working the maths on Motorway costs
Discussion
I can't work out the financials properly does this seem right
Lets use a polestar 2/tesla 3 LR, 78kwh battery. about £12 to charge from home. 240miles motorway range at motorway speeds with aircon/heating/radio etc etc on.
current car does 63mpg on a motorway drive doing the same.
I had a round trip yesterday of 514 miles, cost about £42 in fuel.
The electric car, would have cost £12 to charge at home, a motorway stop to charge again. 30p per KWH, so £21ish to charge, so the journey costs around £33.
Does that seem about right?
Lets use a polestar 2/tesla 3 LR, 78kwh battery. about £12 to charge from home. 240miles motorway range at motorway speeds with aircon/heating/radio etc etc on.
current car does 63mpg on a motorway drive doing the same.
I had a round trip yesterday of 514 miles, cost about £42 in fuel.
The electric car, would have cost £12 to charge at home, a motorway stop to charge again. 30p per KWH, so £21ish to charge, so the journey costs around £33.
Does that seem about right?
jason61c said:
I can't work out the financials properly does this seem right
Lets use a polestar 2/tesla 3 LR, 78kwh battery. about £12 to charge from home. 240miles motorway range at motorway speeds with aircon/heating/radio etc etc on.
current car does 63mpg on a motorway drive doing the same.
I had a round trip yesterday of 514 miles, cost about £42 in fuel.
The electric car, would have cost £12 to charge at home, a motorway stop to charge again. 30p per KWH, so £21ish to charge, so the journey costs around £33.
Does that seem about right?
Assuming you are charging your car regularly at home and so making use of a good night time tariff, then you can reduce the at home cost considerably - to £3.90 assuming 78kwh at 5p/kwh. Tesla supercharges are 24p/kwh, so say you need another 78kwh at £18.72, total journey cost is £22.62 or c.50% of your current car cost.Lets use a polestar 2/tesla 3 LR, 78kwh battery. about £12 to charge from home. 240miles motorway range at motorway speeds with aircon/heating/radio etc etc on.
current car does 63mpg on a motorway drive doing the same.
I had a round trip yesterday of 514 miles, cost about £42 in fuel.
The electric car, would have cost £12 to charge at home, a motorway stop to charge again. 30p per KWH, so £21ish to charge, so the journey costs around £33.
Does that seem about right?
FYI, when comparing cost vs an ICE car, you really need to look at your total annual mileage i.e. how many journeys where you will have to use a supercharger vs how many where you can charge at home. For example, apart from collecting my Model 3 Performance from Heathrow, where I got free supercharging for the day, I have not used a supercharger since. Here is my total usage as of this morning:
I have traveled 5824 miles in 6 months and used 1900kwh of electricity. I have charged my car at home at night @ 5p/kwh or for free at Tesla destination chargers and supermarket chargers, and so my total electricity cost is £95 (1900 x 5p) or the equivalent of 1.6p/mile.
jason61c said:
I can't work out the financials properly does this seem right
Unless your doing monster maths cheap EV running costs will not out weigh the price of depreciation associated with buying brand new versus keeping your current car.Including 'servicing' costs, tyre costs AND fuel costs our Model X has on going running costs of about 8p per mile, actually for the last 6 weeks fuel costs have been 0p per mile due to solar charging, so let's call it 5p per mile.
5p per mile is crazy cheap, but even if your current car costs 20p per mile to fuel/tyre/service and you do 10k miles per year, that amounts to a saving of £1500/year, or £125/month.
Good luck finding a decent EV that costs £125/month to buy/lease etc.
Get an EV because you like the tech, believe in the green hype, or want to try one. Use man maths to convince your self, but don't buy one on the realistic prospect of 'saving money', unless you are an extreme user/can avoid tax.
A £5k Nissan Leaf is probably the only EV you can buy which actually saves you money.
gangzoom said:
Unless your doing monster maths cheap EV running costs will not out weigh the price of depreciation associated with buying brand new versus keeping your current car.
Including 'servicing' costs, tyre costs AND fuel costs our Model X has on going running costs of about 8p per mile, actually for the last 6 weeks fuel costs have been 0p per mile due to solar charging, so let's call it 5p per mile.
