Hacker News Reader

Comment by tmikaeld | Hacker News Reader

The article is in UK, but prices have started to go up on some public charging in Sweden too.

Some are at 0.7€/KwH, which is more expensive than using a gasoline car, despite high fuel prices (Especially in the winter)

Fast charging always has a premium price though, due to availability and higher load on cables/stations.

View on HN

When I see EVs that are charging at public spots in cities, I assume that the owners for some reason do not care about money. Either because their are rich, or because it is some kind of business expense for them.

Why would you assume that? I know someone who has an EV but lives at a home without a driveway, public charging is the only way for him to actually you know, use that car. As EVs become more and more popular, that's how most people will charge their cars, it's not like everyone has a house with a driveway.

I’m confident that most public charging are long distance travellers away from home with limited choice.

Not really. Electricity tariffs can be pretty competitive if you shop around.

I own an EV and I have never charged at home, even though I have my own garage. My average electricity costs at home are around 0.30€/kWh. Meanwhile, 30% of my charges have been cost-free and the rest I'm paying between 0.12€/kWh and 0.39/kWh.

The investment required to install a wallbox is not really worth it at the moment. It would just add convenience.

Lower-cost EVs have a limited battery capacity, so it's unavoidable when traveling between cities.

Charging at night with hourly pricing, is just 0.06€/KwH (Sweden) (But going up due to industries switching to night shifts..).

> 0.06€/KwH

Is that in the UK? I think in Germany the cost for providers is already above 0.20€/KwH at the moment and the prices at home are typically higher. Mine is about 0.40€/KwH at the moment.

In Germany there are already Smart Electricity suppliers which also provide a Wallbox in order to automatically charge your car whenever certain price threshold is reached. You could for example configure it to charge your car when prices are even negative. That's not so common anymore, but we had a price of -0.08€/kWh on 21.05.2021. 10 days ago, the prices were also pretty low (0.02€).

https://www.awattar.de/tariffs/hourlycap

Nice theory, assumes that prices stay below your threshold long enough for the car to charge. It can happen, as your examples show, but can it happen at scale, i.e. when 1 in 10 people are running "full house equivalent" energy requests every time the price drops below say 0.02 EUR/kWh?

Been pricing electicity derivatives at work last week; with that context I'm now thinking of your scheme as a limit order, and what happens when the market is oversaturated with limit order?

Night-time electricity can be practically free at times, since people are asleep and a lot of businesses aren't operating. You just need to be on a plan where you pay different rates during the day and night.

South Sweden, if we didn't export huge amounts of energy to Germany and shut down 4 nuclear plants (With 20+ years left of life), it would be a permanent < 0.06/KwH.

Funny - I assume the opposite because they're spending their time at a charger rather than plugging it in at home. If they can't charge at home - that probably means they don't have a home but maybe an apartment without a garage that has EV hookups which means they probably don't have much money.

The other alternative is road tripping.

can confirm, have business ev charging card, free parking baby.

Same in Germany. Prices can be as high as 75-80 cent/kWh at certain public fast chargers. That would be 16€/100km or more, while a diesel with consumption of 6.5l/100km costs about 13€/100km at current diesel prices.

I was always wondering how people get these 6.5l/100km. Never had that. Diesel Mazda 6 was closer to 8l/100 km, old euro 3 Passat was 7, petrol Golf 4 - 8, BMW 3er no less than 10. In the BMW case it’s 21€/100km and it will be replaced by electric vehicle one day. Apparently electric vehicle needs ~20kWh/100kh and I can choose if I charge at home for ~8€/100km or I go for fast charger for ~16€/100km.

I own both a diesel (2021) BMW SUV and an electric BMW. The diesel has an average of 6.0l/100km since factory. It's slightly higher on highway (~6.5l) and slightly lower on national roads (5.0-5.5l). It's a typical 4 cylinder, 190hp with a 48V micro-hybrid system. I can imagine a 3 series or a non-SUV would have even lower averages.

The electric BMW i4 is averaging around 16.5-17kWh/100km.

Woooow, neighbor’s older X3 consumes 12 liters petrol for 100 km. Looks like renewing car could be economically viable option. i4 is amazing, but not suitable for my needs having only one car in the family.

(not an attack) I would suggest you check how you are driving and maybe try to drive in a more conservative manner (of course terrain/traffic may be the culprit). My recent car usages:

- 2007 Honda Civic (gasoline): 5.9L/100

- 2015 Mazda CX-5 (diesel): 5.6L/100

- 2017 Porche Cayenne S (gasoline): 7.9L/100

- 2017 Lexus IS300h (gasoline + hybrid): 4.9L/100

(Can't remember my older cars consumptions but even those never more than 6L/100)

For reference, I now drive a 2021 Hyundai Kona/Kauai EV. My average is 12kwh/100, though I'm still getting the hang of driving it more efficiently so I'm confident I may get it a bit lower.

Depends on how you drive and how large your car is. My moms old Renault capture diesel uses around 5l/100km on average (combined city/highway) while she is driving and around 5.5-6l/100km while I'm driving. Just rented a Peugeout 208 1l diesel in Nice, France. Averaged 5l/100km during the week (500 km). Around 50/50 split regarding kms driven on highway and inside a city.

I have a 30+ year old Toyota highlux converted to be an RV. Looks like a brick, drives like a boat. But even that thing manages ~10.1l/100km.

Depends how you drive. I had 5.5L with a BWM serie 3 diesel, about 6.1L with a class E wagon diesel. I would consider myself an average driver, neither slow nor fast. Cars in normal mode (not eco, not sport).

“Some are at 0.7€/KwH, which is more expensive than using a gasoline car, despite high fuel prices.”

Can you show your working please?

I paid 50c/kwh at a public charger the other week but it was still cheaper than benzine here (NL) at 2+ eur/l

Seems to make sense to me.

Mercedes-Benz E200 4MATIC (not a plug-in hybrid) has a quoted combined fuel effiency of 7.5 l/100km. To get 100 km of range, you'd need to fill up 7.5 litres of petrol at around 1.73 €/l (https://bensinpriser.nu/stationer/95/stockholms-lan/), costing 12.98 €.

Tesla Model S 90D has a quoted energy efficiency of 18.9 kWh/100 km (https://www.tesla.com/en_EU/support/european-union-energy-la...). If you pay 0.7 €/kWh, you need to put in at least 13.23 € worth of electricity, assuming a charging loss of 0%. If you increase that charging loss to 20%, you'd be putting in 23.6 kWh with a price of 16.52 €.

South Sweden, daytime, at 0.6€/KwH, gasoline is cheaper per 10km.

Benzine is 1.7-2€/liter.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com