I have been going down a rabbit hole of potentially buy an EV and it’s been astonishing to me, especially living in California, how unattractive it is to buy an EV.
I will give you a few reasons why:
-I have to upgrade my electric panel to support charging -I have to switch to an EV plan through PG&E, which increases my partial and peak kilowatt an hour here is the breakdown of my summer rates (winter is lower by like 10 cents for both plans)
-
E-TOU-C (current plan)
- Peak (4-9 PM): 54 cents/kWh
- Off-Peak: 46 cents/kWh
- Lower rates for usage within Baseline Allowance.
-
EV2:
- Peak (4-9 PM): 59.068 cents/kWh
- Part-Peak (3-4 PM & 9-12 AM): 48.019 cents/kWh
- Off-Peak (All other hours): 27.818 cents/kWh
- Delivery Minimum Bill: $0.37612 per meter per day.
-I have to pay someone to install a wall charger. Got a quote for $1900
-I have to pay an additional $103 a year to register an EV in CA
-On top of all these fees I don’t even qualify for many incentives as as a household we make over 300k which is honestly nothing crazy for coastal California when you factor in living expenses.
With all of these additional upfront costs and insane electric prices how does California expect people to adopt EVs?
I really want to buy one but it seems like more of a statement play and potential car performance play then a smart economic choice.
I did a cost comparison between a used Tesla Model X, a new Ford F-150 Lightning, and a new Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid. Here’s a summary including assumptions and formulas used.
Assumptions:
- Prices: $70,000 for the Tesla Model X, $65,500 for the Ford F-150 Lightning (after rebate), $56,000 for the Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid.
- Annual miles driven: 13,500.
- Gas price: $5.73/gallon, Electricity price: $0.27/kWh.
- Toyota MPG: 31.
- EV maintenance costs are 60% of a gas vehicle’s maintenance.
Formulas:
- Annual Fuel/Electricity Cost:
(Miles Driven / Efficiency) * Price per Unit. - Total Cost (5 Years):
Purchase Price + (Operating Costs * 5). - Total Cost (10 Years):
Purchase Price + (Operating Costs * 10).
Results Over 5 Years:
- Tesla Model X: Approx. $77,797.
- Ford F-150 Lightning: Approx. $78,064.
- Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid: Approx. $73,665.
Results Over 10 Years:
- Tesla Model X: Approx. $85,082.
- Ford F-150 Lightning: Approx. $90,628.
- Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid: Approx. $85,141.
Conclusion: The Toyota Grand Highlander Hybrid is the most cost-effective over 5 years, while the Tesla Model X becomes more economical over 10 years due to lower operating costs.
The big unknown for me is I’m fairly confident the Toyota will be working well well beyond 10 years. We’re still yet to see how EVs and the batteries hold up over that period of time.
Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts. Coming back to the title if we feel the electric rates are at all time highs due to inflation then maybe the cost analysis is off however, I would assume gas would follow suit. I guess it depends at what percentage one would fall or increase over the next 10 years.
Instead of upgrading your breaker panel, look into using a ConnectDER. It allows you to tap the power at your meter BEFORE the panel. It sits between the meter and the building and has its own breaker. It’s pretty cool actually and has to be MUCH cheaper than a panel upgrade.
I would say to put solar panels on your house to hedge against increasing electric pricing… but Californias new net metering is pretty anti-solar too. Sorry it sucks so much there.
I have to pay someone to install a wall charger.
You don’t *have* to. There are more affordable solutions.
There’s also the ability to make the electricity for free on your roof.
All in all nothing here suggests not to buy the EV. Can’t imagine why people would still consider ICE, especially in California.
Solar isn’t free and only covers some part of the charging. This month I’ve been able to cover my charging needs with solar for a whopping 5%.
He is looking at a Model X or F-150 Lightning. The Model X you MIGHT be able to pull off on 120V outlet but no way the F-150 can make it.
Lightning takes half a kilowatt per mile. That’s from the EPA window sticker numbers.
Low-end you’re getting 1.3 kw. Let’s say you can charge for 100 hours. 45 hours for work/commute and then an additional 23 hours out of the house per week. (Or 50 work/commute and 18 additional) That’s 260 miles per week.
14,000 miles per year. So a hair short of what the average American drives per year.
I’d say “no way” puts it way too aggressively. I was using low end L1 charging. One can also find public L2 or DC fast charging to supplement your at home charging. Maybe your work place has charging. Maybe you work from home.
