When Will Electric Cars Become Mainstream?

[DougSpindler]

Do you pay a PG&E bill in San Francisco?  I don't think so.  Just look at PG&E's electrial rates.
https://www.pge.com/tariffs/electric.shtml  Specialy take a look a the TOU EV-A and EV-B rates and tell me how I'm not paying $0.45 kWhr?  Holly shit you are right, I was wrong.  PG&E raised rates.  It's not longer $0.85 kWhr it's on $0.862 kWhr. 

What the hell are you smoking? Picture below is directly from the spreadsheet in your link and shows the most current average rates to be either $0.13 or $0.23 per kWh.

And according to this database the average residential electricity price in San Francisco is $0.15/kWh.
And that same website shows that in the largest population center of California, Los Angeles, the average rate is only $0.13/kWh.

And BTW -any price sensitive EV owner would be charging their EV primarily during the lowest (off peak) rate hours.

Dude What the hell am smoking, why the hell don't you read and comprehend what it is you are posting?

Dude the rates you are averaging are for people who receive special pricing to power life saving medial equipment or because they are dirt poor and can't afford to the rates everyone else pays.

Not trying to be disreceptful, but jeeze dude get your facts stright.  We arn't talking about the small number of custoemrs who receive special rates, we have been disucssing the vast majority of cutomers who don't receive any discounts and pay the full rates.

Come on, get with it.

[mtdoc]

\We arn't talking about the small number of custoemrs who receive special rates, we have been disucssing the vast majority of cutomers who don't receive any discounts and pay the full rates.

I posted the spreadsheet you provided. It clearly shows the average rates for normal PGE customers (as well as the CARE rate) which is nothing close to what you have claimed. That is not only showing special rates and you are wrong to imply it does..

I've looked through multiple spreadsheets on the PGE site you posted now. Nowhere does it show anything close the the rates you claimed.

Are you purposely being deceitful?

[DougSpindler]

(Edit- Here's a website with June 2018 data. Prices have gone up some - USA ave is now $0.13/lkWh.  The point remains the same.)

FYI

In San Diego Calif during Mar 2018 (stayed under baseline - used 332 KW)  the electricity rate was $0.15406  which is near the chart BUT I paid $0.24446 KW after a half dozen add on charges.

But last month when I used the AC for 10 hours and went over baseline my total charge was $045 KW

So my rate is .24 to .45

Thanks for the data point.   Were the add on charges use dependent?

Base service charges are not relevant since they will be there regardless of whether you have an EV or not.

TOU charges of course are designed to charge more at times of heavy use - typically AC use hours. As I stated, any EV owner will avoid charging during those hours unless they don't care about price.
I know a couple of California EV owners who purposely set up their charging to only occur during the lowest rate hours.

Again you are so misinfored about Californa.  PG&E has 11 different residental rates.  One is tiered, and the others are TOU tiering or stright TOU without tiering.  Then there are rate plans which have Peak Days.  It is up to the custoemr to figure out which rate plan is the most cost effective.  There's a professor at Stanford who created a rate plan comparison tool.  It's wondeful.  It links to your PG&E account and calculates the amount you would pay for all of the PG&E rate plans and even includes calcuatations for folks who have PowerWalls/battery units.

Using the tool, we  compared our actual useage against the different rate plans.  Just by comparing rate plans and selecting the lowest cost one we save between $40 to $75 per month.  That's a 20 to 43% percent saving every month just be choosing the rate plan that's best for us.

 

[DougSpindler]

I posted the spreadsheet you provided. It clearly shows the average rates for PGE which is nothing close to what you have claimed. That is not only showing special rates.
Nowhere does it show anything close the the rates you claimed.

Are you purposely being deceitful?

No, you are.  Look at cells A4 and B4.  Any dummy can see these are the special rate plans that someone who is dying is on.  Yes the rest of us are dying to get on those rate plans but we aren't dying so we can't get on them.

Can we focus our discussin on the rate plans the vast majority of us pay, and not the special medial rate plans for customers who are dying? 

