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Comment by ghouse | Hacker News Reader

Superchargers in CA cost $0.25/kWh. The model 3 averages <300 Wh/mi, or $0.075/mi (when charged by a CA Supercharger). Gas in CA is also expensive -- $3.64/gallon in San Jose. Assuming a comparable car to the model 3 (A BMW 335 is 32MPG, and a 540 is 29 MPG on the highway), or $0.11-0.13/mi which is between 52 and 67% more expensive per mile that a model 3 charged with a Supercharger.

If you charge at home, overnight, you pay about $0.125/kWh, which extends the operating cost advantage further.

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> Gas in CA is also expensive -- $3.64/gallon in San Jose.

Tangential: I'm always baffled that Americans consider prices like this expensive. In Germany, gas goes for €1.20-€1.50 per liter (which is $5.22-$6.52 per gallon).

Where do you get those prices? Since months[1] it is more like 1.45-1.60€/l ($6.311-$6.964/gal) for regular petrol.

In 1.519€/l($6.611/gal) are 0.8678€/l($3.777/gal) taxes[2].

What they see as a expensive price, we only pay to the fiskus alone!

[1] https://ich-tanke.de/statistik/

[2] https://service.aral.de/netto-spritpreise

> Where do you get those prices?

From memory. I don't have a car (or a driver's license, for that matter), but I drive by gas stations sometimes.

> What they see as a expensive price, we only pay to the fiskus alone!

I find it hard to believe that the US does not have any taxes on gas whatsoever.

$0.184 per Gallon of Federal Tax. In Texas it's an additional $0.20 per Gallon.

I paid $15.34 for 59 kWh ($0.26/kWh according to the receipt), which at the conversion rate you describe of 3mi/kWh comes out to 177 miles.

Using your example of 32mpg and $3.64/gallon, 177 miles would cost $20.13.

So roughly 25% cheaper for the supercharger vs gas. Bear in mind filling up gas takes five minutes whereas the supercharger took over two hours.

Good point about charging at home overnight though.

The model 3 does quite a bit better than 3 mi/kWh typically.

Does the supercharger charge the same taxes as gasoline? If not, I'd expect those costs to go up fairly dramatically as electric cars become more common on the road.

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