5p per mile is crazy cheap, but even if your current car costs 20p per mile to fuel/tyre/service and you do 10k miles per year, that amounts to a saving of £1500/year, or £125/month.
Good luck finding a decent EV that costs £125/month to buy/lease etc.
Get an EV because you like the tech, believe in the green hype, or want to try one. Use man maths to convince your self, but don't buy one on the realistic prospect of 'saving money', unless you are an extreme user/can avoid tax.
A £5k Nissan Leaf is probably the only EV you can buy which actually saves you money.
I think that the OP would need to let us know his overall situation before we can say whether an EV may be cheaper for his situation. If he finances his current car, as so many people do, albeit a personal loan, pcp, or lease (or even if it is a company car) then his will be rightly focused on the monthly costs of running an EV vs his current car. The cost saving associated with fueling an EV vs. an ICE car can tip the balance in favour of an EV, as can the £0 road tax, £0 congestion charge or 0% BiK. Once these are factored in, then the total cost of ownership of a new EV can be much cheaper than an "equivalent" new ICE car.Including 'servicing' costs, tyre costs AND fuel costs our Model X has on going running costs of about 8p per mile, actually for the last 6 weeks fuel costs have been 0p per mile due to solar charging, so let's call it 5p per mile.
5p per mile is crazy cheap, but even if your current car costs 20p per mile to fuel/tyre/service and you do 10k miles per year, that amounts to a saving of £1500/year, or £125/month.
Good luck finding a decent EV that costs £125/month to buy/lease etc.
Get an EV because you like the tech, believe in the green hype, or want to try one. Use man maths to convince your self, but don't buy one on the realistic prospect of 'saving money', unless you are an extreme user/can avoid tax.
A £5k Nissan Leaf is probably the only EV you can buy which actually saves you money.
Ok, totally open maths.
It'll be a company car, I wouldn't buy one with real money.
Currently I put my car allowance into my pension, £550 a month.
I have a car which costs me about £200 a month for the 'loan', £50 insurance, £10 tax. say £40 towards running costs. Lets say £300 a month.
When paid off in 3 years, its value is likely to be about £7000.
By taking the car, i'd by 0% bik year one, 1% year 2, 3% year 3.
This means I wouldn't be putting cash into my pension, so i'd take what the car currently costs and put that into LISA, so although i'd pay tax on the way out, i'd then get 20% back from the Gov on the lisa. Lets say £3600 a year into the LISA.
I can get 45PPM at the minute, however I only claim about 2000 miles a year. I can charge at work for free, which would save me about 3000 miles worth of personal cost fuel(at 12ppm £360ish).
It'll be a company car, I wouldn't buy one with real money.
Currently I put my car allowance into my pension, £550 a month.
I have a car which costs me about £200 a month for the 'loan', £50 insurance, £10 tax. say £40 towards running costs. Lets say £300 a month.
When paid off in 3 years, its value is likely to be about £7000.
By taking the car, i'd by 0% bik year one, 1% year 2, 3% year 3.
This means I wouldn't be putting cash into my pension, so i'd take what the car currently costs and put that into LISA, so although i'd pay tax on the way out, i'd then get 20% back from the Gov on the lisa. Lets say £3600 a year into the LISA.
I can get 45PPM at the minute, however I only claim about 2000 miles a year. I can charge at work for free, which would save me about 3000 miles worth of personal cost fuel(at 12ppm £360ish).
First thing that goes on a company car is that 45p a mile, it becomes 4p.
Your maths aren’t far out but you can look at fuel costs per mile which might make it easier...
You might get 4 miles out of an EV per kWh, much less in winter, it’s convenient to forget vampire drain and charging inefficiency, so let’s be a little more honest and say 3 and that’s generous.
Home charging on a flat rate is likely to be over 12p kWh, so thats 4p a mile
Solar can be free, but you can only use generated electricity once
Split rates you invariably pay a little more in the day
So you might be able to improve on the 4p a mile but at 4p you’re only wiping your face on the business mile rate
Out and about and charging is going to cost you 24p + so 8p a mile and double the business rate
Of course you do have to look at personal costs to see if there are savings to balance things out, but any ICE doing 50mpg+ is under 10p a mile and if it’s your car, you pd be making 35p a mile On fuel
As an aside, I recon my Tesla costs more in tyres than electricity but that’s because I have free supercharging and it has a taste for expensive rubber. I’ve spend about £700 a year doing 10k miles so 7p a mile, of course some like to buy cheap rubber and some lime to buy cars with peak power over 600bhp and never use it, but tyres can add up depending on model, but that’s not necessarily that different to an ICE
Your maths aren’t far out but you can look at fuel costs per mile which might make it easier...