[mtdoc]

I posted the spreadsheet you provided. It clearly shows the average rates for PGE which is nothing close to what you have claimed. That is not only showing special rates.
Nowhere does it show anything close the the rates you claimed.

Are you purposely being deceitful?

No, you are.  Look at cells A4 and B4.  Any dummy can see these are the special rate plans that someone who is dying is on.  Yes the rest of us are dying to get on those rate plans but we aren't dying so we can't get on them.

Can we focus our discussin on the rate plans the vast majority of us pay, and not the special medial rate plans for customers who are dying?

Alright Doug.  Now I can not conclude anything other than your are a straight up dishonest troll.

That spreadsheet clearly shows that the average normal rate (row A) is $0.23/kWh not the $0.45 or $0.86/kWh you claimed.  Anyone can look for themselves.

You claimed you pay $0.45/kWh
You claimed somewhere in CA the rate is $0.86/hr

Both claims could be true but we simply don't know since you have provided no evidence of that.

It would not surprise me if some utility somewhere charges that much for high demand TOU hours.  It really is irrelevant though since anyone living in such an area would be silly to charge their EV during those hours.

What you have done is provide a link to the PGE website with their current average rates of either $0.13 (CARE qualifying customers)  or $0.23 per kWh (normal customers).

(BTW - the CARE program is not for people "who are dying" - it is for general low income households)

This is the same old pattern with you across multiple threads since you joined this forum.  Make claims without any evidence to support them, then change the subject  when presented with actual facts.

I've got to go clean my roof gutters now.  Feel free to post some actual verifiable data to support your claims. I'll have a look later.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

[...] it's probably closer to 4 miles/hr on a 1300W charge rate. Certainly the math would imply [...] 14.2 kWh/100km, call it 17 kWh after charging loss [...]

Nope, ^^^^ that's wrong, let's do the math:

1300[W]*1[h]/4[mile]/1.609344[km/mile] = 201.9 Wh/km = 20.2 kWh/100 km

You don't believe me (that's fair), you don't believe what Tesla says (in the second picture of my post), you don't believe what the car says (the picture of the dashboard), so please buy a "kill-a-watt" and see by yourself because "seeing is believing".

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

I've found this googling:



227[V]*13[A]*1[h]/12[km] = 245.9 Wh/km = 24.6 kWh/100 km.

[nctnico]

But do these prices include transportation / distribution costs and taxes? 7ct per kWh seems awfully low for an all inclusive price. Over here I pay around 7 eurocents per kWh but that excludes distribution costs and taxes.

Of course there will be some taxes - but they are trivially low compared to the kWh price in all cases I'm aware of.  For my current utility - they are $0.0058/kWh.

There will always be a usage independent basic service charge as well. (for me it's $29/month) - but of course that charge is irrelevant since it will be there even if I use no electricity.

I wouldn't call it irrelevant because it does add to the price per kWh number. No creative book keeping  . I'm still interested in what people actually pay per kWh. Electricity prices without taking all the costs (fixed and variable) into account are not usefull to make a good comparison between the actual costs. For my personal situation EV versus ICE is equal when it comes to costs per km if I had to choose between buying an EV or and efficient ICE car.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Just as George has cherry picked (or made up) a number. This seems to be a common theme with the anti-EV ers.  Cherry pick (or make up) a number to present a worse case comparison, meanwhile ignoring factual and more widely applicable data presented by others.

It's not a made up number, I know what I pay. And to present a worst case comparison I would have chosen the carrefour gazole not the Shell V-Power.

[mtdoc]

Just as George has cherry picked (or made up) a number. This seems to be a common theme with the anti-EV ers.  Cherry pick (or make up) a number to present a worse case comparison, meanwhile ignoring factual and more widely applicable data presented by others.

It's not a made up number, I know what I pay. And to present a worst case comparison I would have chosen the carrefour gazole not the V-Power.

