Is Patrick Anderson on this site? So much misleading information in this article

daveo4EV

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this is wrong - you typically charge at home - the article goes off the rails after that - begin with a false premise and then continue into the abyss

You typically have to go to a commercial charger and commercial charger rates are two, three or four times that of residential charger rates
 
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JimBob

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I don't think he is either right or wrong, just incomplete and somewhat misleading. The Taycan as a base to compare the average person's EV is kind of silly.

If someone were to ask you what was your total cost of ownership over the life of the car I would venture you couldn't say. Just try and list all the costs involved. In the case of the Taycan, the big one is depreciation which just blows the whole idea that EV's are lower cost to operate. Kind of like being super wealthy and complaining about the cost of filet. Taycan and low cost to operate is an oxymoron. And if someone says, well used car prices are really high, well can you promise me that will always be the case?

I know when I purchased the car, I was quite aware that the cost of the car made no economic sense. After that the biggest cost was installing home charging. Required installing a larger service panel which cost an extra $2600. But I don't miss my weekly trip to the gas station to fill up the old 911. But I also don't know the electricity costs attributable to charging the Taycan. They're buried. I suspect they are substantially less.
 

jimshadow

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I’m curious how many on this forum buy an EV to save a mile (or a buck) here or there?
 


Jhenson29

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I’m curious how many on this forum buy an EV to save a mile (or a buck) here or there?
Me, for sure. I buy all my Porsches as cost savings measures.

Am I doing it right?
 
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mikeva

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To me this is a very superficial, poorly researchedl article based on some worse case options. While some of the points (some charging stations do have extremely high rates) are valid the article seems to indicate this is the only choice and that is not quite right - with any degree of pre-planning those stations are not the one you would be going to.

I also think some of his numbers are way off -- just today I read about a gas station somewhere in CA where gas is $7.89 a gallon and that would totally whack out his financial argument. I would also guess that most folks in that area have figured out a way to avoid that particular refueling location -- just as they would figure out how to avoid the too high priced charging stations.

In terms of the 4 key findings
1. I would agree that there is more cost to an EV that just the price of electricity .... there is also more cost for an ICE than just gas prices
2. Depending on the local economics and vehicle usage the cost of an EV could be more OR less than an ICE
3.Charging cost do vary significantly -- probably due to the lack of advertising a price like gas stations do and letting the market play. Should be noted however that gas prices between Costco and the national branded stations can be more than 30¢ a gallon in my area.
4. There CAN BE significant time and energy to find a reliable speedy charging station but when you find it then the location is known and can be worked into a daily routine .... not to mention that charging over night at home and having a full 'tank' in the morning beats the heck out of driving to a gas station on the way out or back for the day.

As for their conclusion --"Given all of that, the conclusion is EVs cost more to "fuel" than gasoline cars that get reasonable gas mileage, Anderson said." ---- is pure BS.
 

Brassfactory

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It’s just click bait to get himself some business.

Yes, if you get all your electricity at high cost chargers, it will cost more than gas. He says he does that. Oookay.

If you get it all at free chargers you’ll save money for sure.

I pay for my electricity using home charging and save money on gas (although not a ton unless there’s a surge in gas prices like we just had).

Taycan owners don’t care. Did he try to find out the typical usage patters for less expensive EVs whose owners might cate? He did not.

Shameless self promotion, that’s all. Nothing to see. Move along.
 


daveo4EV

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eating out is more expensive than eating at home - this is also true for fueling your EV - which if done properly will have 98% of it’s lifetime power from a residential charger.
 

Windpower

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I read this report. Totally misleading. This might apply to people who rely upon frequent charging away from home, but for people who charge at home, this report is nonsense.

The only thing I found correct is Andersons’s estimated $1600 cost to install a level 2 charger. This seems about right.

As far as cost per year, I have a power meter in my service panel so I know EXACTLY how many kw I use, which includes any power loss from the EVSE and in the car charger. In the 13,500 miles I have on my model Y, I’ve used 3,200 kw to charge at home (there’s another $40 I paid at superchargers but I didn’t track kw used). I pay $.195 per kwh plus I get a $.05 per kwh discount for charging from midnight to 6am. Doing the math: 3200kw x $.145 = $464 + $40 supercharging= $504 to drive 13,500 miles.