L1 charging is too often ragged on and I think this is another perfect example of folks down-playing L1 charging.
I feel like I’m one of the lone supporters of L1 on this sub but I can’t get to the place where I suggest someone with an EV that gets under 2.5kWh/mile to try and live off L1 unless they know they driver very few miles per year and have good DCFC charging nearby. I’ve had an e-Tron for a month with 110V SHARED between it and an i3 and have been fine but asking others to do that is a bit far for me.
First off why not add rooftop solar and storage then do peak shaving/arbitrage? Solar is way cheaper than your utility.
Second my assumption is oil will grow more in cost because it’s not fungible like electricity generation.
Going solar and installing new panel and EV charger can save some money if you bundle it. Electricity prices will keep going up and so will gas. In San Diego we have also the EV-TOU 5 which gives you 15 c/kWH during off peak. We made the plunge and switched to solar and batteries. If you take savings for electricity into account then this can make sense over the LONG run. Batteries can help with peak rates when electricity is insanely pricey.
You’re not doing an apples to apples analysis because the vehicle models are so different and have different prices. Split it into purchase price and running costs and you’ll find the EV is cheaper as long as you don’t pay too much initially.
Several other factors to consider. First CA is moving to an income based flat fee for electricity. What this means is that the per kWh cost is going to go down, probably by a significant amount. Look up ab205. This will swing things more to electricity.
Second gas is going to be subject to more and higher price spikes going forward. There is already a reluctance to build more infrastructure. In contrast increased solar is driving the wholesale price of electricity to zero during the day. Imagine you can charge at work for business rates. (Right now on sdge I can charge during the day at work for 20c kWh which is half residential price).
Third factor in the value of your time. How much is it worth to never have to go to a gas station. Or waste time on maintenance or repairs.
Next year, you can transfer the federal tax credit to the dealership up front at time of purchase so tax liability won’t matter. Not sure about income requirements on this next one, but there is a 30% tax rebate on the cost of the installation plus charger, and some car companies like Hyundai are offering free home charger and installation with a car purchase of Kona, Ioniq 5 or 6.
I’ll admit I didn’t read the entire post but I believe it will…
…depend where you live because of the state tax rates and fees.
…become more and more efficient to produce electricity.
…become less efficient to deliver gas as refineries continue to shut down and the distance to end user increases.
Roughly the same electricity rates as here in Switzerland. Been going up around 30% every year for 5 years now. Gas has been very high but stable. My prediction is that the oil producing nations will do everything to keep gas prices at current rates in order to delay EV proliferation. Within the next 10 years, EVs will be more expensive to run than gas vehicles, but the availability of the latter will continuously diminish.
Installed solar panels and a battery, the electricity is basically free. The offset puts me at a 10-15 year payback period, after that it’s paying me.
A lot more people will do this, a lot of properties will do this, electricity is now as expensive as it will ever get.
If can put up solar, electricity could be free or near free for your EV.
My wife and I, located in Poland, did a 9.5 kWp solar installation almost two years ago. It cost around 42k PLN (~10.5k USD), though we got back almost 18k PLN in tax breaks ($4400 USD). So it really wasn’t very expensive.
The cost of electricity here is currently at 0.7 PLN/kWh (~0.163 USD/kWh)… which doesn’t seem like much, but you have to remember that we earn like a quarter of the average salary in the US. So the electricity here isn’t considered particularly inexpensive.
We’ll have the solar panels paid off in about five years, give or take a year depending on whether electricity prices go up more, and a couple of other variables.
You’re not the only one. Despite the fact that I pay $0.091/kWh and gas is $5/gallon, the TCO calculation still said ICE for me. The higher purchase price of a similar Solterra over an Outback buys a lot of gas. I calculated the breakeven point as being about 11,000 miles per year, which is more than twice what I put on my car. At my 5k miles per year, it would take over 20 years to make up the difference. So I bought the Outback a few months ago. It is what it is.
1900 to install is crazy. I just installed one for a customer it took me 2 hours 700 bucks.
One issue is you live in California, my electricity rate in Cincinnati is .15 all day/night.
You’re talking a spread of less than $5000 between the costs of three vehicles, and when taking into account the value of infrastructure improvements to your house for the EVs probably within $3000.
Baked in are some very fuzzy assumptions, like that the EV will have 2/3 the maintenance costs of that gas and electric rates stay the same for 10 years.
Seems to me like the difference is well within the margin of error for those assumptions, and you should get whatever car you want.