London, Europe Brief News – You can save thousands over the life of the car compared with gas—but electricity isn’t free or cheap everywhere.
Would you like to pay $2 a gallon — or a lot less — for gas? If you drove an electric car, that’s the equivalent of what you would pay for the electricity to charge the battery.
That estimate comes from Southern California Edison, the power company that supplies some of the electricity I use to recharge my 2021 Hyundai HYMTF, -2.74% Kona EV. I say “some” because the rooftop solar panels on my house help to charge my car. During the day, electricity from the sun goes right into my car’s battery. It’s like magic.
While a $2-a-gallon equivalent sounds nice, it’s more impressive when you look at the lifetime savings. Over the anticipated 15-year lifespan of a vehicle, the electricity to run an electric vehicle can be as much as $14,480 cheaper than fueling a gas-powered car, according to a study done by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Idaho National Laboratory.
I’m not singing the virtues of the low cost of EV charging to score eco-points. I just want people to understand what I think is one of the great advantages of driving an electric car. For a cheapskate like me, it was a welcome surprise that recharging could be so cheap — sometimes even free.
On the other hand, charging can be expensive if you haven’t planned ahead.
Recharging costs for EVs are based on many variables: the cost of electricity in your state, the time of day you charge, the size of your battery, just to name a few.
Charging at home
Buying a charging station, and having an electrician install it, costs about $1,200, according to the home remodeling website Fixr. (I spent only $500 for my charger, which I’ve been using for over six years.)
Since electricity costs more during peak evening hours, most EV owners set a timer to begin charging late at night.
Using these reduced rates, the Nissan NSANY, -0.73% LEAF with a 150-mile range would cost about $7 to fully charge, according to the California Air Resources Board. Compare that with a gas-powered car getting 25 miles per gallon. It would cost about $22 for enough gas to drive that car 150 miles in areas where gas costs $3.70 per gallon.
