When is it actually cheaper to run on gas alone?

[jdbob]

B = 19

H = 39

E = 0.073

C = 0.82

 

$1.11 per gallon. Almost all of the mileage on the car comes from two types of trips:

1) 9 miles for shopping down in town, so no gas used.

2) 1000 - 2000 vacation trips, so no choice but to use gas.

[cwstnsko]

One thing to keep in mind is that for trips short enough that traveling purely on HVB is an option, you aren't likely to average 50+ mpg when the lower MPG experienced during the warm up time for the ICE is taken into consideration.

[Hybridbear]

We filled up yesterday for $0.919. The pump price was $2.419 & we had $1.50/gal in rewards from a local grocery store. Since we use so little gas we can accumulate rewards for the maximum of 2 months before using them up. The Energi took 6 gallons & my parents' Murano took the rest of the 20 gallon limit for discounted gas. At the end of October we'll fill their C-Max Energi which should be down to about 1/4 tank left by then. We currently don't have any plans to use gas in the Energi except for one trip in mid-October which should use about 9-10 gallons, depending on weather conditions on that day.

[Taz]

I went about it by putting together a spreadsheet and calculating the cost per mile. I plugged in a variety of values for fuel and per kilowatt. I then plugged in my best & worst miles per kilowatt as well as my best & worst hybrid mileage. I am forced pretty much to use commercial charging stations if I want juice my my C-max. As a result it is almost never cheaper to use electrons than hydrocarbons except in a few limited instances.

 

Basically it only makes financial sense to use the pure EV mode when I am going to be stuck in bumper to bumper traffic at less than 20 mph. I am paying about $.33 kwh right now for commercial charging. Even at my super efficient rate of about 5.5 miles per kwh, it is still about 6.1 cents per mile. Gas just dropped below $3/gal in some places so I am at about 5.8 cents per mile now for the ICE in normal city driving. If I am on the highway (60 mph) I am get about 4 miles per kwh which is about 8.3 cents per mile. I can drive the ICE at about 75 mph for the same cost as driving on electric at 60 mph.

 

Driving an EV in California pretty much only makes financial sense if you charge at home and aren't at one of the higher electric tiers here. I do love having the option though of going into the EV mode when it really makes sense. I also love being able to capture a lot more energy on downhills that I couldn't otherwise on a normal hybrid. On a trip from San Francisco this weekend I was able to add about 80% charge to my almost empty HVB on the way home. It was good for over 20 miles when I hit LA driving at night.

[flyingcheesehead]

B = 25

H = 45

E = 0.32

C = 0.72

 

$4.864

 

 

For me, its always been cheaper to use gasoline.

 

Wow, that's some expensive juice! Where are you located?

[flyingcheesehead]

One thing to keep in mind is that for trips short enough that traveling purely on HVB is an option, you aren't likely to average 50+ mpg when the lower MPG experienced during the warm up time for the ICE is taken into consideration.

 

Uh... What? If you are on a trip short enough to travel on the HVB, why would you be running the ICE at all?

[lonzo71]

Uh... What? If you are on a trip short enough to travel on the HVB, why would you be running the ICE at all?

Glad to see I wasnt the only one wondering this....

[Timewellspent]

Wow, that's some expensive juice! Where are you located?

 

I was wondering the same thing.

[Taz]

B 32

H 51

E $0.33 

C 0.72

 

$4.44

 

Good ol' SoCal pricing for electricity. It would be even worse if I wasn't getting so many miles in pure EV mode. If i was getting just 25 miles per charge it would be like gas at $5.68/gallon.

Edited September 1, 2015 at 08:23 PM by Taz

[stevedebi]

 

B 32

H 51

E $0.33 

C 0.72

 

$4.44

 

Good ol' SoCal pricing for electricity. It would be even worse if I wasn't getting so many miles in pure EV mode. If i was getting just 25 miles per charge it would be like gas at $5.68/gallon.

 

Must be Edison? Here in LA with the DWP we have tiered pricing, .14 / .17 / "I'm not even sure what the heck tier 3 is".

 

Basically it is tier one to 1K KWA, then Tier 2 up to 2K KWA, then all tier 3.

 

All going to get worse with this clean energy stupidity. It is no accident at CA has such high rates.

Edited September 1, 2015 at 08:35 PM by stevedebi

[openair]

Uh... What? If you are on a trip short enough to travel on the HVB, why would you be running the ICE at all?

Because, at some point, gas may be cheaper than electricity.  That is the discussion occurring in this thread.  Why would you run on the HVB rather than the ICE if the ICE is cheaper?  Because, for very short trips, you're unlikely to hit your average mpg.  Therefor this is a reason to charge the HVB and drive using the HVB even if gas is cheaper than electricity (and do a second calc based on what you might get as mpg for short trips mostly in the warm up phase).

[cwstnsko]

In my current situation, I don't need to even do the math, since my commute is only 9 miles each way and I have free L2 charging at work.

 

When I do the math on my Focus Electric (different work location, 30 mile round trip, all charging at home), $0.09/kWh is roughly the equivelent of $1 per gallon, when comparing to my ICE car at 28-29 mpg. 

 

In my Energi, with my short commute, if I ran in EV Later, I suspect that my car would spend 1/3 to 1/2 of my commute warming up and getting relatively poor mileage.

 

I also try not to overthink the situation. As a rule, I drive EV in the urban areas where speeds are below 45 mph and as soon as I hit more open road and higher speeds, I switch to EV later.  It's not as much about cost for me as much as preserving some battery to be able to enjoy EV driving where it is a distinct advantage.  On the open roads, the difference in the driving experience between EV and hybrid is minimal, in the congested urban areas, it is like night and day. :)

[bdginmo]

Wow, 0.33 / kWH is insane.

