EVs and long road trips don’t go well together.
On average, new electric vehicles (EVs) are considerably more expensive to buy than their traditional equivalents. Estimates vary, but according to Kelley Blue Book, the average transaction price for a new EV in September was $65,000, while for a new conventional car it came in at around $48,000. There are cheaper EVs out there, and the number may be skewed by the fact that EVs tend (for now) to be bought by more affluent consumers, but even so.
But, at least they are cheaper to drive. Right? Right?
2022’s final quarter finally brought relief at the pump for drivers of traditional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles as the cost to drive 100 miles dropped by more than $2. With the cost for electricity also trending upward during the year, midpriced ICE cars became more economical to fuel than their Electric Vehicle (EV) counterparts for the first time in 18 months.
In Q4 2022, typical mid-priced ICE car drivers paid about $11.29 to fuel their vehicles for 100 miles of driving. That cost was around $0.31 cheaper than the amount paid by mid-priced EV drivers charging mostly at home, and over $3 less than the cost borne by comparable EV drivers charging commercially.
Drivers of luxury EVs continued to a fueling cost advantage, regardless of charging method.
The answer will depend, obviously enough, on movements in the relative price of gas and electricity, but it was interesting to read how much more expensive driving an EV becomes if you charge it anywhere other than at home, another example of how EVs and long road trips don’t go well together. The next time I go driving around New Mexico (let it be soon!), I’ll be driving a gas car.
Part of the reason for the greater cost of driving an EV when on the road is the miles (“deadhead miles”) spent driving to find a charging station — and better still, one that works. This will be even more of a problem for rental-car drivers.
[The American Rental Association] [has] pointed out . . . that more than half of those who rent cars drive beyond the range of a single charge, meaning there’s no other option than to rely on public charging networks.
As I said, next time I’m in New Mexico, I’ll be sticking with a gas car.
One recent study found that about a quarter of the public charging outlets in the San Francisco Bay Area, where electric cars are commonplace, were not working.
A major effort is underway to build hundreds of thousands of public chargers — the federal government alone is spending $7.5 billion. But drivers of electric cars and analysts said that the companies that install and maintain the stations need to do more to make sure those new chargers and the more than 120,000 that already exist are reliable.
Many sit in parking lots or in front of retail stores where there is often no one to turn to for help when something goes wrong. Problems include broken screens and buggy software. Some stop working midcharge, while others never start in the first place.
There is a lot to be said for building charging stations on the gas-station model, meaning that there would be someone onsite who could help if a problem cropped up. In fact, there is currently a tussle going on between operators of gas stations, which would be natural locations for EV chargers, and utility companies. A lot hangs on how the electricity will be charged, not least because utility companies want to grab a share of the charger market. More on this to come at some point, but suffice to say for now, the issue is trickier than you might think. One thing that ought to make running EV charging stations attractive is that, given charging times, customers will make a good captive market for buying coffee, copies of War and Peace, chess sets, Lego models of the Millennium Falcon, and so on.
Tesla has a good network, but other nascent charging chains have their difficulties.
Back to the New York Times:
EVgo and Electrify America say they take reliability seriously and have employees keep tabs on their stations from centralized control rooms that can quickly dispatch technicians to fix problems.
“These are out in the wild by themselves,” said Rob Barrosa, a senior director of sales, business development and marketing at Electrify America. “You just can’t set it and forget it.”
But not everything is under their control. While those companies test chargers with various electric vehicles, compatibility problems can require changes to chargers or cars.
Even stations that are owned by charging companies like EVgo and Electrify America often sit unattended for long stretches. At most gas stations, a clerk is usually on duty and can see when some problems arise. With chargers, vandalism or other damage can be more difficult to track.
“Where there’s a screen, there’s a baseball bat,” said Jonathan Levy, EVgo’s chief commercial officer.
The Biden administration is providing up to $5 billion to fund 500,000 EV chargers for the states (I wrote a bit about that program here), and there’s an extra $2.5 billion tacked onto that for additional facilities.
The money also comes with a requirement that chargers be functional 97 percent of the time and adhere to technical standards for communicating with vehicles. Stations must also have a minimum of four ports that can charge simultaneously and not be limited to any one automotive brand.
We’ll see.
Oh yes, EVs are more expensive to insure . . .