You might get 4 miles out of an EV per kWh, much less in winter, it’s convenient to forget vampire drain and charging inefficiency, so let’s be a little more honest and say 3 and that’s generous.
Home charging on a flat rate is likely to be over 12p kWh, so thats 4p a mile
Solar can be free, but you can only use generated electricity once
Split rates you invariably pay a little more in the day
So you might be able to improve on the 4p a mile but at 4p you’re only wiping your face on the business mile rate
Out and about and charging is going to cost you 24p + so 8p a mile and double the business rate
Of course you do have to look at personal costs to see if there are savings to balance things out, but any ICE doing 50mpg+ is under 10p a mile and if it’s your car, you pd be making 35p a mile On fuel
As an aside, I recon my Tesla costs more in tyres than electricity but that’s because I have free supercharging and it has a taste for expensive rubber. I’ve spend about £700 a year doing 10k miles so 7p a mile, of course some like to buy cheap rubber and some lime to buy cars with peak power over 600bhp and never use it, but tyres can add up depending on model, but that’s not necessarily that different to an ICE
Heres Johnny said:
First thing that goes on a company car is that 45p a mile, it becomes 4p.
Your maths aren’t far out but you can look at fuel costs per mile which might make it easier...
You might get 4 miles out of an EV per kWh, much less in winter, it’s convenient to forget vampire drain and charging inefficiency, so let’s be a little more honest and say 3 and that’s generous.
Home charging on a flat rate is likely to be over 12p kWh, so thats 4p a mile
Solar can be free, but you can only use generated electricity once
Split rates you invariably pay a little more in the day
So you might be able to improve on the 4p a mile but at 4p you’re only wiping your face on the business mile rate
Out and about and charging is going to cost you 24p + so 8p a mile and double the business rate
Of course you do have to look at personal costs to see if there are savings to balance things out, but any ICE doing 50mpg+ is under 10p a mile and if it’s your car, you pd be making 35p a mile On fuel
As an aside, I recon my Tesla costs more in tyres than electricity but that’s because I have free supercharging and it has a taste for expensive rubber. I’ve spend about £700 a year doing 10k miles so 7p a mile, of course some like to buy cheap rubber and some lime to buy cars with peak power over 600bhp and never use it, but tyres can add up depending on model, but that’s not necessarily that different to an ICE
Work would cover servicing/tyres/insurance. All good points.Your maths aren’t far out but you can look at fuel costs per mile which might make it easier...
You might get 4 miles out of an EV per kWh, much less in winter, it’s convenient to forget vampire drain and charging inefficiency, so let’s be a little more honest and say 3 and that’s generous.
Home charging on a flat rate is likely to be over 12p kWh, so thats 4p a mile
Solar can be free, but you can only use generated electricity once
Split rates you invariably pay a little more in the day
So you might be able to improve on the 4p a mile but at 4p you’re only wiping your face on the business mile rate
Out and about and charging is going to cost you 24p + so 8p a mile and double the business rate
Of course you do have to look at personal costs to see if there are savings to balance things out, but any ICE doing 50mpg+ is under 10p a mile and if it’s your car, you pd be making 35p a mile On fuel
As an aside, I recon my Tesla costs more in tyres than electricity but that’s because I have free supercharging and it has a taste for expensive rubber. I’ve spend about £700 a year doing 10k miles so 7p a mile, of course some like to buy cheap rubber and some lime to buy cars with peak power over 600bhp and never use it, but tyres can add up depending on model, but that’s not necessarily that different to an ICE
My thoughts are £6600 less into my pension, against £4320(inc gov topup) into a Lisa. So over a 3 year period i'd be (£19800-£12960) £6840 worse off on pension/long term savings.
jason61c said:
Work would cover servicing/tyres/insurance. All good points.
