Understanding EV car running costs; simplified.

Electric cars have become something of a hot topic of late. While it's clear to see the increase of them on a daily commute, the question about ownership costs is still very confusing for most. Trying to compare Kilowatts with Miles per gallon is confusing. So what if we make sense of it using pence per mile? We could do that, but measuring things in Miles Per Gallon when we sell our fuel in litres makes it even more complicated, so let me try and clarify, as, unlike most people, I love making this stuff simple. 

Firstly, electric cars. They have batteries. The battery capacity is measured in kW, (kilowatts). Some of the best Electric cars on the market now have around 100 kW (conveniently). Most electric cars will travel for 3 miles for every kW of power they use. So a car with a 100kW battery may travel up to 300 miles before it runs out of power. There's not a massive difference in economy, but some of the best may stretch to 4 miles per kilowatt. 

Bearing this in mind, (3 miles per kW) it's worth noting that yesterday, Osprey CEO Ian Johnston, had to make an announcement publicly to apologise that rapid charging was going up to £1 per kW. Which means each mile costs around 33p.       (£1 divided by three miles per kW).

But how does that compare to Diesel or Petrol?

For starters, it's important to remember that each Gallon of fuel contains 4.54 litres. So to work out the cost of a litre of fuel, we have to take the forecourt price and multiply it by 4.54. A litre of fuel costs around £1.76 so a gallon costs (again, conveniently) around £8. 

To work out pence per mile, simply divide £8 by your car's MPG. Our cars both do around 55mpg, so we pay around 14.5p per mile (8 divided by 55). Which, compared to the cost of an EV is staggeringly cheap. For an EV to be THE SAME as our diesel cars, they would have to provide 3 miles for less than 3 x 14.5p, or 1 kW @45p. Which I can't see rapid charging decreasing to, for a long time. 

45p per kW is admittedly high for a home tariff, although it's lower than the current price cap of 52p per kW, so you might not even save by charging at home. People who have 7-8p off peak economy tariffs could charge their vehicles off peak and half their motoring costs so long as they schedule their charge for overnight; but most home chargers are 7kWh, so a 100kW battery would take over 14 hours, and if you haven't already got one, good luck finding one, as many providers aren't even letting you switch or even compare at the moment!

Hopefully this has simplified the comparison and made it easier to wrap your head around the numbers, for those interested. For me, knowing this, I'll definitely be sticking with our oil burning diesels, for now, because I simply cannot afford the alternative; to acquire, nor to run. 

Which isn't what I'd choose for our future. 

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