OK - then cherry picked.  As pointed out by Boffin, average electricity rates in Poland are closer to 0.15 Euro/kWh, not 0.20. (for example see here) and overnight rates, when EVs would mostly be charged, are likely much less.

[mtdoc]

But do these prices include transportation / distribution costs and taxes? 7ct per kWh seems awfully low for an all inclusive price. Over here I pay around 7 eurocents per kWh but that excludes distribution costs and taxes.

Of course there will be some taxes - but they are trivially low compared to the kWh price in all cases I'm aware of.  For my current utility - they are $0.0058/kWh.

There will always be a usage independent basic service charge as well. (for me it's $29/month) - but of course that charge is irrelevant since it will be there even if I use no electricity.

I wouldn't call it irrelevant because it does add to the price per kWh number. No creative book keeping  . I'm still interested in what people actually pay per kWh. Electricity prices without taking all the costs (fixed and variable) into account are not usefull to make a good comparison between the actual costs. For my personal situation EV versus ICE is equal when it comes to costs per km if I had to choose between buying an EV or and efficient ICE car.

Please explain how a fixed electricity connection cost is relevant to evaluating the price to fuel an EV.  That charge would be there regardless of whether one owns an EV or not.

[DougSpindler]

I posted the spreadsheet you provided. It clearly shows the average rates for PGE which is nothing close to what you have claimed. That is not only showing special rates.
Nowhere does it show anything close the the rates you claimed.

Are you purposely being deceitful?

No, you are.  Look at cells A4 and B4.  Any dummy can see these are the special rate plans that someone who is dying is on.  Yes the rest of us are dying to get on those rate plans but we aren't dying so we can't get on them.

Can we focus our discussin on the rate plans the vast majority of us pay, and not the special medial rate plans for customers who are dying?

Alright Doug.  Now I can not conclude anything other than your are a straight up dishonest troll.

That spreadsheet clearly shows that the average normal rate (row A) is $0.23/kWh not the $0.45 or $0.86/kWh you claimed.  Anyone can look for themselves.

You claimed you pay $0.45/kWh
You claimed somewhere in CA the rate is $0.86/hr

Both claims could be true but we simply don't know since you have provided no evidence of that.

It would not surprise me if some utility somewhere charges that much for high demand TOU hours.  It really is irrelevant though since anyone living in such an area would be silly to charge their EV during those hours.

What you have done is provide a link to the PGE website with their current average rates of either $0.13 (CARE qualifying customers)  or $0.23 per kWh (normal customers).

(BTW - the CARE program is not for people "who are dying" - it is for general low income households)

This is the same old pattern with you across multiple threads since you joined this forum.  Make claims without any evidence to support them, then change the subject  when presented with actual facts.

I've got to go clean my roof gutters now.  Feel free to post some actual verifiable data to support your claims. I'll have a look later.

Never said $0.45 is the average.  Read what I wrote, $0.45 is what I pay.  Big difference from the average.   So what do you do if you need say drive to school to pick-up the kids but need to charge the battery when rates are at $0.45?  Leave the kids at school? 

Be real.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

OK - then cherry picked.  As pointed out by Boffin, average electricity rates in Poland are closer to 0.15 Euro/kWh, not 0.20. (for example see here) and overnight rates, when EVs would mostly be charged, are likely much less.

Yes, I cherry pick the price I pay, and you and boffin know my electricity bills better than I, lol. The fanboys broken logic FTW.

[nctnico]

But do these prices include transportation / distribution costs and taxes? 7ct per kWh seems awfully low for an all inclusive price. Over here I pay around 7 eurocents per kWh but that excludes distribution costs and taxes.

Of course there will be some taxes - but they are trivially low compared to the kWh price in all cases I'm aware of.  For my current utility - they are $0.0058/kWh.

There will always be a usage independent basic service charge as well. (for me it's $29/month) - but of course that charge is irrelevant since it will be there even if I use no electricity.

