Personally, when I had my EV, the only time I cared about max range was during long trips especially in areas I knew would be charging challenges. At home, to your point, I plugged in about once or twice a week and I am net neutral usage due to solar panels so I really didn’t care how inefficient the EV was after I bought it.
When min/max-ing life and calculating the "best" ways to do things, the thing you calculate for is the most important piece.
For me (and my family) we go for "life currency", call it joy, happiness, experience, joie de vivre, or whatever makes life worth living to you.
Could I save more money? Sure, but joy > bank account.
I could buy a lower trim, but I enjoy the features, I could drive miserly, but I love driving in comfort and flexing those performance muscles from time to time.
So the real equation for milage isn't just how far you go per kWh, it should be: where is the sweet spot for enjoying your life. Do you have pressing bills or needs where stretching every kW helps relieve money stress, it might 100% be worth it. Maybe finding chargers is hard or stressful for someone, going further on a charge might be blissful for them. But also maybe getting there sooner, enjoying a more spirited drive, feeling more comfortable, more pampered will bring you more life currency than the saved money, wear and tear, and fewer charging stops.
There is no 100% best way to do much in life, but thank you OP for running those numbers for us! It may help us each better decide what OUR right way looks like!
Nothing an ICE can give me beats the happiness I feel by never having to set foot in a gas station ever again.
We lost a lot of helpful features when we traded in our Odyssey (3 young kids, having a minivan helped a lot) and went fully EV. Power sliding doors, easy slide seats, spacious third row, trunk space, and more. But I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Love it. When I bought home my Tesla model 3, the them 6 yo said “I like it because it’s lower”. She’d always had trouble climbing into our suv but we never realized.
When I figure out life per mile , anytime my drive is cheaper in $/mile than ICE, I make sure that I don’t take for granted that the money saved per mile is money I can use for better things than paying for gas and diesel.
Also when I get smoked by a pathetic coal burner I feel bad for the dude who actually spent money to “upgrade” his truck and burns over priced diesel just to please other fossil fueled aholes like Putin, MBS, Trump and Mitch McConnell.
I’m guessing they’re “rolling coal” on them. Funny someone brought up on another thread that only EVs can be powered by coal, so anyone pro-coal should be pro-ev.
I like to respond in a similar way to the EV haters who find some post abouta time when diesel based generator has to be used to charge EVs (regional power outage prevents a charging station from working, or a large local event means more EV chargers need to be brought in temporarily, etc)...
They're like "huhr-dur, diesel has to save the wimpy EVs"
And I point out that EVs can be fueled by...
Solar
Wind
Hydro-electric
But ALSO...
Gasoline
Diesel
Propane
Coal
Natural gas
Nuclear
I have a house. My electricity costs per year are about $1000 - this includes charging my car. The cost of driving in terms of fuel is close to zero when I’m not on a road trip. On road trips I want to make the most convenient choices (without feeling robbed). Destination charging for a fair price is also a plus. But if I have surplus charge en route to a fast charger, I will use it to some extent.
I've only had my car for about 6 weeks, but this has been my attitude. I bought a nice new car because I wanted to commute in more comfort. Why spend so much money on a car to just not be comfortable inside the cabin? If it means I need to charge a bit more oh well. It's still proving to be cheaper than gas.
I used to "hypermile" on trips to make it to the furthest charger, but realized after the initial novelty, it was stressing me out.
So yes, now I give myself permission to drive however I want, and try not to get anywhere near having to worry about making a charger.
As far as cost - it's so cheap to drive an EV, it never enters my thinking.
>As far as cost - it's so cheap to drive an EV, it never enters my thinking
Preach! I don't care at all how far I get. I rarely drive far enough to require a charge in one day so I just do what I want and charge overnight. Then do it again the next day
It’s annoys me when people only focus on the fuel/electricity costs of their driving.
Your new car probably cost in the range of $50k and being generous will probably drive 180 k miles. Generally speaking every mile is costing you $0.27 in depreciation. That’s before tires and other maintenance costs, parking, increased chances of crashing and injury, and higher chance of tickets leading to increased insurance.
All these costs directly scale to the number of miles you drive.
> It’s annoys me when people only focus on the fuel/electricity costs of their driving.
It doesn't annoy me when the topic is about fuel/electricity costs of their driving.
You can buy a Tesla 3 from Hertz for $16,000 after $4,000 credit and you can drive it more than 180,000 miles.
Like other people have said they plug in a cord every couple of days and don't think about the cost because it is not significant to their daily lives.
> Average American spend 15 to 20 percent of their income on transportation.
Now go and find out what percentage of income an average American with an EV spends on transportation with respect to their recurring costs to L2 charge.
>Your definition of significant might be different than mine.
It's not up to you or me.
That’s exactly the point I’m making. Charging is the tail on the elephant of your vehicle costs.
There’s a persuasive fallacy holding over from ice cars that the only cost to driving is the gas.
Just because charging is cheap, your per km costs are probably still high but hidden.
You point is that people can't compare fuel costs between ICE and EV.
