Of that, Russia was 405k, and that is down from nearly 800k in August. Canada was the only one supplying the US in the millions barrel range with 4.8 million.
U.S. Total Crude Oil and Products Imports
Oil imports and exports - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Keystone XL wasn't for bringing Canadian 'crude' to US markets, it was for making it cheaper for Transcanada to get it to other foreign markets. Even as a net exporter, the US's imports didn't change much. That's because getting some product from elsewhere is more efficient and cheaper than making everything we need from local petroleum.

If you really care about carbon emissions and Global Warming, the tar sands are one of the last 'petroleum' sources you want to tap.

Some of the Gulf Coast refineries were designed for Venezulea's heavy, sour crude. They are likely more efficient at refining it than what they are being fed now.

Fear and greed has more to do with US gasoline prices at the pump than where the crude comes from.

 

I drive a PHEV and most of my trips are in our EV range I rarely use gas but:

Doing the weekly grocery shopping today at our local Krogers I began to realize that my transportation cost are only a tiny element in the overall picture. Semi after Semi was pulling into Kroger to be unloaded and someone has to pay these truckers fuel cost and it is not going to be Krogers or the trucker it will be me and others who will ultimately get this cost passed down. We as consumers are about to get roasted on prices for goods and the transportation cost for these goods whether it be truck, railroad, plane or boat.

These increased cost are going to get passed on to the consumer in higher prices for goods. Even if you live on a farm and grow your own food you will feel the pinch unless you have plow horses.

Try to think of a commodity we use that isn't in some way affected by gas prices.

Just like taxes as an example, say the Government decides to tax companies like say Toyota or Tesla neither of these companies really pays higher taxes they just act as the middle man between the government and the consumer to funnel the increase to the government by raising the price of their product to accommodate the additional taxes, their profit margins stay the same - their customers will pay the increased tax. That's what the saying the government shouldn't pick winners or loser means.

Gas prices are the same way -we may have control over our personal transportation cost but it would be a very unusual family who isn't going to be affected in a very bad way by the higher gas prices, unfortunately even if we own a PHEV or BEV.

I will get off the soap box now and let the next person get on. Thank you for letting me get on it.

 

I personally do not care if gas goes to $8 a gallon, but I'd just as soon not buy it from the Rooskies, at least not while they are actively shooting civilians in a nation that they just invaded.

If major corporations are willing to take a hair-cut.....even a blatantly hypocritical one (looking at YOU Mickey Mouse!!!) then we should perhaps start thinking about fighting them a little at the pump.

I say this DESPITE the fact that it would save an administration that I find to be somewhat objectionable.

Think about it.....
It's the trifecta!!

1. They could restore American Energy Independence for only the second time since 1957 without having to admit that they made a mistake in 2021.

B. America's Number One concern right now is inflation.
Unless somebody invents time travel (put cats through FIRST) inflation is inevitable. WHY NOT unite America into accepting it as a part of preventing World War 3.

iii. Think of the potential new investment in renewables!!! AND you would not have to continue to pump money into rich people's welfare tax kick-backs!!
Like Tesla......let the market DO what they do BEST!!

Win-Win-Win!!!!

 

I'm starting to see why your numbers never make sense. You bought a car for $41,000, but gave Tesla $24,000 cash and a car that was worth around $27,000. That's equivalent to paying $51,000 for the Tesla. Then you chose $.12 per kWh for charging at home and ignored the higher rates from charges while traveling.

The final attempt to take a couple unrelated pot-shots at the Prius Prime was just sad.

The part that really applies... "Get the car that matches your requirements and move on." Good advice.