Research Firm Claims Most cars still cost more to charge than to fill up with gas

Seems like bullshit to me. Recognizing the logical fallacy here, it’s still worth pointing out the firm has a history of working with major auto manufacturers, and is headquartered near Detroit. Their CEO, Patrick L. Anderson, also served under a Republican governor in multiple roles and is a contributor to numerous conservative research institutes.

The whole article and the report, nowhere is it explained how they get their numbers. What fuel prices or electricity prices have they used, what mileage for the cars. It's kind of crucial info, and not really difficult to calculate either.

Research firm is bullshitting. It costs like $1-$2 for me to fill up my car with electricity at home.

Where i live its literally 5 times cheaper. I call bullshit.

Not in my experience. Perhaps if you were charging at a location which charges an inflated rate. At my current electrical costs in Canada, electric is cheaper per kilometre.

From August 2022 to August 2023 I’ve spent $220 dollars TOTAL on keeping my EV charged…

This is pretty similar to the numbers I ran myself. Public charging costs about the same as gas, and home electricity (particularly if in a cheap area) is where the savings come from. This was using US numbers, which has some of the cheapest gas in the world.

Well this article just isn't right at all

I drive an entry level EV (Hyundai Kona) that advertises 4mi/kWh, which is roughly accurate (2-3 in the winter, 5-7 in the summer). That's 25 kWh for 100 miles.

Average cost of electricity in the US is, according to a quick Google, somewhere between $.15 and $.25 per kWh; where I live it's a steeper $.33.

Therefore, depending on where I charge, I'm paying anywhere between $3.75 and $8.25 to drive 100 miles--$1.50 short of the article's published $9.78 even with my expensive power.

In reality, though, I pay nothing--my office offers free charging. Show me an office with free gas.

If you have a Rivian R1T or GMC Hummer, the cost to charge at home isn't much different; it's about $17.70 per 100 miles.

Assuming the manufacturers claims are accurate (which is a big assumtion I know) that R1T, at the current US average electricity price of $16.14 per kWh, is $7.26/100mi.

Does not include the cost of environmental impact of burning fossil fuels... Which we are all starting to pay.

From the original study:

Notes: Costs are calculated for vehicles driving 12,000 purposeful miles per year. Uses energy prices, gas taxes, and EV registration fees in the Midwest or State of Michigan. Representative models within segments were selected on the basis of sales volume and to include a variety of manufacturers. Entry, mid, and luxury segments are defined based on typical purchase price. ...

As in the first edition, AEG calculated all four categories of costs involved in fueling both EVs and ICE vehicles across benchmark use cases that reflect real-world driving conditions for U.S. households. The costs included:

• The cost of the underlying energy (gasoline or diesel fuel, or electricity)
• State excise taxes charged on fuel and EVs for road maintenance
• The cost of operating a pump or charger
• The cost of driving to and from fueling stations (deadhead miles)

This seems like the Anderson Economic Group is playing with statistics to make gas cars seem more attractive.

• the cost of energy in Michigan is above the national average.
• EV registration costs in Michigan are among the highest in the country
• 80% of EV owners will charge their cars at home, making including costs driving to and from public outlets and the higher rate charged there yield (intentionally?) misleading results.
• There is a marked loss of performance and an increase of energy-per-mile when using EVs in cold climates, like the kind Michigan has

If you look at this map of savings with EVs vs. gas cars, you'll find that most states have much larger savings with electric vehicles over gas vehicles, and there's still savings when driving in Michigan by their accounting!

Michigan is the most expensive state to run an electric vehicle with an average annual cost of $5,076

TL;DR: Disregard this study.

Cost to fill up is not cost of ownership.

...how? Like, it cost $30 (10 gal) to fill my petrol car in the states. Even if I was using 150kwh in electricity, at my power rate in Wisconsin ($.13/kWh), it's $19.95. I live in Vietnam now, and pay 2500 VND per kWh, and petrol is about 23500vnd/litre. I have an electric moped that goes 110km/charge, and has a usable capacity of about 0.7kwh. I rarely empty the battery, but even if I did it daily, it would be .08USD/day.

I'd like to see the math crunched on this.

Edit: I found the math. It's dishonest. Shocker.

If we are talking just filling up - I went from $200/month with gasoline to $15-20/ month with my ev and charging at home. Obviously YMMV

I'm not reading further down the line to see but did anyone notice the pic used in this post to show someone not understanding where their fuel door is? Back out and back in correctly and pump gas like a normal human being.

This is absolutely stupid. The only way you're spending more on EV charging is if you get the most expensive at-home charger with the most expensive professional installation, and then never use it because you only charge at the most expensive level-3 chargers. I almost exclusively charge my Bolt for free, but even when I pay for the electricity it's the cost equivalent of getting 120-150 mpg. The level-3 chargers like Electrify America come out to be in the same ballpark as gas in terms of cost per mile, maybe even a little more... But you'd have to use them to ridiculous excess for the overall cost of driving to even approach ICE vehicles.

Price of gas is not the cost of gas.

It should include a way of getting the gases back into non-gas form and to reverse/mitigate any damages caused in the process. And the same for all of the supply chains (for gas and electricity, and any product really), can't produce that much waste on a finite planet & just forget about it if there are no (complete, non-bs) recycling processes, natural or man-made.

Thats why plastic very much isn't cost-efficient, it's just cheap bcs legislators allow it to be.

This sounds like BS. Years ago I calculated the cost of electricity is 1/5 of gas. Unless electricity jacked up (gas has stayed roughly the same) this doesn't make sense.

I'm about 2 years from being able to charge at home using excess solar (during 9ish months of the year, anyway) almost exclusively. That, plus not needing nearly as many service appointments, is going to save me enough on running costs to cover about 1/2 of the car payment on the electric car I'll get (based on current prices, solar wattage / sqft, and my own driving habits). Its a very privileged position to be in.

What kind of maniac intentionally only charges at public charging stations? That would be the only way I could see to make filling up an EV cost more. Maybe on-street parking apartment dwellers who also can't charge at work would fit that description.

I got blasted with a $700 electric bill this month, and we didn't really do anything new or different. So this doesn't surprise me really.

If electricity is going to cost this much, I guess the only way electric gets "cheaper" than gas is by hiking gas prices until its cheaper to charge. Consumers are never going to win though.