Busted! EVs are cheap to run!

​Are EVs are more expensive to run than an ICE vehicle?!  A well-known motoring magazine seems to have started a campaign to try and convince consumers that the cost of running an EV is more expensive than an ICE vehicle.  I’m calling BS on this one.
​
Click below to read more.....

Around town
The vast majority of driving by the vast majority of Australians  is performed around town with charging being undertaken at home.  Indeed, the average passenger vehicle in Australia travels just 33.2 km per day.  Up until last week we have driven 18,390km in our Model Y for the grand total of $0, with charging being performed at home using rooftop solar, and the occasional charge at our local shopping centre.  Even without rooftop solar the cost to charge at home to cover this distance would have been approx. $500 compared to over $4,000 for an ICE vehicle (assuming charging is performed overnight and on weekends).

Road trip  
So how does an EV compare to an ICE vehicle on a road trip?  I recently drove from Sydney to Victoria and back again.  Here are the stats:

• Distance driven 1,381 km
• Total costs to charge $133.53

So how does this compare to an ICE vehicle?  I challenge anyone who could find an ICE vehicle that could make that trip anywhere near the above cost.
Per the NRMA, at the time of writing this blog the average unleaded fuel price is $2.12 per L.  The weather was hot (>30 degrees) so the air conditioning was running the entire time.  And there was almost an hour of driving up a mountain with plenty of switchbacks.  The vast majority of ICE vehicles would have consumed at least 7L of fuel per 100km and more likely closer to 10L per 100km, and some as high as 12L per 100km.  So that is a cost of between $204.80 and $351.08.  At the mid-point of $277.94, this is a 108% uplift compared to the Model Y for this trip!!    

Carbon emissions
So what about the CO2e emissions for this road trip of an EV vs an ICE vehicle?  One litre of petrol emits 2.3 kg of CO2e (diesel is around 17% higher).  If 7L to 12L of petrol is consumed per 100km that is between 222.2 kg and 380.9 kg of CO2e emissions; the mid-point of which is 301.6 kg.

How does this compare to the EV?  A total of 195.4 kWh was consumed.  Firstly, my solar system was exporting clean energy into the same grid that I was drawing energy from.  A total of 127.6 kWh was exported during the duration of the trip.  So that leaves a net 67.8 kWh that I imported into the car from the grid.  This was primarily consumed between 10am and 3pm when the percentage of renewables in the grid, as seen in the Amber Electric app which sources its data from AEMO, was approx. 60%.  1 kWh of coal generated electricity produces about 1 kg of CO2e.  So the net CO2e of the EV for this trip were 67.8 kWh x (100%-60%) x 1 kg = 27.1 kg, or a mere 9% of an ICE vehicle. 

Around 70% of EV owners have rooftop solar so this calculation is broadly representative of the market noting however that everyone's system's will be of different sizes and the production stats could vary with the weather.  However the CO2e emissions would still be significantly lower than an ICE vehicle even without the solar offset; approx 78.2 kg or 25.9% of an ICE vehicle.