I wouldn't call it irrelevant because it does add to the price per kWh number. No creative book keeping  . I'm still interested in what people actually pay per kWh. Electricity prices without taking all the costs (fixed and variable) into account are not usefull to make a good comparison between the actual costs. For my personal situation EV versus ICE is equal when it comes to costs per km if I had to choose between buying an EV or and efficient ICE car.

Please explain how a fixed electricity connection cost is relevant to evaluating the price to fuel an EV.  That charge would be there regardless of whether one owns an EV or not.

That is the definition of creative book keeping. Some people would even argue electricity from their solar panels is free. 
Anyway, earlier you quoted using about 900kWh per month (10800kWh per year). If you drive an EV for 20k km per year that would add 5kWh per year. Total usage: 15800kWh / year. $29/month is $348 per year. So the fixed costs are 2.2 cents per kWh and thus add about half a cent per km of cost to driving the EV. With the numbers being really close that half cent can make the difference between an EV being cheaper or more expensive compared to an ICE based car.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

Please explain how a fixed electricity connection cost is relevant to evaluating the price to fuel an EV.  That charge would be there regardless of whether one owns an EV or not.

The bill has the form (a+b+c*kWh+d*kWh)*vat

a and b depend on your maximum allowed power. And c and d on the energy consumed, the more the bigger they become. I think it's the same in doug's spreadsheet: see the different energy charge baseline % columns.

If you own an EV (or two!), it's very likely that a and b will become more expensive because you'll need more power, and the kWh/month figures will also grow => bigger c and d too.

[boffin]

Still I'm not sure the numbers quoted for the Tesla are right. AFAIK the Tesla needs about 250Wh per km from the 'socket on the wall'. With $0.45 per kWh that brings the cost to $0,11 per km. With $3.95 per gallon and an mileage of (let's stay conservative) 35MPG = 56kmPG you get a cost of $0.07 per km. With an efficient ICE car in the 45MPG range the fuel costs go down to little over $0.05 per km.

There sure is a large variation in the cost electricity and gas around the world.  Even if the guy’s math is +/- 10% or even 20% he’s showing the energy cost for an EV and ICE are comparable.  And if electricity coasts continue to rise faster than gas, electric cars will be more expensive to power.  Now to be fair he’s not factoring on oil changes.  But then again for the past 20 years I change the oil in my cars about once every 2 years or every 20,000 miles.  So, for my figures add in another $20 per year on the ICE for oil changes.

Yet more cherry-picked numbers?  You find me a car with a 20,000 mile oil change interval (most are 10,000 mile, maybe 15,000), and I'll show you a car which takes full synthentic oil.  $20 wouldn't even buy the oil for an oil-change, which typically runs around $30+/5 qt.

[boffin]

...This is a cherry picked number. Just as George has cherry picked (or made up) a number. This seems to be a common theme with the anti-EV ers.  Cherry pick (or make up) a number to present a worse case comparison, meanwhile ignoring factual and more widely applicable data presented by others.

They love cherry-picking numbers. 

They'll try and compare a Tesla Model 3 with a Fiat Panda, and claim they're equivalent.  I've had one of them in this thread say that comparing a VW Electric Golf to a VW Gasoline Golf isn't a reasonable comparison.   

[mtdoc]

Never said $0.45 is the average.   

  I never said you did. You're being dishonest again.  You've yet to tell us which city you live in to check your rates and you did post a link to PGEs website that directly contradicts what you claimed it said.

So what do you do if you need say drive to school to pick-up the kids but need to charge the battery when rates are at $0.45?  Leave the kids at school? 

Be smart and charge overnight when rates are low. Most EVs and most peoples driving habits will mean that is what usually would happen. There will always be edge cases but it is disingenuous to cite those in this context. Just as it would be disingenuous to use the biggest gas guzzling SUVs as a point of comparison.

Since you brought up driving kids to school here's a real world Apples to Apples comparison:  My wife drives a Chrysler Pacifica PHEV with an approximately 33 mile all electric range. She can go to work (or drop kids at school) and back twice without any charging.  (and where we live our grid electricity costs $0.073/kWh regardless of time of day).  The exact same ICE only minivan gets EPA estimated 19 MPG for city driving. The cost of 2 round trips (approx 30 miles) would be about $4.50 using the cheapest gas available here.  For that amount we could fully charge the 16 kWh battery 3.85 times giving a range of 127 miles.