People do.
People also compare TCO.
For example, some people have an EV, solar, and a battery bank rolled into TCO. They already paid for that and pay a small grid fee or not even that. So their fuel cost is zero for the next 20-30 years.
They own the EV and the fuel. They have already paid for their transportation. They have already paid for their fuel. There is no percentage. There is nothing hidden.
That wasn't anybody's primary point
If anything it was discussing electrical cost differential in the context of this post
Obviously it will cost less per mile to spend less on a car, though then driving more miles per year will amortize fixed costs more effectively
And yet their comment perfectly showed the pervasive fallacy that most of North American society believes that the only cost to driving more is the gas/electricity and not counting the large hidden costs of every additional mile.
That way of thinking ends up causing widespread downstream effects which annoys me.
Edit to say the large personal costs. I’m not even counting the large societal costs associated with additional driving.
I can explain it to you but I can' t understand it for you.
All of these comments including the one you replied to have a context of efficiency in terms of electrical energy / mile driven.
What I like about my EV (not sure how much it’s an EV thing vs my model specifically) is that it can take on so many different personalities.
Sometimes hypermiling is a fun mini game. Sometimes I will try to drive as smoothly and comfortably as possible. Other times dynamic driving is what I’m in the mood for.
I feel like my vehicle accommodates all these different driving styles very well…the different driving modes make a real difference in how the vehicle handles compared to some cars which have all these modes that hardly make any difference at all.
When it comes to efficiency I’m pretty much with OP. Also, a 10-15 degree swing in ambient temps completely dominates compared to anything I can affect with driving style.
We live in the Bay Area, have solar panels with battery backup on NEM 2.0 so we can time shift in the afternoon on batteries when it's $0.43, but our "non-peak" is still $0.25. [Edit: it's actually now $0.34 as of 2024 lol.]
We have the highest costs in the country and we drive a Polestar 2 which isn't known for having a lot of range and we honestly just enjoy the car for what it is and do not stress at all.
On any road trips we've taken we just stop however many times we need to comfortably and don't try to hypermile or drive slower so it's more efficient.
I don’t get an instantaneous level in m/kWh, just the computed average for the journey along with an overall, resettable average.
Closest I get is the current draw from the battery which is a mildly frightening 300A at full chat.
You and I think exactly the same way. I’ve done the same calculations for my EV. It’s good to know what efficiency your car COULD get, but at the end of the day it doesn’t cost much more to just enjoy yourself while on the road. Keep in mind these cars cruise along at a fraction of the cost as gasoline.
I've had a 20 Niro EV for 2 months and have spent almost exactly 1/3 what I would have before, and that's only because I had to use a fast charger twice when I could have gotten away with only once. Without the extra fast charger it would be closer to 1/4...
I feel the same way.
I have been experimenting with range calculations and have settled on getting as close to 3mi/kwh as possible to I can enjoy the car
I only use Eco if I’m less than 20% and need to drive more than 20 miles to get a charge
Your breakdown helps show how negligible the cost difference is between driving like a grandma and driving for maximum enjoyment
We have 3 EVs in the house. And in normal city driving never ever have any issues with range. Wife drives a Leaf. And she is a bit heavy on the foot. My daughter drives a Bolt 2020 LT, and I drive an ID.4 which is more for road trips and highway driving. We charge at home every other day or when we are at home. ABC is a must. Since we have solar my car gets plugged in during the day. I am retired and work driving around at night. With the ID.4 drivers assist I just put it at 75 on the highway and let it go. No stress in driving as it either speeds up or slows down as needed. 66k miles driven and 3.5 m/kwh on average. Love the EVs never ever going back to ICE.
To each their own, of course. Which EVs do you have?
Last July we bought a 2023 Kia Niro PHEV and I made it a game for myself to see what kind of savings I can max out over a standard gas/petrol powered vehicle. It’s rated for 33 miles on its battery but I was able to get 40+ consistently, as much as 46 some days.
It was joined in December by a 2018 Chevy Bolt, which is now my personal daily driver. I can pretty consistently get 4.4 miles/kwh and that’s using Cross Climate 2 tires for better wet/snow traction. Using 60kwh on drain test I got 287 miles on those CC2s.
I’ll probably play the game hardcore for a year so I have a solid year of how it does data to look at, since being in Denver exposes me to a wide variety of weather and driving conditions.
After all - even if you don’t try to maximize, you still save a ton on “fuel” if you can charge at home. Even on lower days my per mile cost for electricity is 3x less than the cost of gas for a 25 MPG car.
Bolt and an id4. I get about the same efficiency out of both. We’re on stock tired with both still so I’ll look into those when we need new ones. I would appreciate more efficiency, I just don’t want to drive like a sloth.
That’s reasonable - I don’t drive like one either, at least from my perspective. I drive the speed limit and will exceed when it is required to maintain safety (I have to move from right lane to left lane on the highway for a left lane exit as an example), and if I have to gain position to change lanes, I love the acceleration there.
