132
Research Firm Claims Most cars still cost more to charge than to fill up with gas
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
132 points (98.5% liked)
Technology
59392 readers
2520 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The whole article and the report, nowhere is it explained how they get their numbers. What fuel prices or electricity prices have they used, what mileage for the cars. It's kind of crucial info, and not really difficult to calculate either.
Yeah because the article is absolute bullshit. The bias was immediately evident.
Then why'd you post it? 😅
It's provocative. It gets the people going.
Is this your first day on social media? People post 1 + 1 = 3 and get a ton of angry corrections.
I think thats a little simple to say that it's only posted because it provocative. Cultural opinions shape policy and the future of public transport is important.
Because I saw the article on my newsfeed and clicked to see what it was about. I risked the impression I editorialized the headline by adding the “Research firm claims” but thought it might help readers here make up their own mind.
I think it's good to read and criticise the materials that "opponents" read.
I could give an easy estimate for the costs with napkin math. A quick gooble search says that a long-range EV might require up to 100 kWh of power to charge (high estimate) and where I live the electricity cost is about $0.11/kWh. That's $11 for a "fill up" of a long-range EV.
A tank of gas that could get me 300 miles is closer to $40.
$11 < $40.
I've got real world math that basically backs this up (you can find my other comment in this thread if you want all the juicy details): My honda accord got 22mpg and had a 17 gallon tank, and gas here is $3.87. $66 to fill up and drive 374 miles = 17.6 cents per mile. My Model 3 Long Range has 77kWh usable and gets about 3.7 miles per kwh, my electricity is 15 cents per kwh (until i get solar next year), so $11.55 to fill up and drive 285 miles (so 4 cents per mile).
Yes the accord got about 90 miles more range, but cost 3 times as much to fuel and that range only matters (to me) on road trips, and my range has yet to be an issue in my model 3.
In fact I'm going on a 6 hour drive next week and according to ABRP I'll only have to make one 10 minute stop halfway to charge in order to get to my hotel (where I can charge up for free)
Dang that's some poor mpg for a Honda unless it was a big engine Accord
Yeah it was the v6, I primarily drive at either 80mph or stop and go traffic, and I live in a super hilly area
I drive a V6 accord and this seems accurate.
I have the Acura equivalent with the same/similar motor ('07 3.5L) and it feels really low. I'm getting 27 combined mpg if I don't try to be efficient and 24ish if I'm constantly accelerating hard.
The report gives a quick summary of what they include, but not any details or math.
Elsewhere it says it assumes 12k miles in a year and is focused on the midwest and Michigan in particular. As it so happens, Michigan charges for registration based on the car value. EVs cost more than ICE vehicles in the same market segment most of the time. This would fall under excise taxes that they include.
I wouldn't be surprised if they also tacked on the cost to install a L2 charger once as "cost to operate a pump or charger" — intentionally ignoring that it's a one-time fee to support EVs at a home. With those two data points they could easily add >$1000 to the cost to "charge" an EV for one year if that is what they wanted to do.
The people making the report clearly picked criteria that sounds reasonable but also intentionally misleads people. Not a surprise.