Be real

  Be honest.

BTW - Here's a link to my utilties rates for verification.  Still waiting for verification of yours....

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

[...] Just as it would be disingenuous to use the biggest gas guzzling SUVs as a point of comparison. [...] The exact same ICE only minivan gets EPA estimated 19 MPG for city driving. [...]

19 MPG isn't a gas guzzler? GOD BLESS THE USA LOL

[mtdoc]

[...] Just as it would be disingenuous to use the biggest gas guzzling SUVs as a point of comparison. [...] The exact same ICE only minivan gets EPA estimated 19 MPG for city driving. [...]

19 MPG isn't a gas guzzler? GOD BLESS THE USA LOL

Why dishonestly truncate your quote?    I gave an Apples to Apples comparison - the exact same car -  ICE only vs PHEV.  (A minivan used to shuttle kids to school as per Doug's example). I was not comparing a gas guzzler to a small EV - which would have better miles/kWh.

BTW gas guzzling SUVs get < 15 MPG !

[mtdoc]

...This is a cherry picked number. Just as George has cherry picked (or made up) a number. This seems to be a common theme with the anti-EV ers.  Cherry pick (or make up) a number to present a worse case comparison, meanwhile ignoring factual and more widely applicable data presented by others.

They love cherry-picking numbers. 

They'll try and compare a Tesla Model 3 with a Fiat Panda, and claim they're equivalent.  I've had one of them in this thread say that comparing a VW Electric Golf to a VW Gasoline Golf isn't a reasonable comparison.

Yes. It's remarkable that they think others can't see their transparent bullshit.

[nctnico]

...This is a cherry picked number. Just as George has cherry picked (or made up) a number. This seems to be a common theme with the anti-EV ers.  Cherry pick (or make up) a number to present a worse case comparison, meanwhile ignoring factual and more widely applicable data presented by others.

They love cherry-picking numbers. 

They'll try and compare a Tesla Model 3 with a Fiat Panda, and claim they're equivalent.  I've had one of them in this thread say that comparing a VW Electric Golf to a VW Gasoline Golf isn't a reasonable comparison.

Yes. It's remarkable that they think others can't see their transparent bullshit.

I'm seeing some great imagination here. I don't recall anyone comparing a Tesla model 3 with a Fiat Panda  .

[splin]

4.7 mpkWh is 213 Wh per mile, scaled for input power is 265 Wh per mile.

Sounds reasonable - I've seen figures of 250 to 300Wh/mile, but don't forget that winter heating and hot summer A/C (ie. this year in the UK!) will increase these so average annual comnsumption may be a bit higher (quite a bit higher in colder climes than the UK). Of course ICE are slightly less efficient when it's cold but there is no need for any extra cabin heating power. A/C obviously requires more fuel.

That gives me £0.039 per mile. We can argue endlessly as to whether we should include the battery lease as a per mile charge (as Renault bill it) or add it to the purchase price, but if we do add it in then we get to £0.119 per mile.

The battery clearly has to be paid for, either directly in the battery lease cost or indirectly by paying into a fund for its eventual replacement or through the vehicle depreciation which is high for EVs for that reason (amongst others including significantly improved models being, or likely to be, released).

The Renault £.08/mile cost may be reasonable but as far as I know no replacement batteries are available for sale from the manufacturers (in the UK) so we have to guess at the eventual costbut I'd guess that anywhere between £.05 and £.08/mile are realistic costs. This is more than the electricity cost yet rarely gets mentioned when comparing running costs with ICEs.

The car it replaced was a 2010 Chevrolet Spark. Real-world we got around 320 miles to a tank with perhaps 5 L left in the 35 L tank, I pretty much always put 30 L in anyway. My local petrol stations are currently around £1.35 /L for unleaded so those 30 L would cost £40.50, so £0.127 per mile. The Zoe just about breaks even if you include the battery lease.