My thoughts are £6600 less into my pension, against £4320(inc gov topup) into a Lisa. So over a 3 year period i'd be (£19800-£12960) £6840 worse off on pension/long term savings.
£6840 worse off now in your pension/longterm savings will be ALOT more than that in 20-30 years time when you draw on your pension.My thoughts are £6600 less into my pension, against £4320(inc gov topup) into a Lisa. So over a 3 year period i'd be (£19800-£12960) £6840 worse off on pension/long term savings.
It makes little sense to give up longterm pension benefits for short term 'gain' on any car, EV or not.
We were all set to replace my wifes Lexus with a Model 3, but once you do the maths on a 50mpg+ reliable combustion car with no more upfront purchase/loan costs versus any new EV the numbers quickly show up how expensive a process it is to change cars (EV or not).
Get an EV if you want to, just don't pretend to your self it's cheap.
gangzoom said:
jason61c said:
Work would cover servicing/tyres/insurance. All good points.
My thoughts are £6600 less into my pension, against £4320(inc gov topup) into a Lisa. So over a 3 year period i'd be (£19800-£12960) £6840 worse off on pension/long term savings.
£6840 worse off now in your pension/longterm savings will be ALOT more than that in 20-30 years time when you draw on your pension.My thoughts are £6600 less into my pension, against £4320(inc gov topup) into a Lisa. So over a 3 year period i'd be (£19800-£12960) £6840 worse off on pension/long term savings.
It makes little sense to give up longterm pension benefits for short term 'gain' on any car, EV or not.
We were all set to replace my wifes Lexus with a Model 3, but once you do the maths on a 50mpg+ reliable combustion car with no more upfront purchase/loan costs versus any new EV the numbers quickly show up how expensive a process it is to change cars (EV or not).
Get an EV if you want to, just don't pretend to your self it's cheap.
Forget those 4 or 5p per unit electricity costs, they're total BS. Those on E7-type tariffs pay lots more for 'normal' electric use. When you average it out, it may work out well over 10p a unit. Higher standing charges and 'normal time' unit costs are conveniently forgotten about during these discussions.
Actual fuel costs are only slightly cheaper for an EV over ICE if you pay normal prices per unit at home. Obviously charging from your solar panels is free. However, comparing a new ICE car with a similar EV, the realistic savings are usually be had in higher used values for the EV. This looks likely for say, at least 5 more years.
I can't comment on incentivised motoring in the form of company cars, car allowances, PCPs etc. where the car isn't owned by the driver.
Actual fuel costs are only slightly cheaper for an EV over ICE if you pay normal prices per unit at home. Obviously charging from your solar panels is free. However, comparing a new ICE car with a similar EV, the realistic savings are usually be had in higher used values for the EV. This looks likely for say, at least 5 more years.
I can't comment on incentivised motoring in the form of company cars, car allowances, PCPs etc. where the car isn't owned by the driver.
Europa Jon said:
Actual fuel costs are only slightly cheaper for an EV over ICE if you pay normal prices per unit at home.
I simply don't see how this is the case.Comparing apples with apples:
smallish car class:
EV:
BMW i3 - mind has average 4.2 miles / kWh over the last 4 years (that's the true average measured with a 'lecy meter upstream of the only charger the car is ever charged with)
ICE: For the same performance and premium ness, you'd be driving say a 320d - http://www.fuelly.com/car/bmw/320d suggests a real world, average economy of 36 mpg, but lets be kind and bump that to 40 mpg.
Lets say diesel is £1.20 a litre on average, and i my cost rate on overnight charging works out at pretty much 8.6 pence per kWh, that means
i3 = 2.1 pence per mile
320d = 13.6 pence/mile
I'd have to be paying about 60 pence per kWh to get the costs to match. And of course, if you have an agile energy tarrif, you can actually be currently paid to charge you car, whereas realistically, you can only get fuel from a fuel station and you are unlikely to drive to one far away to get a lower cost ! (and you have to take your car to the fuel, whereas the fuel comes to the car when you drive an EV.