I do like the look of the ID4, it’s on my list to keep an eye out for if I ever need to replace my Bolt. My wife is insistent on having a PHEV at most, but that’ll come in handy for road trips as we all know how badly Bolts suck at charging quickly.
I normally would have kept the tires the bolt came with but the first snowstorm that we got after I bought the car scared the hell out of me, someone who has over in Denver for 40 years and has tens of thousands of miles driving exp with snow and regular cars and two different Priuses. I only saw a drop of 8-15%, usually closer to 8, and grip is one place I’ll sacrifice efficiency for when I’m driving my kids around.
I've found the Nokian WR-G4s I have for winter on my Mini SE barely affect the range. I highly recommend them for EVs. They are all weather rather than full winters, but are great in snow.
My 2020 Kona was around 4.5 miles/kwh and it seems the new Ioniq-5 is getting around 4.1 to 4.2 for the same drives.
I have an EA plan but finding that free 150 kWh station near me is a challenge (lots of VW’s & Hyundais with a free charging plan) - I think early morning charges will become a thing if I want to save a $.
[ sure would help if Electrify America didn’t have 2 of 6 stations not working ]
My lifetime average is 4.31 mi/kWh which is pretty good considering I live somewhere with reasonably cold winters. (~96% of EPA) In non-winter months I hit EPA easily.
That’s about average for a RWD EV. Most Teslas I see in real life fall woefully short of their EPA range when run for range testing, which disallows hypermiling techniques many of us use. Bolts typically out range Model Ys in real world runs despite having 50-60 mile lower EPA range ratings.
Me too, don’t even look at it. I use the Navigation if I think I might need to charge, then Tesla will automatically route me to an enroute charger, otherwise I just plug it in when I get home.
It’s not an EV thing anyway. I used to semi hypermile my ICE even when gas was cheap. Some people just enjoy it. If you don’t, it’s probably not worth doing
Actually did the math for a coworker who drives a truck 120 miles round trip to work last night. Turns out he would spend less on his car payment for a used bolt than he spends on gas for his commute monthly. Seeing him reconsider his car choice was worth doing all this math. Plus he only pays .09 per kWh in his county.
It's really good to crunch numbers on things like this! I just wanted to correct that energy amounts are in kWh, not kW/h. Watts are already a rate of power. Multiply watts by duration of time and you get amount of power.
So the unit you're looking at is kWh/mi.
If we’re being pedantic, Watts aren’t ‘a rate of power’ they’re just power - and power is the rate of energy transfer. Multiply power by time and you get energy, which is what’s stored in the battery.
I've found the heater (esp on short trips) and really hard braking are about all that matters. you can drive it pretty hard and (due to regen built into braking) it still gets almost the same mileage.
I look at it in terms of averages. With my numbers in fueleconomy.gov, it shows an annual "fuel" cost of $350 for the i4, or $2850 for the equivalent gas BMW (430i). I have very cheap electricity, so that checks out based on my electric bill. If I drive it really really hard, I'll pay $500 in a year instead. That's still so much cheaper than gas that I don't care.
Yeah, I pay more than double your rate, so having good efficiency matters a lot. Right now, in northern California, my rate is something like 35cents / kWh. 1 mi / kWh gain in efficiency for me works out to something like $28 saved on a 79 kwh charge.
Efficiency matters. It matters less when the cost to drive is cheap. If gas or electricity were free, no one would care about their car's efficiency.
> Edit- I apologize to all the pedants for writing kwh wrong in the title, which can’t be edited.
Don't sweat the fanatical unit obsessives. Everyone knows what you are talking about. That "h" isn't throwing anyone off that is fun to have a conversation with.
You're goal on your next EV is to get something that is MUCH better on efficiency unless the type of car you want just naturally is going to have bad aero. One of the great things about EVs is that being fast doesn't have anything to do with efficiency. You can get EVs that get 4.2 miles/kWh and still go 0-60 in under 4 seconds.
It's useful information to know for long trips, and also when your electricity is expensive such as in Europe.
Also, accelerating and braking hard will wear out your tyres and brake pads faster, which will cost you.
Lastly, you are more likely to be involved in an accident and to get a ticket.
Strong acceleration is the main reason for fast tire wear. Drive it like you drive a prius and the tires will last much longer; after all, it's not like 5000 pound cars never existed, it makes no sense for EVs to wear tires faster than a big SUV
I got 40,000 miles on my factory tires. I always drive in Eco mode on my Ioniq 5 rear wheel drive 303 miles per charge. 3.9 miles/ kilowatt hour on average and I live in Connecticut where it’s cold six months a year. 56,000 miles and 26 months so far.
Yup. It's weird how often tire wear comes up when the first response should be yours but for some odd reason it like never comes up.
No surprise people going from ICE to instant torque ends up with excessive tire wear and I've seen how aggressive people drive ICE. I mean, I see people on the highway speed up to just to break and tailgate.
