On The Road: Green Car Drive-Off: EV vs. Hybrid vs. Gas

[Daox]

I got my email notification of the latest issue of home power magazine this morning. They have an interesting article (available to non-subscribers) that shows the cost to drive 15,000 miles in an EV vs Hybrid (50 mpg) vs Efficient Gas (30 mpg) vehicle as well as the CO2 output from all of the above for multiple locations (since electricity is made in different ways in different parts of the country). The results are quite interesting and IMO its great to see some quantified numbers.

On The Road: Green Car Drive-Off: EV vs. Hybrid vs. Gas

[MetroMPG]

Interesting.

But my grade 10 physics teacher would flunk them for not showing their work (including the price of power or gas in their "by location" comparisons.)

Maybe it's in the unabridged magazine article.

[Daox]

Yeah, that data definitely would add to the quality of the article.

[aggie sig]

I think the article is a little idealistic,

my 2011 civic gets 36 mpg, whereas a similarly equipped insight would only get about 41 with my type of driving (75mph 80-100miles/day round trip) at a cost of 3K more I would only save about $300/year taking 10 years (330,000 miles) at current gas prices to break even on the higher initial investment.

That is why I chose not to go hybrid, and although I don't doubt Honda's Quality reputation, my gut instinct was that the long term maintenance of the Civic would be also be less than the insight which would negate fuel savings. When I ran the same numbers with the Civic hybrid the purchase price difference was slightly larger and the fuel gains were identical meaning it would take me 10+ years at my current driving rate to make up the difference.

People who drive the amount/ type that I do buy hybrids as a lifestyle choice, not an economic investment IMO. If I lived in town and did lots of stop and go the Hybrid would be my choice by far.

For the record I drive an '06 prius at work and I consistently get 75+ mpg in the city, but at Texas Highway speeds, it gets between 40 and 45 pretty consistently. And it is a maintenance nightmare for out facilities guys. So much that they are looking at surplussing the 4 or so that we own because of the maintenance.

[Ryland]

National average for gasoline right now is $2.98 per gallon according to the EPA web site for MPG and national average for electrical rates are around $0.12 per kwh if you look at the yellow energy label on appliances, why these standards were not included in the article as a baseline confuses me a little, or include the electrical rates of each city along with the gas prices.
He expands on his math a little if you fallow the link at the bottom of the article but I feel like a poor job was done, unless you happen to live in one of those cities he wrote about.
I wrote to the editors at Home Power asking them to include more information next time, they normally do a good job so I'm not sure why they let this one slip by.

[Nevyn]

Also, they should take and do a run with "efficient driver." That'd change Hybrid to ~65 MPG and car to ~42 MPG. I'd like to see how THOSE numbers work out.

[Jim-Bob]

It would also have been interesting to see a comparison of the most efficient gas vehicle ever sold in the US ( Metro XFI) vs the best hybrid ( original Insight), best diesel ( probably a Golf TDI) and the best electric. My money is on the Metro as the all time economic efficiency champ.

As far as their data set goes, I would like to know where their assumptions come from. They did not specify which vehicles they were using as the point of comparison and seem to have just pulled these numbers out of thin air. It also fails to take into account vehicles outside the US market like the VW Polo Bluemotion or Toyota Aygo ( a inexpensive 3 cylinder car with great fuel efficiency that anyone could afford to buy, not a $35k electric). Without showing an actual set of vehicles it makes the report seem biased towards the writer's particular proclivities and is thus not very scientific. Sorry, but it is poorly researched as far as I am concerned and only serves to push the writer's love of electric cars.

[Ryland]

I don't really care that they didn't talk about non hybrid 50mpg vehicles because the point was that a car, any car getting 50mpg is burning a gallon of fuel for every 50 miles traveled, so how does that compare to electric? how does a 30mpg vehicle compare? what is annoying is that they gave poor and incomplete information and no formula for the rest of us to plug our own numbers in to.

[The Rooster]

Electric cars, like Hybrids are just going to serve the same purpose. It's a toy for those with extra cash and a belief that buying new cars with batteries is good for mother Earth.

First, I don't understand the 30 mpg vs Electric comparison. What car the size of the Nissan Leaf, gets just 30 mpg? Ford Fiesta gets 40, Hyndai Sonata gets 40, Yaris gets 36, and they are all in the $15k or under range to purchase.

But even at just 30 mpg, you save roughly $800 per 15k miles, which is about a year from the average driver. So, a leaf, which has juat a 100mile range so you can ONLY use it to commute, and costs about $27k after you add the charger and deduct the federal tax credit. So, to make up that $12k difference, I'd need to drive the Leaf for 15 years before I started to save money.

Of course, Nissan says the battery is expected to retian 80% of it's batteries capacity after 5 years, and warranties it for 8 years and 100k miles...so I may need a new battery after just 5 years, especially if I drove 80 miles a day. (I drive 110, even a new Leaf wont work for me). How much does that cost? Could it be close to the $10k price difference between the leaf and its gasoline counterparts? If it's even $5k, I may never get my money's worth.

I do love the simplicity of the Electric car, but it needs to shave about 10g's off the price and double in range before it becomes even a remotely practical alternative...Oh, and come with a free charger.

[Frank Lee]

Electric cars have arrived and new hybrids are proliferating. As a result, the fuel economy of the average affordable car is finally starting to climb

By the time I made it to the second sentence he'd lost credibility- kind of a tough start. Then towards the end of the addendum there's this:

I've probably confused everybody with my back-and-forth calculations, and the incorrect descriptions, but to me, the situation is confirmed (as much as it can be confirmed based on government numbers).

Yes, there was room for improvement in laying out his logic. So much so, that I don't care what he said or what conclusions he drew.

Start over. Or let someone else do it.