Again I'd agree that this is a reasonable conclusion - similar costs for EVs and ICEs. I understand that insurance for EVs used to be higher but this may no longer be the case and the high depreciation (above battery cost) may make an EV more costly to run if you change your car every few years.

But the big factor that gets barely mentioned is that EVs are heavily subsidised - not only because of government subsidy for the purchase price but also the lack of duty on the fuel. In the UK 61% of the retail price of petrol and diesel is tax compared to 5% for electricity. That can't remain the case when EVs get more popular (as the government can't afford the loss of so much revenue) so road pricing or similar will have to introduced at some point to ensure EV owners pay their fair share of maintaining the road network, emergency services etc.

That may change the balance somewhat but it could (very likely) be offset by higher charges on ICE vehicles to encourage switching to EVs. I'm not convinced they can go very on this route as doing so may be politically difficult because many people, especially the poorer, won't have the choice to switch to an EV for various reasons including lack of home recharging facilities. The UK government has been forced to cancel the fuel duty rises it had planned for many years now because they were profoundly unpopular and may have lost office for the government of the day at the next election.

I think the mass adoption of EVs will take a lot longer than may expect or wish for - unless there is more radical changes in the battery technology and/or cost than currently predicted.

[nctnico]

But the big factor that gets barely mentioned is that EVs are heavily subsidised - not only because of government subsidy for the purchase price but also the lack of duty on the fuel. In the UK 61% of the retail price of petrol and diesel is tax compared to 5% for electricity. That can't remain the case when EVs get more popular (as the government can't afford the loss of so much revenue) so road pricing or similar will have to introduced at some point to ensure EV owners pay their fair share of maintaining the road network, emergency services etc.

That may change the balance somewhat but it could (very likely) be offset by higher charges on ICE vehicles to encourage switching to EVs. I'm not convinced they can go very on this route as doing so may be politically difficult because many people, especially the poorer, won't have the choice to switch to an EV for various reasons including lack of home recharging facilities.

In the NL they have tried to raise the prices for owning and using cars for decades in order to get more people to use the public transport. It hasn't worked at all and the only thing it achieved is increase the cost of labour. After all people have to go to work and if the car costs more then the people need to earn more (inflation). You also make a very good point about taxes on fuel. If the majority of the cars are electric then the income from those taxes need to be obtained somehow.

In the last few messages we have concentrated on comparing prices but if the fuel taxes are factored into the usage costs of an EV then the EV will be even more expensive for me to run (besides the higher cost of purchase and larger write off).

[jh15]

I should start a thread "when will luxury/performance ev cars become mainstream?"

As an owner of a cheap Tesla S. never noticed a dent in our bill. The car has almost 300 miles range each morning off 120v x 2 outlets. about 10 mph charge rate. No tiers or timing in Maine yet. The new smart meter on outside wall behind my couch is ready I'm sure. (Ouch!! getting headaches from it. My milk is souring, and my cat is pregnant, even though HE has been fixed.

Took a long time to immunize against the digital cell towers. My 1500 watt ham transmitter or tinfoil hat must have done that).

Anyway built in America, someone has to oil the robots, and  something like 90% of parts sourced here. Elon tried China, but was not cost worthy. Even though people buy $1100 crapapple chinesium phones.

My car cost 69000 on the window sticker, and we got a $7500 tax rebate, which we applied for upgrades last spring.

Big bummer is yesterday the drivers window rubber started screeching yesterday. Thought I was done needing to work on cars. Guess need to get out the 303 treatment. Or maybe wash the windows.

I'll post actual data but I think our average kwh/mile is about 225. And we kind of leadfoot it, so much safer than expecting a transmission to downshift or be distracted by manual shifting.

I hate not having a spare tire. guess luxury car owners want to have AAA or a butler do it. Could throw one in the Frunk.

Having a cheap one we did not get the air suspension. they give you a little settee stand then you just lift and separate.