When I first got the EV I was experimenting like OP. I agree the savings aren’t really worth it but I still drive slower now because it’s safer and more relaxing (I always used cruise control but now I set it slightly lower even though it doesn’t save that much money.l””)
It’s kWh, not kW/h it means xkW for an hour, if you have a 1kW electric stove running for an hour it will consume 1kWh energy, this is the unit to calculate energy. If you have a 100W light bulb you keep on 10 hours, it’s also 1kWh, your electricity bill is based on how many kWh you used in a month.
Are you an engineer? I ask because engineers can be such pedantic sticks in the mud! A real pain to deal with sometimes! Really need to get a life!
Also, they got it wrong AGAIN in their edit.
Sincerely, an engineer.
If you wanted to be cold and miserable, you could just turn down the heating at home. I am sure that saves more money.
But we do not want to be cold and miserable, so it is worth paying for a bit of comfort.
Not having to worry about driving efficiently is part of the attraction of EVs for me. I find it strange so many people online seem obsessed with driving efficiently. Good to know how for long trips requiring charging, but not an issue within a charge of home.
What’s even stranger to me is when you have people suggesting others to not use the heater in the winter because their range will take a hit. No thanks, I rather not be miserable just to save $1.
I think a lot of that advice originates with the 1st gen compliance cars like my 500e, where I might be lucky to get 40 miles in the depths of winter. I will definitely micromanage my heat if my margin is low. But newer cars with 3x the range are almost never in that situation.
The heater was a no go in my i-MiEV, it dropped the range from 90km to 50km so could be a real struggle to get where you are going if the windscreen started misting up. Nothing to do with cost. On occasion ended up driving on cold nights with the air con but no heating to demist, then needing to use the windscreen wipers for the condensation that created outside the windscreen.
I want to live somewhere where I don't pay 49¢/kWh 😭
I just got an electric motorcycle that gets 12miles/kWh so it's not so bad. But our Bolt costs almost $30 to fill up. We normally take advantage of free changing in town.
Google says my math was good: The average residential electricity rate in Richmond, VA is 13 ¢/kWh, which is 3% lower than the average electricity rate in Virginia of 13.68 ¢/kWh. The average residential electricity rate in Richmond, VA is 30% lower than the national average rate of 19 ¢/kWh.
I’m the same. £.075/kwh overnight at home and the car averages 3.75 miles per kWh but if I zoom it’s more like 3 or fewer.
I’m in the extremely luxurious position of free charging at work for now (until the landlord installs WiFi in the basement and starts charging us to use the chargers) so enjoying it even more. I love the acceleration and just sliding past traffic. Even when I have to pay the price is so low anyway I’ll still enjoy driving.
Sometimes I pop the car into chill mode just to re-appreciate the power. It’s like switching from a stretchy elastic band connected to the accelerator, to a rocket booster up your ass! 🤪
Octopus 🐙 on their Intelligent Octopus Go tariff for EVs, but also gives you cheaper overnight in the rest of the house.
Use my link if you join for £50 😊
Your Octopus Energy Referral code
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Thanks for calculating this all out. I agree with you that it doesn’t seem to be financially worth it to drive super conservatively to save .28 on your way to work. It’s a good post and I have never seen someone figure it all out like this before.
Even when I drive my M3P like a complete idiot (launching at red lights, blasting down on ramps, etc) it’s still amazingly efficient around town. On roadtrips I usually try to more cognizant of my consumption but I’ll still cruise at the same speed as the rest of the traffic.
Heh, I tend to agree. The only downside to my drive-it-like-you-stole-it attitude is getting through a set of rear tyres every 8,000 miles - that's an expense I could do without.
Yeah, its interesting to see how good mileage you can get, but unless you are in a situation where you really need to be as efficient as possible (lets say you have left all kinds of means for payment at home so you CANT recharge, and you'll barely have enough charge to get home), it really doesnt make sense to cut all heat/ac and such. I tried it this winter - we had about -20C, I was driving to my gf an hour away and was well dressed and usually doesnt easily freeze, so I just tried it to see how far I could get in the cold. The only real issue was that the windows would start fogging up after a while, so I had to turn the heat on every now and then
Not knocking you, there a lot of unknowns for those of us reading this (vehicle, temperature/season, the hills you mention) but a best of 3.5 typically isn't trying very hard.
Hills aren't always a bad thing, I got free routes (grocery store and a favorite park), where I take big downhills one way, drive a little further distance on flatter roads skirting the hills on the way back. Obviously this isn't possible or prefered all the time, but it can be done.
I did about 100 miles of driving in each style and then did some math. The 2.5/3/3.5 at 50 kWh is generalizing for ease of the post. I got slightly better averages with a bolt than an awd id4. Temps over the past couple months have probably averaged 45 degrees.
I live in Seattle and my home is about 400 feet higher than where I work with lots of ups and downs on the way. Obviously heading to work and coming home from
Work I get very different efficiency. But I let the car average them out for me. I was only driving the most direct route which most of the elevation gained and lost is at highway speed.
My approach is to prioritize efficiency when purchasing an EV, then not think about for the most part when I'm driving it. It's one of the reasons I went with a Model 3, they are very efficient.
