Driving 100 miles in an EV is now more expensive than an ICE | Hacker News Reader

Driving 100 miles in an EV is now more expensive than an ICE

jalopnik.com

7 pointsfwungy24 comments

Link to Article

https://jalopnik.com/driving-100-miles-in-an-ev-is-now-more-...

"EV drivers who charge up at home spend about $11.60 per 100 miles"

Hmm... My Bolt gets something over 4m/kwh, let's call it 4 even, so 100 miles is 25kwh - about $4 at current pricing in Colorado. So I'm not thinking I need to pay much attention to this article.

They might be averaging in lifetime costs of repairs... Article is 404ing for me at moment.

My ice gets 27mpg at ~4$ per gallon so thats around $12 in fuel alone before factoring repairs

Me too. Memory holed.

It covered a study by a group called something like "The Anderson Group."

Maybe it's available directly.

Every article you ever read has a bias and favours some interest.

Everything I read or hear, I think to myself “Which interest benefits fRom this story”

costs for Portugal:

1 kwh ranges from 0,15 to 0.16 €

25kwh * 0.16€ = 4€ (100 miles/160km)

My diesel ICE does ~5.5 l/100km (42.8 mpg) and diesel is at around 1.98€/l

8.8 l * 1.98€ = 17.43€

Can we just agree that EV cars right now have specific use cases where they are good fit.

-Mild Climate

-Homeowner w/ Garage and high voltage charger

-Mostly local driving

ICE seems to be a better fit for people who drive long distances regularly, live in colder climates, and may not have easy access to a charger

One reason I cannot just agree is Norway, which has anything but a mild climate, a low rate of garage ownership, and a lot of long distance rural journeying to go to places like Tromsø, and yet has 8 out of 10 new car buyers selecting EVs:

https://elbil.no/norway-celebrates-another-record-breaking-y...

And, in anecdata, I just did a 1000 mile road trip in my 2016 Tesla through many frigid places in the USA. It was fine. Your argument sounds a lot to me like "people don't/shouldn't ride bicycles when it's cold or snowing" and that's also demonstrably false in my opinion:

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2021/01/22/meet-the-bike-...

1) Norway is ridiculously wealthy due to its petroleum resources.

2) Norway is only 5 million in population.

3) Norwegian policy encourages EV purchases with various fees and subsidies to encourage EV and discourage ICE.

Pointing out their unique social environment doesn't change the fact that people there are happily driving EVs that fit their lifestyle, despite living in a cold place with few garages and large rural expanses.

> the fact that people there are happily driving EVs that fit their lifestyle

Source?

Like the commenter you replied to, I think I'd have bought an EV for my last car if my ICE car had a 70% tax applied to it, but I wouldn't be happy about it, and it would only fit my budget, not my lifestyle.

I mean, my source is that I lived in Norway and know a lot of driving Norwegians, which I do understand is far from hard data on their true sentiments nationwide.

Norway is the pilot country for EVs. Their adoption rates have always led the world. Again, this is due to their peculiar wealth ( they have so much money that they can destroy their economy if they spend it domestically), and public policy that supports this end.

> Norway

A 70% tax on petrol cars will shift the scales somewhat. I really doubt 8/10 of new cars would be EVs if the VAT and purchase taxes were applied to them as for ICE cars.

Ice is a better fit for everything. You may be able to use an ev in the cases you outlined though.

"Mostly local" might need to be better defined here. I routinely do a 200mi round trip two times a week with no other commuting otherwise. The implication might be that EVs can't do long distance, but that wouldn't be true.

EVs come with other conveniences too like lower maintenance demands and costs. As with all things, there are just tradeoffs. I would also expect the software to be better in non-traditional manufacturers' cars - though this is not EV specific.

But... you should absolutely have a place to charge that isn't a Supercharger (or other fast charger). I think it's crazy people buy Teslas and go to the Supercharger every other day for ~30 minutes+.

I did a simulation of the vehicle market in grad school for my PhD. My results showed EVs were only going to be attractive to high income consumers, however I did not take subsidies into account.

It's not exactly the same metric, but whenever I get the idea to replace my ICE car with 100k miles with an EV, I realize how much gas the $30,000 difference will buy.

I've been looking at electric cars recently and am disappointed that I can't find any plugin hybrids with an electric range of 60 miles or more. 60 miles would handle all my family's commuting needs accept for the two or three times a year we go on vacation to a place with out good charging infrastructure. I don't want to have to waste time driving out of the way and sitting at a charger when there are small children in the car.

EV for day to day and renting an ICE when on vacation?

1) Do the calculation for a mid level ICE 2) BEVs must drive unintended miles to reach charging stations 3) waiting for charging has an opportunity cost

Funny, in our local newspaper there was a letter to the editor today, where an EV driver complained about exactly that and how he has resorted to driving his ICE again because of costs. There were no details mentioned.

I'm not sure how that's calculated, but in Seattle, 1 kwh of electricity is $0.12, so 100 miles (at ~4mi/kwh) costs $3.

That said, I charge at work for free.

They assume extra mileage to seek out charging stations and also opportunity costs for added driving and charging time. YMMV lol.

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