MotorTrend year long test.
Am I reading the .17 cents per mile right based on using "Level 2 AC" charging 65% of the time? Based on that figure, the 2016 Escape we drive for errands and up to 6,000 mile trips in the summer is about 40% the cost per mile cheaper to drive with gasoline being $3.00 per gallon.
Help me understand what I am missing here... I Googled "Tesla Model 3 cost per mile" and it came up with .04 cents, which is more of a figure that I was expecting than the MT .17 cents per mile.
Admittedly, I am unfamiliar with the Level 2 AC charging station rates or capabilities.
Also, there is this from the NY Times I found while trying to figure out where my math is wrong.
Source: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nyti..._per_mile.html
that 17 cents a mile figure probably includes some portion of using commercial charging stations which, people have come to find out, is not cheap unless the government further subsidizes the charging stations.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a3...osts-per-mile/
Also, that table is inflating the Prius's cost per mile since it assumes 44mpg. US governments says it gets 54 city, 50 highway, 52 combined. So the Prius is more like 5.6 cents a mile. With an 11.3 gallon tank that's over 550 miles of range at 27k starting price.
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find...n=sbs&id=44079
Level 1 and 2 charging is AC using the car’s onboard charger. Level 1 is 120v from a regular household outlet, and Level 2 uses a 240v circuit to push between 16-80A of current to the battery. DC fast charging uses commercially-provided DC unit that bypasses the car’s onboard charger and pushes 350-900v directly to the battery at a much higher rate than the car is capable of. The difference between these is huge.
Level 1 peaks around 1,200w to the battery. That’s 1.2 kW feeding a 130 kWh battery in an Extended Range Lightning, which would take days to charge. That ER Lightning peaks at 80A on Level 2, which pushes 19.2 kW, which would fully charge in under seven hours. Most owners charge using these methods at home, so the CPM is going to depend on your electrical rate. These rates vary significantly depending on where you’re at.
I have a separate off-peak charging circuit at my home in Minnesota, which feeds power to my car at $0.067/kWh when I charge overnight. The Lightning should get about two miles per kWh, so my usual 20,000 miles per year would burn 10,000 kWh of power. Here in Minnesota, that would cost about $670 to go those 20,000 miles, or around 3.35¢/mile. That’s much less than Motor Trend’s average, but their numbers are very plausible.
My parents live in New Hampshire, and everything is more expensive in New Hampshire. They pay $0.33/kWh, and I don’t think off-peak rates are available. That same 20,000 mile year would cost them $3,300, or around 16.5¢/mile. Right in-line with Motor Trend’s average, but that’s using some of the most expensive power in the nation.
DC fast charging is significantly more expensive because you’re paying to use a charging unit that costs between $20-70K to install. Lately, I’ve been seeing rates between $0.32-0.48/kWh in the areas I’ve travelled to, and some as high as $0.56. If you’re exclusively using public charging at $0.48/kWh, that 20,000 miles will cost $4,800, or 24¢/mile. This is why I only use public chargers when I’m traveling. It’s always going to be more expensive to charge on the road than at home, and cost of operation is entirely dependent on the electrical rates. And those are much more varied than gas prices between areas.
