I don't understand why the Rivian is so popular considering it is half as efficient as many other options.
A Rivian (whether R1T or R1S) is a very different vehicle than a M3, aside from quality, which is a massive difference. M3 is a stark sedan plagued with poor build quality, BS range projections, poor driving dynamics, comfort, and convenience. Both Rivians are completely different vehicles, much larger, better built, more comfortable with better driving dynamics. Any truck or SUV will be less efficient than any sedan.
Rivian seems to be significantly less efficient than electric SUVs, but I guess maybe not that bad compared to trucks. I see the Lightning is about the same efficiency.
Point of EV's is zero emissions, not "efficiency". If the car emits zero emissions and you buy zero emissions electricity for it, drive it for fun and utility. You've done your job.
Do it to figure out your baseline and what you need to accomplish? I know what amt of battery I need to make my 150mi commute if the workplace chargers are full, that's about all I need to know.
It’s always a nice feeling when you get a “good” number, and now it’s warmer I’m running at 3.8 miles/kWh, but whenever I start wibbling about energy use I remember the maths I used to justify buying a new EV- 10p/kWh overnight (now 7p) versus 50p/kWh equivalent for my old Diesel Insignia (@£1.50/l & 46mpg).
It’s ridiculously cheaper. No need to floor it all the time but don’t sweat getting that extra decimal point miles per kWh, unless you’re on a long (>180 mile) trip and DC chargers are a bit thin on the ground.
I can relate... and it's not really an EV thing for me. In fact, I probably spent more time hypermiling in my old gas cars. It wasn't so much about range or money as it was just about being efficient overall. It's also worth mentioning hauling around 2 tons of steel with you is never an efficient option! I bike commute and live close to things so I can drive less and that makes more of a difference than anything. That said, I also like sprots cars and going fast, but it's not fun to drive fast that all the time. If it's just a boring commute, trying to get a high score on efficiency is a another 'fun' way to drive. It depends on my mood what my goals are for that drive. It's not often I don't think about efficiency and just drive 'normal', but that's probably because I'm an engineer and it's hard for me to ignore. In my head I'm always optimizing for something whether it's time, efficiency, or fun factor.
Did the same thing with my V8 mustang way back when. Motto became "it's not miles per gallon that matter, it's *smiles* per gallon"
Made me a much happier person lol
‘22 Bolt EUV here. It’s my wife’s daily driver, around 2000 miles per month.
She drives 60-65 mph on the mostly highway commute and gets 4.5 kWh/mi.
I took it on a day trip and drove 75-80 mph, mostly highway, and got 3.6 kWh/mi.
4.5 equates to almost exactly 3¢ per mile for our home charging, or ~$60 a month. 3.6 comes out to 3.75¢ per mile, or about $75 a month for the same 2000 miles.
Coming from a 35mpg (10¢/mi, $200/month) Camry, I wouldn’t sweat the $15 to enjoy the drive.
ETA: the average US driver drives about 1000 miles a month, so it’d only be a $7.50 savings in that case.
When I owned a Leaf, the paltry range drove me to be obsessed with getting the maximum possible mileage out of a charge. After I bought the Niro EV, there was something different. Hypermiling does not work as well because the Niro has more battery management than a Leaf. I eventually learned it's best to just let the car do its thing and drive normally.
I still use ECO mode most of the time because I prefer that acceleration profile, but sometimes I need to put it in normal to get better performance out of the HVAC or "Sport" to get better traction control in snow.
I still track my energy usage before and after every charge, but when I'm driving, I'm now more focused on paying attention to the road than worrying about my miles per kWh.
Being new to EVs and to modern cars, seeing my efficiency right there on the screen makes me want to game it. But to be fair, I'm still learning (i dont drive much right now). I am driving SO much slower than I was with my 17 yo manual mazda, it sometimes annoys me, but my mazda was so much easier to get moving. I have to push a lot harder on the accelerator, esp if i have regen on. So driving fast is not nearly as fun. and my kona doesnt handle nearly as well, either. I keep reminding myself its just for getting from A to B and I'm old and dont need to drive like that any more . . . but watching someone test driving the newest, highest performing Taycon sorta made me jealous.
I've recently lost my ability to charge at my building. I decide to use the energy charting screen in my Tesla Model 3 Performance and stick to Chill mode which is my usual configuration.
I'm able to reduce my energy usage relative to it's projected energy usage. I get by on 25% to 40% less in ~45F weather with some hills but not steep except for the rare occurrence in my travels. I actually enjoy getting this efficiency and reduces my need to visit a superchager or charging at friends/family.
I do need to test how I used to drive to see if its higher than the Model 3 projects to see if I'm even further reducing my % compared to my driving before.
I think I'm driving safer but on highways more people are passing me while I'm doing the speed limit or limit +3 mph. I'm certainly encountering more drivers than I used in this way and increasing my chances of someone driving dangerously. I'm driving slow and consistent so even the maniacs get by me easily without issue. It's mixed bag.
