Is the retail electric rate really almost $0.30? Here in Maryland, it’s half that, and charging my EV is like $0.11. At $0.30, having an EV wouldn’t be any cheaper than buying gas!
I drove a leased PHEV in California from 2021 to 2024. Driving on electricity was more expensive!
Typically charged at L2 chargers at a retail rate of $0.39/kWh (admittedly during dinner peak after work -- off-peak was lower). The 17 kWh battery gave 40 miles of highway driving, for 16.575 cents/mi.
Gas during the same period peaked at $6.749/gal, although I went out of my way to fill up at Costco Gas and saw prices as low as $3.999/gal - weighted average over that three year period was $4.896/gal. The 7 gallon tank gave another 300 miles of highway driving, getting 9.331 cents/mi to 15.748 cents/mi.
At the same gas prices, a comparable gas-only car getting 29.1 MPG would be 13.8-23.2 cents/mi in gas costs.
In CA, in 2025, if you have PG&E it’s approx 55 cents/kwh at peak, non-peak rates are lower but the average ands up being close 50 cents. It’s close to the highest in the country.
If you look at lazards LCOE report over the past decade, solar and wind are plummeting the whole time.
We should be seeing historically low rates, but suspiciously the rates have been going up.
I get grid adaptation is a nice expense, but LCOE is LCOE: the leveled cost of energy.
Therr are lots of questions why America's economy had done better (statistically at least) than the rest of the world since covid... To me it is the rise of shale oil. Cheaper energy makes for a better economy.
Oil is a good short term help, but what we really need in America is an alternative energy strategy... A path to less than 10 cent energy from Alt energy.
It's won't happen under the Cheeto, but we are in the long term making ourselves less competitive worldwide not pursuing alt energy aggressively with a boatload of subsides.
Even at $0.10 per kWh and Washington state’s top 3 gas prices in the country and $7,500 federal income tax credit, an EV does not pencil out to be cheaper than a gas vehicle, due to higher tire costs and depreciation due to battery replacement costs.
It was break even though, and the EV driving/re-fueling experiencing is much nicer for local travel, so it still makes sense to go with EV.
Oil will never run out. Civilization will collapse (due to CO2 emissions) before that happens, which will prevent extraction of the remaining (hard to get) oil.
