Electric car cost warning

[trollbait]

"Suburban Urban Vehicle" is probably a better name in view of how most are used.

[benlovesgoddess]

The missus has now accused me of portraying her on the internet as a dumb blonde.
I said you guys don't know what colour her hair is, right?

[Draigflag]

Or "seriously underloaded vehicle" given the size and the fact that they usually just have one person on-board...

[Draigflag]

Well I just learned today that Ecotricity in the UK, one of the main suppliers of electric charging stations, has now decided to charge a whopping £5 for just 20 minutes of charging at their charge points. Up until now, it's always been free. That means to get a 80% charge, it will cost owners £10. As an example a Leaf will do about 66 miles on an 80% charge, so charging publically will now cost owners 15 pence per mile, about twice as much as a diesel car in fuel. Now add that massive depreciation I was talking about earlier.

For plug in owners, this is even worse, having to buy expensive fuel AND electricity too. What a stupid move, this will harm the sales on EV's Bigtime as free fuel was always a big incentive. No such thing as a free lunch I guess...

[benlovesgoddess]

Speaking for pure cost saving, heating oil is hard to beat! It generally costs one third the price of diesel - actually £1.60 a gallon at todays price compared to £4.60 at the pump.
Though filling was vague, i estimate very similar economy to regular diesel.
Red diesel used to be about half the price of pump diesel, but the risk of a crushed car if caught with it in your tank meant it was rarely used.
I looked at straight veggie oil (which i think needed an additive any way), but even catering drums still were about two thirds the price of diesel. That was when diesel was much higher, so maybe no saving.
Pre mixed used veggie oil used to be 20% cheaper than diesel, but with a worse loss in efficiency, not worthwhile (apart from more pleasant exhaust fumes!).
I wouldnt use heating oil now, as i am generally a less shady guy than i was 10 years ago, but i ran a half dozen cars on it pretty much exclusively for 5 years.
In a cost saving term, it would have given my old i20 an equivalent figure of 192 miles to the gallon, let any electric or hybrid beat that for economy! At the time my main rides were a Citroen ZX and a Nissan Terrano, reporting equivalent economy of 216 mpg and 81 mpg respectively.
Not as environmentally sound as solar powered home charging, but surely a contender cost wise!

[Draigflag]

Yes diesels are more versatile, although I think the penalties for running on "chip fat" are just as heavy as those for running on Red diesel. I did look at making my own diesel at one point, really not that difficult to setup and the government allows you to make so many "tax free" litre a year, no idea how they would check how much you're making anyway. To be honest, when you priced up the ingredients, it didn't really work out that much cheaper, you know like when you make a cake to "save money" and you end up spending like £12 on ingredients when you could have just bought one for £5

[trollbait]

Originally Posted by Draigflag

Well I just learned today that Ecotricity in the UK, one of the main suppliers of electric charging stations, has now decided to charge a whopping £5 for just 20 minutes of charging at their charge points. Up until now, it's always been free. That means to get a 80% charge, it will cost owners £10. As an example a Leaf will do about 66 miles on an 80% charge, so charging publically will now cost owners 15 pence per mile, about twice as much as a diesel car in fuel. Now add that massive depreciation I was talking about earlier.

For plug in owners, this is even worse, having to buy expensive fuel AND electricity too. What a stupid move, this will harm the sales on EV's Bigtime as free fuel was always a big incentive. No such thing as a free lunch I guess...

That seems to be an issue here in regards to the public chargers; they are free or too expensive. The few slow chargers a business might install aside, free isn't going to work forever. Yet, there might be local regulations that limit who can measure and charge for kilowatts; like only the power company can. So these charger companies have to price based on the max power draw a plug in might draw and parking.

Originally Posted by benlovesgoddess

Speaking for pure cost saving, heating oil is hard to beat! It generally costs one third the price of diesel - actually £1.60 a gallon at todays price compared to £4.60 at the pump.
Though filling was vague, i estimate very similar economy to regular diesel.
Red diesel used to be about half the price of pump diesel, but the risk of a crushed car if caught with it in your tank meant it was rarely used.
I looked at straight veggie oil (which i think needed an additive any way), but even catering drums still were about two thirds the price of diesel. That was when diesel was much higher, so maybe no saving.
Pre mixed used veggie oil used to be 20% cheaper than diesel, but with a worse loss in efficiency, not worthwhile (apart from more pleasant exhaust fumes!).
I wouldnt use heating oil now, as i am generally a less shady guy than i was 10 years ago, but i ran a half dozen cars on it pretty much exclusively for 5 years.
In a cost saving term, it would have given my old i20 an equivalent figure of 192 miles to the gallon, let any electric or hybrid beat that for economy! At the time my main rides were a Citroen ZX and a Nissan Terrano, reporting equivalent economy of 216 mpg and 81 mpg respectively.
Not as environmentally sound as solar powered home charging, but surely a contender cost wise!

Once filtered, you could also use your used motor oil and transmission fluid. I've heard modern diesels aren't as flexible in fuel sources anymore, though.

Well,anytime you cheat on the taxes will be better financially. CNG is popular for buses and centralized truck fleets here. It's cleaner than gasoline and diesel, and also skips on road tax legally.

Originally Posted by Draigflag

Yes diesels are more versatile, although I think the penalties for running on "chip fat" are just as heavy as those for running on Red diesel. I did look at making my own diesel at one point, really not that difficult to setup and the government allows you to make so many "tax free" litre a year, no idea how they would check how much you're making anyway. To be honest, when you priced up the ingredients, it didn't really work out that much cheaper, you know like when you make a cake to "save money" and you end up spending like £12 on ingredients when you could have just bought one for £5

The secret to making your own biodiesel cheap is to get friendly with a local restaurant. They are likely paying someone to take their used cooking oil and lard. Then the only ingredient cost for the biodiesel is methanol and lye.

[Draigflag]

Maybe I should look into homemade diesel again then, as 2 doors down from me is a Turkish Kebab shop!

[Draigflag]

Something else that's bugging EV owners are Plug in owners "hogging" charge stations. In supermarkets and large department stores, there are usually only a small handful of charge stations. EV's need electricity obviously, but Plug in owners can just regular gasoline if they run out of Electric. Now EV owners are getting upset that plug in owners are hogging all the charge stations that they need.

[trollbait]

That is also an issue in some places here, too.

If a person does get their PHEV use to 100% electric, they are just going to waste ICE fuel when the car does a maintenance cycle.