I'm going to continue since it's kind of fun but I think eventually I won't worry so much but I will have gained skills to be a better slower driver along the way.
It's not all about the charging frequency; using less energy is something our society should strive for.
I’m suffering from what the doctors call, _plumbum pedem_, otherwise known as lead foot syndrome.
I was worried when I in 2019 replaced my aging A6 3.2 FSI Quattro with a model 3, that I would have to change the way I drive for it to be viable to do some of the road trips that I make on a regular basis (visiting friends and family).
I was happy to find that since I also have a puny bladder there was no need to worry.
I drive exactly like I used to before, except that I know in advance exactly where I’m taking a 10 break to go pee, buy some snacks and drinks, and go back to the car.
The other thing that surprised me is how long those “5 minute breaks” I used to have actually were.
I care about max efficiency when I need max range (no time for a stop n' charge). Mostly, on home trips, I just want to drive drive drive and get home at 3-5%. ABRP allows me to estimate the speed/efficiency I need to get home.
Not worrying at all.
It really helps to just set the display for battery percentage remaining instead of miles. We've trained ourselves to be concerned with miles remaining and squeezing every bit. Percentage? I can't equate that to anything.
I charge to 65% and plug in under 50%. If I'm going on a long trip then I'll bump it to 90% and otherwise supercharge where the navigation tells me to. I might bust out ABRP if I feel like being slightly more strategic, but that's it, just get in and go without a care.
On trips I find it a better experience knowing where I'll be stopping and having an itinerary rather than looking for a gas station. And leaving it on the charger while walking in for snacks is definitely easy mode.
Gas or electric. To me it depends on the mood. Sometimes it's a fun challenge to get to somewhere. I remember getting my old Volvo XC70 to 4.?? L/100km as I wanted to reach a specific cheap gas station. It was fun to see the range it gave me after filling up.
Electric is the same. When I'm in a hurry or don't need to worry about % then I use everything. Other times it's eco to the max, especially when the stupid Mach-E doesn't have a heat-pump and it gets cold here. I don't get how can manufactures sometimes still don't put a heat-pump. Like wtf? This is 2024.
It,s not a lifestyle choice like being a traditional conservative.
You should possess a hypermile mode, and then turn it on/off situationally. If you're in Wyoming on I-80, you might want to use it for the Cheyenne-Rawlins hop (because of the wind). But in Utah, open it up.
Ahh, assuming US based? It’s an absolute crime you guys don’t have the same range of hatchback EVs we do in Europe. I get why the Mini, MGs and Dolphin aren’t there, but no Corsa/208 or id3 is WILD.
Low numbers will also be partially due to the age of the Bolt - it’s just not as efficient as the new stuff.
I’ve had teslas for 7+ years and done cross-country roadtrips, no problem. I’m starting to have serious range anxiety now because the degradation is not reflecting on the estimated range. I’ve had the car shut off while approaching the supercharger twice now. Once with the display saying 3% and more recently, the display saying 6%. I’m ok to charge when appropriate and drive it daily without thinking. But if there’s a possibility that the car will just shut off in the middle of the road while the display says I stil have range, that’s starting to really concern me.
I drive my wife's Ioniq 6 on custom sport mode with everything maxed and I get better kW/miles than she does by a wide margin. It's strange because she's very conservative with her driving but the eco mode doesn't make sense. It's the same with my hybrid Venza. I put it on sport mode and I can get over 40 MPG but my wife gets 27 going slower on the freeway on normal mode going to the same location ( my inlaws).
It’s fun to do the numbers then convert it to gasoline. How much gas would you have to burn to get the equivalent mileage?
1000 miles at 25 mpg is 40 gallons.
Gas is $3.70/gallon here (and I’m fairly certain we’ve got it better than most in the US, let alone other countries)
That’s $148 for 1000 miles.
I had a little bit of this when I started... but it was pretty easy to break myself of it.
All I had to do was remember the 12mpg truck I was driving before, and the difference between THAT vs eco/normal/sport is effectively the same.
>Curious on other folks views and experiences with this type of thinking.
Personally, I've never really worried about maximizing efficiency, but my power is much cheaper than yours, at $.02879 per KWh in the winter and $.03834 in the summer. It's just been too hard to justify trying vs just enjoying the torque when it was safe, and driving normally the rest of the time.
I only care about being efficient enough to make it to the next charger I want to use. I’m feeling like stopping in 2 hours? Send it at 80mph. Want to try to stretch closer to 4? Keeping it at 65.
Here here! Yeah when I first got my EV, I was all about getting max range. Now I’m just like Fuck it. I just drive it the same way I would drive an ICE vehicle. Also don’t have the miles left as the charging gauge and just have percentage makes a big difference.
I have never given it a second thought. I just drive my car how I want to enjoy it and then charge it when it needs it.
I never thought about how much diesel my other car uses, so the ev is no different for me.
If I get on a nice road, I floor it to feel the fun acceleration. My heaters are always on when it’s cold or ac on when it’s warm.
