That's 10x less than even the most efficient mid size car before you even factor in service costs.
The reality that these articles obfuscate for the sake of clicks is that most electric car owners are still massively in front on fuel costs.
I have a Renault Zoe - 2020, 50kWh battery, gets 200 miles in the summer, and was down to about 120 miles when it was sub-zero here.
On the current 34p/kWh home charging, that works out to 8.5p per mile on the high range, and 14p / mile when it's cold.
I also have a Renault Trafic that I get 39mpg on similar driving routes. That's about 19.5p/mile.
However, we sold a Citroen DS3 1.6HDi to get the zoe. That gave about 60mpg, and that works out to around 13p/mile...
I know I'm doing the right thing having the EV (and I love it), but it was a bloody expensive purchase for us, and is currently not going to get anywhere near making up the £15k or so extra that we had to put in to change from the DS to the Zoe.
Had we not had the home charger put in (which cost £1100!), then we'd be way down, as the nearest fast charger is now 50p/kWh, which would have taken the costs to 12.5p/mile and 20.8p/mile respectively - more expensive than my 240,000 mile 2.5 DCI van!
Forget the car -- topping up a 20kWh battery for £1.50 a day sounds like a great deal for people paying 34p per unit at the moment, would save £150 a month.
I would be happy to be proven wrong, I'd love to switch plans right now.
There's also Agile Octopus if you just want cheap off-rate. You might need to sign up to Agile then switch to Intelligent if you can't do Intelligent directly.
Both require a working smart meter.
You'll need to call Octopus in order to switch, their online signups have been suspended (like everyone else). My referral ID is fresh-cub-249 if they'll accept it over the phone, gets us both £50 credit.
Where do you get that deal?
For example, picking a random address in London, British Gas offer:
Standing charge: 33p/day
Peak rate: 47p/kWh
Off peak rate: 12p/kWh
Unless you're using a lot of daytime energy, that would more than half your EV costs.
For a lot of the big luxury EVs that manufacturers prefer to advertise, the upfront cost difference means that it will take 5+ years to catch up if you "only" drive 14,000 miles per year.
The cheapest Model 3 available near me is $58k according to Tesla's site (Dual Motor LR). A BMW 330i xDrive has a base price of $46k and includes the first 3 years of maintenance costs for free. Now, it's a BMW so you need to buy a bunch of options just to get front seats and a steering wheel. Should we put it up at $50k for the equivalent equipment level as a $58k Model 3?
How much does 14,000 miles worth of 3-series gas cost? If you average about 28mpg (it's rated for 33mpg highway), you'll use 500 gallons. If you're paying $4 per gallon, that's $2000. The Model 3 is apparently a few hundred dollars in electricity for the same distance - let's say $300? So, (58000-50000)/(2000-300) = 4.7 years to break even.
I'm not arguing against getting an EV. But you need to drive a lot of miles before you pay off that really big battery. Smaller, cheaper EVs that don't need such big batteries pay off a lot sooner. If that kind of car works for you ;)
I see this comparison proposed very often. But I don't think it's fair -- a model 3 is expensive but it's not a luxury car in anything other than price. I think you can argue that an equally fair comparison is a Toyota Corolla or similar, which is in a very different total cost of ownership class.
For me fuel cost is only half the story. Refuel time is the other half.
"Fast chargers" are anything but fast. I've got better things to do with my life than sit around twiddling my thumbs at some godforsaken recharge station for 40 minutes.
Meanwhile with petrol/diesel, I can turn up with the car on the red-line and I can be full to the brim in what, 5 minutes ? 10 max ? Especially if I'm paying using the app on my phone.
The other elephant in the room that the electric world carefully skirt around is that those massive batteries in their car are not exactly environmentally friendly, especially when it comes to EoL time.
For me the whole electric car thing is still a bit immature, I'll wait a bit longer.
That is something what can really screw your day and made my opinion on electric cars even more entrenched in "worthless piece of s..."
If somebody would like to know: Freshmile network north of Troyes, France. Was forced to go 50km/h down to Troyes to Ionity charger, network which always worked, but is bloody expensive. Wasted 4 hours on something what was supposed to be 1 hour charging stop.
I don't have an EV.. but my driving pattern would put me at 99% home charging. Basically I'd never need to use a public charger other than 4-5 road trips a year.
I've only looked at two wheelers i.e. electric scooters and the replacement cost of the battery pack is 40% of the cost of the vehicle, every three years.
Where are you getting electricity for 6p per kWh? Most people in the country are paying 35p now. Are you charging at home with rooftop solar?
https://www.epa.gov/dera/learn-about-impacts-diesel-exhaust-...