I was talking to my father a few weeks ago about electric cars, and I wanted to quantify how much going electric would save him so I ran some numbers. Where he lives gas is currently somewhere around $2.20/gallon. His car gets around 30mpg combined, so he's paying ~$0.073/mile.
Tesla's website contains a "charging estimator" for the Model S, which estimates a cost of $12.04 for a total charge of 300 miles in a 90D. In the fine print, they state that the calculation is based off of the assumption of $0.12/kWh cost for electricity, which works out to a total of 100kWh to fully charge a 90D to 300 miles of range. However, he pays far more than $0.12/kWh - he actually pays $0.22/kWh. This means that the fuel cost of the Model S for him is exactly the same: ~$0.073/mile.
I write this to say that I had always assumed that electricity was far cheaper than gasoline, and I was surprised when I ran the numbers and saw that it wasn't. It seems that articles like this assume that of course people will switch to electric cars in droves once the cars get cheap enough and the range is good enough, but unless electricity becomes cheaper or gas becomes more expensive, many people, like my father, will choose to continue to drive gas-powered cars.
Tesla's website contains a "charging estimator" for the Model S, which estimates a cost of $12.04 for a total charge of 300 miles in a 90D. In the fine print, they state that the calculation is based off of the assumption of $0.12/kWh cost for electricity, which works out to a total of 100kWh to fully charge a 90D to 300 miles of range. However, he pays far more than $0.12/kWh - he actually pays $0.22/kWh. This means that the fuel cost of the Model S for him is exactly the same: ~$0.073/mile.
I write this to say that I had always assumed that electricity was far cheaper than gasoline, and I was surprised when I ran the numbers and saw that it wasn't. It seems that articles like this assume that of course people will switch to electric cars in droves once the cars get cheap enough and the range is good enough, but unless electricity becomes cheaper or gas becomes more expensive, many people, like my father, will choose to continue to drive gas-powered cars.