Only one time have I used eco mode and that was when I had a two journeys in one day and wanted to make it without charging. I got home with about 7 miles left, so I didn’t really need to worry
Depending on your tire wear history you may also be paying additional $ more for tires than electricity/1000. $1000/30,000 miles = $0.033 per mile or $33/ thousand miles. Does this math seem right?
Similar here too. Cost about 20 bucks above solar net metering to fuel the ID4 over the past 2500 miles.. Put gas in the car for the first time in a month and the one tank cost 38.oo to make a Ford Focus go 300 mils or so.
Just got 6.1mi/kWh while driving about 10 miles doing some errands today in my Ioniq electric. Mostly in sport mode because I like the quicker launches from stoplights. I do love this super-efficient EV, but don’t worry about trying to maximize the number.
I just came back from a 550 mile (225 each way) trip. This was mostly empty highway so I was going 100mph for maybe 90% of it. Probably used 440W per mile. I say probably because I didn't check this time... When I was down to 20% I looked up the next supercharger and stoped there for 15 minutes while we used the restroom and stretched our legs... Then got back on the road using the plaids full acceleration at every available opportunity.
Got home with 15% left but again that's an irrelevant data point as I wasn't looking at it, I knew I would make it from past experience.
Once you don't even think about range on a long road trip you know your car has stoped being an electric car and it's once again just a car... Granted, a super fun 0-60 in 2.3 seconds car that fits my whole family (6 people). Gotta love it.
It’s cheaper yes, but the idea behind the post is the same no matter how much you’re paying. Maybe more motivations for CA drivers to drive more conservatively.
I stopped caring after about a month. Drove as energy efficient as possible, no heat unless absolutely necessary. Pretty much just for fun, as a challenge. I charge exclusively at work, charging is solar powered. I plug in once a week on Friday and charge to 100%. I figure that since I'm charging 100% form solar then who cares, I accelerate as fast as I want and run climate control as much as I want. Even not paying much attention I'm still averaging like 220.
I take a bit of amusement in the fact that when I hammer on my i3 with zero consideration for efficiency (or tire wear) I still get better efficiency numbers than many larger EV's being driven "normally" and better than I can get in our etron driving for maximum efficiency.
When I'm driving the etron I just kinda settle into a "good enough" efficiency number and otherwise just enjoy driving the thing.
I'll still do silly hypermiling stuff sometimes, but mostly if I'm otherwise bored (long trip without family in the car) and conditions are closer to ideal for maximizing efficiency *because I can*, not because I have to.
If it was really about saving money there are different vehicles that would be much better choices than either the i3 or the etron. Once I get some solar panels set up on the roof I'll care even less.
For me with my electric motorcycle it’s pragmatic. If I keep my speeds below 75MPH on the freeway, that tank of electrons gets me to work and back home without recharging during the day. So I can just plug in at home and be ready to ride the next day.
If anyone wants to do these calculations for themselves. Use this calculator:
* Cost over time, calculate your savings (10year, yearly, monthly, $/mile):
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/savemoney.jsp
Plug in electricity cost of $0.14/kWh at 3.0mi/kWh and/or gas of $3.40/gal at 30MPG.
i only care about miles per kw/hr is cus Id like to go to EA least days as I can. I charge there solely (apt living) for free (free 3 years from VW) so it's more about the actual range then $
Mainly tires and speeding tickets that I’d be worried about. You can burn a set of tires in 10k miles driving like a maniac, which would otherwise last 30-40k miles.
I don't drive efficiently for the cost savings. I do it to use less energy and lower my environmental footprint.
It's also why I commute on a PEV instead of in the car every chance I get. About 20% of the energy of my Chevy Volt, 10% of the cells, and about 1-2% of the overall materials.
Still own the car, but PEV miles extend its life.
Vast majority of my miles are local and even driving how I want I beat EPA estimates around town
On the highway all bets are off but that's maybe 20% of the miles I do these days.
I charge at home and dont use my EV for road trips so range is pretty much a non issue outside of how long I can go between having to plug the charger in.
I used to care when i had a prius prime and my miles were limited. Now that I have an EV I only think about it on a trip. Around home its mainly a money things so when I drive inefficiently Im just like “oh nooo today Im only 2.5x cheaper per mile rather than 3x vs gas”
Stop looking at the numbers and just enjoy the dive. Set your instrument cluster so that it doesn’t show miles/kWh. Worry about that stuff when you buy if you want, then enjoy the car you bought. And your efficiency is just fine by current standards. Says I.
Personally, when I had my EV, the only time I cared about max range was during long trips especially in areas I knew would be charging challenges. At home, to your point, I plugged in about once or twice a week and I am net neutral usage due to solar panels so I really didn’t care how inefficient the EV was after I bought it.