By the time you've thrown in lower depreciation, practically zero service costs and maintainance (in 4 years my i3 has had a set of tyres, a pair of windscreen wipers, a couple of cabin filters and some screenwash and that's it.
if you look at something a bit higher performance, then yes, you won't be doing over 4 miles per kWh, but then the equivalent ICE won't be doing 40 mpg either (TM3 performance at around 3 miles/ kWh, BMW M3 at say 25 mpg)
WonkeyDonkey said:
I'm not sure how it would affect the maths but you're a bit crazy to resort to getting a diesel that only gets 36mpg.
Every diesel I've had have averaged above 60mpg, although they may not have had the faux-premiumness that a BMW has.
Honest john has it at 51mpg, so not quite your figure but closeEvery diesel I've had have averaged above 60mpg, although they may not have had the faux-premiumness that a BMW has.
https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/bmw/3-series-...
I think the true costs are between the 2 as I put earlier
Europa Jon said:
Forget those 4 or 5p per unit electricity costs, they're total BS. Those on E7-type tariffs pay lots more for 'normal' electric use. When you average it out, it may work out well over 10p a unit. Higher standing charges and 'normal time' unit costs are conveniently forgotten about during these discussions.
That's just wrong.Here is my electricity bill for last month on E7 (including charging our EV to do about 400 miles in May), its very skewed because we have solar PV + home battery storage, but I think you will find 16 per kWh day time rate is actually pretty inline with 'normal' tariffs, as is 18p standing charge.
The night time rate is half that, and if you look at our break down you can see we use about 5 time more E7 rate than day, that was even before the home battery was put in.
Overall actual running costs of EVs is much much cheaper than any combustion car, including fuel+ tyres + servicing ours is sitting at around 7-8p per mile, the cost of buying the EVs in the first place is the issue for most people, our has cost about £500-600/month in deprecation if we were to sell up today, which makes what ever running cost figures you come up with rather pointless.
Edited by gangzoom on Friday 5th June 15:43
gangzoom said:
That's just wrong.
Here is my electricity bill for last month on E7 (including charging our EV to do about 400 miles in May), its very skewed because we have solar PV + home battery storage, but I think you will find 16 per kWh day time rate is actually pretty inline with 'normal' tariffs, as is 18p standing charge.
The night time rate is half that, and if you look at our break down you can see we use about 5 time more E7 rate than day, that was even before the home battery was put in.
Overall actual running costs of EVs is much much cheaper than any combustion car, including fuel+ tyres + servicing ours is sitting at around 7-8p per mile, the cost of buying the EVs in the first place is the issue for most people, our has cost about £500-600/month in deprecation if we were to sell up today, which makes what ever running cost figures you come up with rather pointless.
My 24/7 rate is 13p - lower than your day rate. If you didn't have solar your day time consumption would be a fair bit higher. Thats the point that was being madeHere is my electricity bill for last month on E7 (including charging our EV to do about 400 miles in May), its very skewed because we have solar PV + home battery storage, but I think you will find 16 per kWh day time rate is actually pretty inline with 'normal' tariffs, as is 18p standing charge.
The night time rate is half that, and if you look at our break down you can see we use about 5 time more E7 rate than day, that was even before the home battery was put in.
Overall actual running costs of EVs is much much cheaper than any combustion car, including fuel+ tyres + servicing ours is sitting at around 7-8p per mile, the cost of buying the EVs in the first place is the issue for most people, our has cost about £500-600/month in deprecation if we were to sell up today, which makes what ever running cost figures you come up with rather pointless.
Edited by gangzoom on Friday 5th June 15:43
To run an EV to save money you really need access to free charging and also to buy a second hand vehicle.
Works great for local delivery vehicles in towns with free chargers.
I guess if you did mega miles in a cheaper new EV like an E-Niro it could also work?
Congestion charges should also be considered...
Works great for local delivery vehicles in towns with free chargers.
I guess if you did mega miles in a cheaper new EV like an E-Niro it could also work?
Congestion charges should also be considered...
Heres Johnny said:
My 24/7 rate is 13p - lower than your day rate. If you didn't have solar your day time consumption would be a fair bit higher. Thats the point that was being made
My day rate is 13.8pCheap rate is 5p
In normal times, we’re not at home during the day and I pull ~14Kw overnight.
In the current climate, not so much.
Gassing Station | EV and Alternative Fuels | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff