Rise in energy prices
Discussion
billybc said:
Still ok with Octopus GO tariff. The standard day rate is going up but the 4 hour night window is staying at 5p.
The Octopus night rate is unsustainable, E7 rates are now 14p per kWh, and real costs approaching 30p per kWh. Last summer everyone was raging about Octopus Agile PAYING you to charge due to surplus electricity, now Agile rates are 35p per kWh pretty much all day.At the current energy cap of 21p per kWh, if you have large EV after charging losses you are looking at 2.5 miles per kWh, or 8p per mile. That's not far off a 50mpg car with fuel at £1.30/l which works out at 12p per mile.
We rely on gas for 1/3 of the grid electricity, so if gas prices don't come down quickly all our electricity rates will shot up. It wouldn't surprise me to see rapid chargers hit over 50p per kWh quite soon, that's more expensive than petrol AND slower to refuel.
The days of running EVs for virtually no fuel costs is fast coming to an end.
Edited by gangzoom on Thursday 7th October 19:53
gangzoom said:
The Octopus night rate is unsustainable, E7 rates are now 14p per kWh, and real costs approaching 30p per kWh. Last summer everyone was raging about Octopus Agile PAYING you to charge due to surplus electricity, now Agile rates are 35p per kWh pretty much all day.
At the current energy cap of 21p per kWh, if you have large EV after charging losses you are looking at 2.5 miles per kWh, or 8p per mile. That's not far off a 50mpg car with fuel at £1.30/l which works out at 12p per mile.
We rely on gas for 1/3 of the grid electricity, so if gas prices don't come down quickly all our electricity rates will shot up. It wouldn't surprise me to see rapid chargers hit over 50p per kWh quite soon, that's more expensive than petrol AND slower to refuel.
The days of running EVs for virtually no fuel costs is fast coming to an end.
This is exactly what I didn't want to read! Cheers! At the current energy cap of 21p per kWh, if you have large EV after charging losses you are looking at 2.5 miles per kWh, or 8p per mile. That's not far off a 50mpg car with fuel at £1.30/l which works out at 12p per mile.
We rely on gas for 1/3 of the grid electricity, so if gas prices don't come down quickly all our electricity rates will shot up. It wouldn't surprise me to see rapid chargers hit over 50p per kWh quite soon, that's more expensive than petrol AND slower to refuel.
The days of running EVs for virtually no fuel costs is fast coming to an end.
Edited by gangzoom on Thursday 7th October 19:53
Personal situations will vary of course, but isnt EV charge costs a relatively small percentage of your electric usage to start with? I think I am at around 15% of my electric bill is the EV, but that drops to around 5% in summer when the aircon usage jumps through the roof. Yes, the cost per unit is a concern, but its not a massive impact if this goes up - I am increasing my bill more by cooling my house in summer or turning on the electric heaters in winter. EV charges as a percentage are relatively small.
And isnt the bigger and longer term point around how you get this? Electricity might go up, but you have options on how you pay for it as well as use it. You can generate your own (solar), you can use a plan to reduce the costs and you can even opt to purchase from different providers. Petrol is petrol is petrol. You have a choice of where to get it, but the prices are broadly the same, and unless you are going the full-on bio-diesel route, you cant really create your own fuel.
Where I am, we have a tier system - the more you use, the more you pay (common here). So the costs can increase by 25% or more at the end of a heavy month, usually driven by aircon usage. So you do have a weird situation where you look to save as much as possible towards the end of the month - and maybe using the car a little less. Electricity is already up 13% this year and likely to go up again next year. But I can do some winter projects around further insulating my house & garage, sensible appliance upgrades and a few other energy efficiency options to keep the impact low. Not many options for that around petrol prices - though I suppose you could get a pre-paid card or opt into one of those bulk purchase programs I suppose.
And isnt the bigger and longer term point around how you get this? Electricity might go up, but you have options on how you pay for it as well as use it. You can generate your own (solar), you can use a plan to reduce the costs and you can even opt to purchase from different providers. Petrol is petrol is petrol. You have a choice of where to get it, but the prices are broadly the same, and unless you are going the full-on bio-diesel route, you cant really create your own fuel.
Where I am, we have a tier system - the more you use, the more you pay (common here). So the costs can increase by 25% or more at the end of a heavy month, usually driven by aircon usage. So you do have a weird situation where you look to save as much as possible towards the end of the month - and maybe using the car a little less. Electricity is already up 13% this year and likely to go up again next year. But I can do some winter projects around further insulating my house & garage, sensible appliance upgrades and a few other energy efficiency options to keep the impact low. Not many options for that around petrol prices - though I suppose you could get a pre-paid card or opt into one of those bulk purchase programs I suppose.
Our EV is 50% of our electricity bill.
We’ve now added another EV so expect that to go up, although we have also moved to a 4 hour off peak tariff.
Unlike petrol, energy prices don’t effect us immediately as there tends to be a period of fixed, in our case 12 months.
Petrol prices are also on the rise.
I don’t see EV costs approaching anywhere near that of running an ICE for a considerable time, and that’s before taking in to account servicing, maintenance etc.
We’ve now added another EV so expect that to go up, although we have also moved to a 4 hour off peak tariff.
Unlike petrol, energy prices don’t effect us immediately as there tends to be a period of fixed, in our case 12 months.
Petrol prices are also on the rise.
I don’t see EV costs approaching anywhere near that of running an ICE for a considerable time, and that’s before taking in to account servicing, maintenance etc.
I charge our EV half of the time in France (where my provider is 82% nuclear, 10% solar/wind and 8% gas) at 11p/kWh off-peak; the other half is in Switzerland (90% hydroelectric, 10% solar in our canton), at 14.5p/kWh, but given the sources I am hoping not to see too much of a price rise in either location.
kambites said:
At worst it's going to add a couple of pence per mile onto your fuel bill. It'll stll be vastly cheaper than fueling an internal combustion powered car. Plus of course rising electricity prices will also push up the cost of petrol, albeit by a smaller amount.
That's pretty much my thinking too. My Range Rover costs £150 to fill up and will do around 400 miles - the Tesla costs (I think) around £9 for around 300 miles.Because EV's are comically cheap to run, it becomes amusing to work out how much money you're saving. But then you start to think, 'hang on, I'm now paying £3 more because of surging electricity prices'. Which is crazy, it's still very very cheap if you're charging at home.
If you regularly do long journeys you’ve got to consider on the road charging as well. Rapid charge networks have, or are in the process of, raising prices. Tesla have done this quietly, but a lot of these stations and other networks are now the 40p per kWh area.
When the energy price cap ends early next year it’s likely home costs will go up further.
I find it incredible that EVs are becoming more expensive to “fuel” than ICE, when most of the fuel cost is an ICE is tax!
When the energy price cap ends early next year it’s likely home costs will go up further.
I find it incredible that EVs are becoming more expensive to “fuel” than ICE, when most of the fuel cost is an ICE is tax!
I find myself on the lucky side for once. Just tied myself in for 2 years in July to Octopus go at 14/5p rate. With my 2 year EV lease closely matched i can play the market in 2023 and get whatever will be the cheaper option (surely must still be EV with 95% home charging).
I do worry for those not as fortunate as me and having to live with these huge cost increases though
I do worry for those not as fortunate as me and having to live with these huge cost increases though
gangzoom said:
At the current energy cap of 21p per kWh, if you have large EV after charging losses you are looking at 2.5 miles per kWh, or 8p per mile. That's not far off a 50mpg car with fuel at £1.30/l which works out at 12p per mile.
2.5 miles per kWh, even taking into account charging losses, would be an extremely inefficient EV/charger setup and a genuine 50mpg average would be very efficient in a decent sized car even for a small diesel engine. You could probably concoct particular journeys in carefully chosen cars where ICE and EV are pretty close, but it's certainly not going to be norm at 21p/kWh. Typical charging losses on modern EVs seem to be in the 10-15% range and a typical family EV should average at least 3.5, probably closer to 4, miles/kWh so that gives you an overall EV efficiency of somewhere in the 3-3.5 miles/kWh range after charging losses. Lets pick the middle ground at 3.25 so that's 6.5p/mile at 21p/kWh. A typical petrol family car averages, what, 35mpg in typical usage? At the current ~1.30 a litre that's 16p/mile. A typical diesel family car will average maybe 45mpg overall in typical use and diesel is currently about 1.35 ler litre, which pushes that to 13.5p/mile. Still more than twice the EV.
Obviously if you compare a Audi ETron to a Kia Picanto and only drive on the motorway the ICE vehicle will get close but that's hardly a fair comparison.
ETA: The other thing to be aware of is that a fair bit of electricity is used in the refinement of petrol. It's difficult to pin down an exact figure but it's generally reckoned to be around 1kWh/litre so if the price of a kWh of electricity rises by 5p, it's only reasonable to assume that the petrol is going to go up about 5p/litre as a result.
Edited by kambites on Friday 8th October 08:01
mcm87 said:
I find it incredible that EVs are becoming more expensive to “fuel” than ICE, when most of the fuel cost is an ICE is tax!
Are they though? You’ve got to have a very efficient ICE and a very cheap garage and a very expensive electricity tariff, and it still isn’t anywhere near that yet.Personally I’d have an EV even if it cost more. It’s more refined, faster, more comfortable, quieter and more convenient.
mcm87 said:
If you regularly do long journeys you’ve got to consider on the road charging as well. Rapid charge networks have, or are in the process of, raising prices. Tesla have done this quietly, but a lot of these stations and other networks are now the 40p per kWh area.
I think Tesla are currently 28p per kWh for the supercharger network - roughly .06p a mile. It's half that price when charged at home.In my case, with two V8 ICE engines, the comparison is .03p a mile, Vs .38p a mile in ICE. The electricity price would need to go up by 1,100% to start to be equivalent. And that sets aside the cost of road tax and servicing.
kambites said:
Obviously if you compare a Audi ETron to a Kia Picanto and only drive on the motorway the ICE vehicle will get close but that's hardly a fair comparison.
Thank you for responding in this way - I cannot understand why so many people think it’s appropriate to compare the cost of public charging a 400bhp EV with a small ice hatchback. The cost of a 400bhp ice suv would be about 30p per mile - petrol prices have gone up quite a lot recently.Plus, a point nobody ever seems to realise is that any public charging is usually a small proportion of general use - even for someone like me doing 20-30 more-than-300-miles-in-a-day runs a year. Even if I use Ionity on those days, the cost is still less than using my wife’s car on the same day (20p per mile) factoring in the cheap cost to refill my EV when I get home. It may cost me 25p per mile for Ionity miles, but that’s not normally more than half the total, so the average per long trip comes down to 10-15p per mile, before my tax deduction from being through the company
Tesla are really opaque with their pricing, but the cost varies by site. I drove a colleague’s Model 3 last week and it cost 36p at the closest supercharger. It was much, much cheaper 18months ago.
I’m a huge EV fan so don’t take my comparison as trying to cast a shadow over the experience, but generally EVs are still expensive. I certainly wouldn’t consider a 35mpg car as an equivalent.
The two most recent cars in our family fleet have been a Kona EV and a Corolla hybrid. The Kona got around 4m/kWh and the Corolla has averaged around 70mpg over the previous 6k miles since the trip was last reset. The cost difference between fuelling them on our current home electricity rate is completely negligible. It’s slightly cheaper with the EV charged at home, and the petrol is cheaper filling up away from home on long runs.
We don’t have economy 7 and the EV is a nicer experience, so there are measures which could be taken to tip further in the EVs favour, but I never would’ve expected this when I had my first i3 4 years ago when we were paying 11p at home and rapid charging wasn’t much more!
If you were making a new car purchase decision, it’s closer than some might expect. If looking for a performance car it’s a completely different story. But for a family runabout I’ve found this the case in my experience.
I’m a huge EV fan so don’t take my comparison as trying to cast a shadow over the experience, but generally EVs are still expensive. I certainly wouldn’t consider a 35mpg car as an equivalent.
The two most recent cars in our family fleet have been a Kona EV and a Corolla hybrid. The Kona got around 4m/kWh and the Corolla has averaged around 70mpg over the previous 6k miles since the trip was last reset. The cost difference between fuelling them on our current home electricity rate is completely negligible. It’s slightly cheaper with the EV charged at home, and the petrol is cheaper filling up away from home on long runs.
We don’t have economy 7 and the EV is a nicer experience, so there are measures which could be taken to tip further in the EVs favour, but I never would’ve expected this when I had my first i3 4 years ago when we were paying 11p at home and rapid charging wasn’t much more!
If you were making a new car purchase decision, it’s closer than some might expect. If looking for a performance car it’s a completely different story. But for a family runabout I’ve found this the case in my experience.
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