 

I pay approximately 0.122 / kWH in the summer and 0.058 / kWH in the winter for anything above 750 kWH. In the winter my base usage prior to purchasing the FFE is generally already above that 750 threshold. These are the residential rates here in St. Louis.

 

Naturally I want to maximize my HVB range in the winter to take advantage of the ultra low rates. What are some tips for doing that? I hate cold weather so avoiding the use of the heater is not an option for me. Should I use EV Later until the waste heat from the ICE has sufficiently warmed the cabin before switching to Auto mode? Is it even correct to assume that waste heat from the ICE does indeed warm the cabin or does it all come from the electric heater? My commute is 30 miles one way. 

[Hybridbear]

I went about it by putting together a spreadsheet and calculating the cost per mile. I plugged in a variety of values for fuel and per kilowatt. I then plugged in my best & worst miles per kilowatt as well as my best & worst hybrid mileage. I am forced pretty much to use commercial charging stations if I want juice my my C-max. As a result it is almost never cheaper to use electrons than hydrocarbons except in a few limited instances.

You don't charge at home?

Naturally I want to maximize my HVB range in the winter to take advantage of the ultra low rates. What are some tips for doing that? I hate cold weather so avoiding the use of the heater is not an option for me. Should I use EV Later until the waste heat from the ICE has sufficiently warmed the cabin before switching to Auto mode? Is it even correct to assume that waste heat from the ICE does indeed warm the cabin or does it all come from the electric heater? My commute is 30 miles one way. 

Check out this thread. There are also some others that may interest you regarding winter driving.

[stevedebi]

Wow, 0.33 / kWH is insane.

 

...

 

Naturally I want to maximize my HVB range in the winter to take advantage of the ultra low rates. What are some tips for doing that? I hate cold weather so avoiding the use of the heater is not an option for me. Should I use EV Later until the waste heat from the ICE has sufficiently warmed the cabin before switching to Auto mode? Is it even correct to assume that waste heat from the ICE does indeed warm the cabin or does it all come from the electric heater? My commute is 30 miles one way. 

No, California is insane. They mandated a certain percentage of energy be "clean", and off the rates went.

 

As to winter, the Energi has two heat sources. If the ICE is running and warmed up, it will use engine heat. Otherwise it uses electric heat. So on a road trip using the ICE, the heat won't have a penalty. But that electric heat really uses up the HVB.

Edited September 2, 2015 at 04:06 PM by stevedebi

[Blastphemy]

I have an LADWP time-of-use meter that gives me lower overnight rates, plus solar panels that run my electric meter backwards during the day. So if you factor in the monthly payment to Solar City, the cost of off-peak electricity, the $1 per kWh it costs for me to charge at work (yes, I know it's a rip-off), and the $4 price of gas here in Los Angeles, it's about 60% less expensive for me to drive on EV Now than it is to drive in EV Later. I thought I saved my spreadsheet the calculated all this out, but I can't find it to show the proofs.

 

That having been said, I always leave my Fusion Energi in EV Auto and never think about it. Even with the gas engine running here and there when the car feels it's necessary, I still get 1,500-2,000 miles per tank of gas. (If all I did was commute, I'd probably only have to fill the tank every 4,000 miles.)

[shaggy314]

For me it was around $1.60 a gallon of regular, but now I have solar it's $0 so... it never is for me.

 

Even the city's charge of unlimited charging for $25 for 6 months comes out of my solar credit on the the electric bill.

[flyingcheesehead]

Naturally I want to maximize my HVB range in the winter to take advantage of the ultra low rates. What are some tips for doing that? I hate cold weather so avoiding the use of the heater is not an option for me. Should I use EV Later until the waste heat from the ICE has sufficiently warmed the cabin before switching to Auto mode? Is it even correct to assume that waste heat from the ICE does indeed warm the cabin or does it all come from the electric heater? My commute is 30 miles one way. 

 

That's one way to do it. Yes, heat from the ICE is used to heat the cabin. The electric heat also heats coolant and runs it through the same heater core, so you can do either one.

 

Preconditioning is the way to go in the winter. I got heated/cooled seats and a heated steering wheel in my Energi, and if I precondition the car to 72º at home and run the heated seats and wheel, I can do my 13 mile/20 minute commute comfortably without running the heat.

 

If you can plug in at work, do the same thing! If not, you can do what I did last winter: Go into EV Later mode, get the engine and then the cabin warmed up, and when you're warm and within EV range of home, go back to EV Now or Auto.

[bdginmo]

Check out this thread. There are also some others that may interest you regarding winter driving.

 

Thanks, that's a great thread. I saw someone posted that the charging efficiency could be lower in the winter. I think the value mentioned  was 0.62 instead of 0.72 for L1 charging. Can you comment on this? I'd like to update my cost model. I have average daily highs and lows in my spreadsheet which I use to model my expected cost. So I could easily plug in a dynamically changing charge efficiency if we knew the relationship between charging efficiency and temperature. Would it really change the breakeven cost of EV vs. GAS that much? Probably not, but I'm engineer who geeks out on numbers a little more than I should :)

[larryh]

The car takes more electricity in the winter mainly due to preconditioning.  It can take up to 3 kWh of electricity to precondition the car.  If you click on the Fuelly signature below, you can see the charging efficiency ratio for my car throughout the year by looking at the notes for each fuel up.  The ratio is given as the kWh of electricity from the wall outlet divided by the kWh output by the HVB (the reciprocal of efficiency).  This is mostly level 2 charging. 

 

In the winter, the ratio is as high as 1.65 (61%).  In the summer, it is as low as 1.29 (78%).

Edited September 5, 2015 at 12:45 AM by larryh