My wife’s spending around $80 a month for her BMW which uses premium gas, and she drives 10,000 miles per year.

Bottom line: besides his estimate of the cost to install a level 2 charger, from my perspective his report is nonsense.
 
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lcarron

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This journalist is another idiot who is misleading the truth to the people.

Here is my own view of numbers.

Yes, the majority of my charging is going to happen from home.

I switched to solar 10 months ago and I bumped up from the estimated 8KW system to 12kw to take into account one EV charging. My average electric bill was $155 per month, my loan for solar is $197 per month and I have 10 years to go.

People are looking at me saying:
“What saving are you doing as you now pay over $42 more per month?”. Yes, I do because I will offset my average $200 gas (before the gas price increase) and save $158 per month. This is what we call long-term investment!!

In ten years my charging cost is going to move to ZERO for another 15 years which is the life duration of a solar system (lifetime is about 20-25 years). Also when negotiating for solar I asked for a Nema 14-50 plug installation at no cost. They did it and it took 30 minutes for the electrician to do it. I forgot to mention that the CO2 footprint is pretty good. Right? I think it is 20 grams of CO2 per kilowatt produced because of the manufacturing of the solar panels (I’m not too sure about those numbers actually but I read it on the Internet and that should be true) .

In 10 months the system overproduces an excess of 6.1 Megawatts which is 6100 KW. It is about 15,000 miles per year. Pretty good. Don’t you think? I think now I can afford a few trips to the supercharger. But wait a minute; Is the charging free for the next three years? Maybe I can invest this money to extend my solar system for an additional EV.

I think that my first statement is correct. This article is idiotic as I just demonstrate the total opposite.

Bottom line is that everyone can be greener at no cost. What are we waiting for?

I hope my tone is appropriate but those types of articles made me very angry.
 

Skilly

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It would have been fairer to say in the short term EVs will be more expensive and it could take years to recoup costs, but that's already been done. Move the carbon footprint discussion to the side for the moment as the average person isn't really thinking about that above costs.

It's an interesting read with some perfect math and of course, let's not overlook that the article is originating in Detroit - the same Detroit that spent a lot of time blocking Tesla out of their marketplace. They haven't exactly embraced these changes and this guy needs a paycheck.

Just taking the national average of both 'fuels' you see $3.40 a gallon vs. 10 cents per kwh. A decent comparison would be to assume 30 mpg vs 3 mile per kwh. So outa the gate EVs are about 1/3rd the cost to run.

In Detroit the average kwh rate is 18 cents - still half the cost in this scenario. Also it's interesting how they use the cost of a home charger in their factors but then have the average driver searching endlessly for stations and dismiss the ease of overnight charging.

Maintenance for an EV per 10K miles is about 1/4 the cost (and typically less). I had a Model S prior to my Taycan, and the first service it actually needed (vs recommended) was cooling fluid change at 30K miles.

Even when you start to compare costs of equally appointed cars the cap costs are within 20% of each other at the get go. The cars depreciate similarly, but EVs have the advantage. And with operating costs, the benefits are around $3K a year over a 10K mile average with EVs vs. ICE.

It seems these days that 'alternative facts' are the norm.
 

lazvek

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Instead of recognizing that public charging infrastructure needs to get better, the report goes down a rathole assuming that everyone will spend hours wandering around looking for a public charger. Most EV owners have L2 chargers at home, rendering his whole argument moot. Of course, they neglect that federal tax credits and utility rebates will offset most of the cost of that home charger.

What a great way to raise anxiety about EVs, though. I wonder who funded this “research”?

Frankly, I had a much harder time finding diesel fuel for my old BMW 335d than finding a fast charger for the Taycan.
 

XLR82XS

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This journalist is another idiot who is misleading the truth to the people.

I hope my tone is appropriate but those types of articles made me very angry.
Great true journalism died a long time ago in the 20th Century.
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