bidens incredible transition to electric cars

[tigerwillow1]

Running an electric car is twice as expensive as a petrol one

This is a typical media story with cherry-picked data and false headline. An honest headline would be "Fuel cost for an electric car could be twice as expensive as for a petrol car".

Yet it brings to light a couple of truths:

1) As with many corporation and government programs, it's a bait-and-switch with attractive introductory features eventually going away and leaving the consumer worse off. Will there be any "free" charging stations left in a few years? Plus, electric rates are trending up pretty much everywhere.

2) An EV owner who can't charge at home and obediently buys an EV without doing the research, will end up paying a lot more for the charging than if fueling an ICE vehicle.

 

[tigerwillow1]

Here's a decent sounding UK article about a long trip in an EV, a Ford Mustang Mach-e Premium RWD, cost £63,030.
I drove an electric car over 3,000 miles in three months. It tested my sanity

A quick summary: Claimed range is 372 miles, actual range 274 miles, need to plan charging every 200 miles to be safe. Many public chargers broken, working ones had waiting lines, and most didn't supply the claimed charging current to the car. Public chargers very expensive. He reports getting 2.8 miles per kWh. With 10 cents per kWh rates (pretty low these days) 200 miles would cost $7.14 for the 71.4 kWh. At $3/gallon gas, that would be the cost equivalent of about 84 mpg. So if you charge at home and have cheap electric rates, it's a winner, fuel cost wise. He implies that a typical public charger cost is 85 pence per kWh, or $1.13 per kWh. That makes the cost equivalent about 7.4 mpg.

The lesson is once again if you can charge at home with reasonable electric rates, it's a fuel cost winner. It looks to me like the breakeven point with $3/gallon gas is around 30 cents per kWh. With electric rates above that, or with public chargers, you're losing money on the fuel cost.

 

[IReallyLikePizza2]

My wife has just had her Mach-E for a year now. Its been a year since she's stepped foot in the gas station. No more stopping on the way to work, and no more bums approaching her

Win win!

 

[David L]

My wife has just had her Mach-E for a year now. Its been a year since she's stepped foot in the gas station. No more stopping on the way to work, and no more bums approaching her

Win win!

It is nice to be able to fuel up/charge at home. For those who have to stop to charge, I question the long charge times and from what I have seen, no cover over the charge stations, just thinking of rain. Being able to stop, get gas and go in a few minutes is nice.

Pretty sure bums will end up at the charge stations with much, much more time to beg.

 

[mat200]

It is nice to be able to fuel up/charge at home. For those who have to stop to charge, I question the long charge times and from what I have seen, no cover over the charge stations, just thinking of rain. Being able to stop, get gas and go in a few minutes is nice.

Pretty sure bums will end up at the charge stations with much, much more time to beg.

I've already seen this ..

The biggest issue will be getting permits and money to redo the electrical in some older homes, as well as apartments and rentals some which only offer street parking