With electric prices high, is petrol motoring now cheaper?

[andyconceptge]

I can't get my head around all the gas/electric price hikes over the past couple of years - I know my electric price is up 3-fold what it was just over a year ago, and oil prices are up too, though wholesale prices are down a bit recently I believe.

So I'm wondering, what is the cheapest fuelled motoring right now:
Petrol
Diesel
Electric

Opinions, please!

[Silvanus]

andyconceptge said:

I can't get my head around all the gas/electric price hikes over the past couple of years - I know my electric price is up 3-fold what it was just over a year ago, and oil prices are up too, though wholesale prices are down a bit recently I believe.

So I'm wondering, what is the cheapest fuelled motoring right now:
Petrol
Diesel
Electric

Opinions, please!

You need to factor in vehicle cost, maintenance cost, mileage etc.

[paradigital]

If public charging, sure. If overnight charging on a cheap off-peak rate, it’s still not even remotely close.

I’m currently spending around £15 on electricity per 350 miles.

Edited by paradigital on Friday 30th December 18:17

[The spinner of plates]

The cheapest motoring will be in a car that’s no longer depreciating but is still reliable enough.

[Pica-Pica]

The spinner of plates said:

The cheapest motoring will be in a car that’s no longer depreciating but is still reliable enough.

Yup, and generally the cheapest car will be the one you already own. Others may be prone to persuade otherwise, but there you go.

[andyconceptge]

The spinner of plates said:

The cheapest motoring will be in a car that’s no longer depreciating but is still reliable enough.

Taking the car out of the equation - just looking at fuel, cost per mile do you know which is cheapest right now?

[Equus]

Electricty cost is £0.34/kWh, and most EV's do between 3-4 miles per kWh - so call it 10 pence per mile.

Petrol is about £5.83/gallon, so disregarding other savings (road tax, maintenance etc.) you'll need to be doing upwards of 58mpg to break even against EV's.

[andyconceptge]

Equus said:

Electricty cost is £0.34/kWh, and most EV's do between 3-4 miles per kWh - so call it 10 pence per mile.

Petrol is about £5.83/gallon, so disregarding other savings (road tax, maintenance etc.) you'll need to be doing upwards of 58mpg to break even against EV's.

Aha! Perfect! My car definitely isn't the best then. Wish I'd bought a Tesla after all!

[Pica-Pica]

The spinner of plates said:

The cheapest motoring will be in a car that’s no longer depreciating but is still reliable enough.

Yup, and generally the cheapest car will be the one you already own. Others may be prone to persuade otherwise, but there you go.

[Draxindustries1]

Its diesel or small turbo petrol that will be economical to run and available used for much much less than a EV.
EV's have a raft of problems that will only get worse once more succumb to the BS surrounding them. Charging price increases, range anxiety,future power availability, finding a working public charger plus the need for off road parking for home charging to name but a few.
Imo the future is Hydrogen. Once this fuel becomes economically viable the ICE engines future will be secure.
Electric power is a novelty stop gap at most..

[Merry]

andyconceptge said:

Taking the car out of the equation - just looking at fuel, cost per mile do you know which is cheapest right now?

It depends

An EV is cheapest for me as I can charge it for free at work, and even if I had to charge it at home 8.25p would get me about 3.2 miles as I have a cheap night rate till September. I rarely travel outside its range and have spent about £80 on rapid charging this year (despite covering 13500 miles)

However if I didn't have access to work or home charging and had to rely on rapids then I don't doubt a Petrol/Diesel would be cheaper currently, assuming you own something that does more than 30mpg.

[MG CHRIS]

Draxindustries1 said:

Its diesel or small turbo petrol that will be economical to run and available used for much much less than a EV.
EV's have a raft of problems that will only get worse once more succumb to the BS surrounding them. Charging price increases, range anxiety,future power availability, finding a working public charger plus the need for off road parking for home charging to name but a few.
Imo the future is Hydrogen. Once this fuel becomes economically viable the ICE engines future will be secure.
Electric power is a novelty stop gap at most..

Good luck waiting for hydrogen filling stations to be regularly available in the UK or worldwide for that matter let alone cheap cars to put it in.

[Crumpet]

I did the maths on a new plug-in hybrid Defender and the diesel version worked out about 10p per mile cheaper than running purely on electric.

I seem to think it’s a 20kwh battery which at 34p/kw cost £6.80 to fully charge. You then get about 20 miles from that so 34p a mile.

Diesel is £7.70 a gallon and gets you 30 miles. So about 26p a mile.

Obviously a proper EV will be much better but I can’t see the benefit of plug-ins. EVs also seem to be incredibly expensive to buy compared to their ICE equivalents and if normal depreciation resumes you need to factor in a lot to the running costs. Depreciation is still a much bigger cost factor than the fuel they use.

[LivLL]

Equus said:

Electricty cost is £0.34/kWh, and most EV's do between 3-4 miles per kWh - so call it 10 pence per mile.

Petrol is about £5.83/gallon, so disregarding other savings (road tax, maintenance etc.) you'll need to be doing upwards of 58mpg to break even against EV's.

Add another quid to you gallon price of petrol. It's around £1.50/ltr for unleaded currently.

[GT9]

Draxindustries1 said:

Imo the future is Hydrogen.

But, but, surely the grid won't cope??

[Equus]

LivLL said:

Add another quid to you gallon price of petrol. It's around £1.50/ltr for unleaded currently.

Fair point - well spotted.

Actually £1.52/litre around me, today, so that would be £6.91 per gallon.... and about 69mpg break-even point.

Not many petrol cars that can do that? I used to be able to get about 65mpg extra-urban from a Toyota Aygo, but that was nannying it.

[CalisenQX]

Plug in hybrids are a nonsense, they are usually cheaper to fill with diesel or petrol than with electric on the public network. Pointless tax dodge.

[NDA]

andyconceptge said:

So I'm wondering, what is the cheapest fuelled motoring right now:
Petrol
Diesel
Electric

Opinions, please!

It depends where you are doing your charging. If you're charging at home then an EV will be cheaper than ICE. If you are exclusively charging on public chargers (which are now quite expensive) then there is parity with a high MPG ICE.

In very rough terms, fully charging an EV at home costs around £15 for 300 miles. Charging on a public charger could cost £50.

[Speed addicted]

CalisenQX said:

Plug in hybrids are a nonsense, they are usually cheaper to fill with diesel or petrol than with electric on the public network. Pointless tax dodge.

It depends on usage, if for instance you live pretty close to work you could run on electric most of the time with the option to do long runs without the range issues pure electric may have.

Obviously most of them are purely a tax dodge though!

[CalisenQX]

Speed addicted said:

CalisenQX said:

Plug in hybrids are a nonsense, they are usually cheaper to fill with diesel or petrol than with electric on the public network. Pointless tax dodge.

It depends on usage, if for instance you live pretty close to work you could run on electric most of the time with the option to do long runs without the range issues pure electric may have.

Obviously most of them are purely a tax dodge though!

Yes true. This coming from someone who had a tax dodge 330e previously btw! So there is some basis to what I say. Never charging it in 4 years of use….