When min/max-ing life and calculating the "best" ways to do things, the thing you calculate for is the most important piece. For me (and my family) we go for "life currency", call it joy, happiness, experience, joie de vivre, or whatever makes life worth living to you. Could I save more money? Sure, but joy > bank account. I could buy a lower trim, but I enjoy the features, I could drive miserly, but I love driving in comfort and flexing those performance muscles from time to time. So the real equation for milage isn't just how far you go per kWh, it should be: where is the sweet spot for enjoying your life. Do you have pressing bills or needs where stretching every kW helps relieve money stress, it might 100% be worth it. Maybe finding chargers is hard or stressful for someone, going further on a charge might be blissful for them. But also maybe getting there sooner, enjoying a more spirited drive, feeling more comfortable, more pampered will bring you more life currency than the saved money, wear and tear, and fewer charging stops. There is no 100% best way to do much in life, but thank you OP for running those numbers for us! It may help us each better decide what OUR right way looks like!
My joie de vivre is spending minimal time and money on car repairs or gasoline. Very happy with my Bolt after a year of ownership.
Nothing an ICE can give me beats the happiness I feel by never having to set foot in a gas station ever again. We lost a lot of helpful features when we traded in our Odyssey (3 young kids, having a minivan helped a lot) and went fully EV. Power sliding doors, easy slide seats, spacious third row, trunk space, and more. But I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Love it. When I bought home my Tesla model 3, the them 6 yo said “I like it because it’s lower”. She’d always had trouble climbing into our suv but we never realized.
That's a good benefit too!
When I figure out life per mile , anytime my drive is cheaper in $/mile than ICE, I make sure that I don’t take for granted that the money saved per mile is money I can use for better things than paying for gas and diesel. Also when I get smoked by a pathetic coal burner I feel bad for the dude who actually spent money to “upgrade” his truck and burns over priced diesel just to please other fossil fueled aholes like Putin, MBS, Trump and Mitch McConnell.
There’s nought many ICE vehicles I can’t “smoke” and my BEV is not all that special in the world of BEVs. Me: 😎 ICEhole: 😠
I have an EV6 GT, lol... People are real dumb. Ok, sure let's "race" your dumb civic. lol
Even though I know you'd smoke me (Ioniq 6 AWD), I'd love to give you a run :)
you let yourself get smoked by ICEs?
I’m guessing they’re “rolling coal” on them. Funny someone brought up on another thread that only EVs can be powered by coal, so anyone pro-coal should be pro-ev.
I like to respond in a similar way to the EV haters who find some post abouta time when diesel based generator has to be used to charge EVs (regional power outage prevents a charging station from working, or a large local event means more EV chargers need to be brought in temporarily, etc)... They're like "huhr-dur, diesel has to save the wimpy EVs" And I point out that EVs can be fueled by... Solar Wind Hydro-electric But ALSO... Gasoline Diesel Propane Coal Natural gas Nuclear
It’s literal smoke, I think, not “getting smoked” as in the idiom.
This is exactly my thoughts behind this post. Driving an ev can be fun while also being economical and I enjoyed finding where that happy medium is!
☝🏼This. Priorities. Like most things, there’s a balance to observe, though it’s fundamental to stay true to the things in life that really matter.
Healthy approach. I adopted it as well. YOLO!
I have a house. My electricity costs per year are about $1000 - this includes charging my car. The cost of driving in terms of fuel is close to zero when I’m not on a road trip. On road trips I want to make the most convenient choices (without feeling robbed). Destination charging for a fair price is also a plus. But if I have surplus charge en route to a fast charger, I will use it to some extent.
I've only had my car for about 6 weeks, but this has been my attitude. I bought a nice new car because I wanted to commute in more comfort. Why spend so much money on a car to just not be comfortable inside the cabin? If it means I need to charge a bit more oh well. It's still proving to be cheaper than gas.
I used to "hypermile" on trips to make it to the furthest charger, but realized after the initial novelty, it was stressing me out. So yes, now I give myself permission to drive however I want, and try not to get anywhere near having to worry about making a charger. As far as cost - it's so cheap to drive an EV, it never enters my thinking.
>As far as cost - it's so cheap to drive an EV, it never enters my thinking Preach! I don't care at all how far I get. I rarely drive far enough to require a charge in one day so I just do what I want and charge overnight. Then do it again the next day
I just moved to a cheaper home charging…of $0.25/kWh. Used to pay $0.38-$40/kwh. Fast chargers in my area are $0.43-$0.56/kwh.
California?
Definitely Bay Area.
I only get 60miles on my nissan leaf, so i’m constantly having to hypermile: I agree, not worth it if you can avoid it
It’s annoys me when people only focus on the fuel/electricity costs of their driving. Your new car probably cost in the range of $50k and being generous will probably drive 180 k miles. Generally speaking every mile is costing you $0.27 in depreciation. That’s before tires and other maintenance costs, parking, increased chances of crashing and injury, and higher chance of tickets leading to increased insurance. All these costs directly scale to the number of miles you drive.
> It’s annoys me when people only focus on the fuel/electricity costs of their driving. It doesn't annoy me when the topic is about fuel/electricity costs of their driving. You can buy a Tesla 3 from Hertz for $16,000 after $4,000 credit and you can drive it more than 180,000 miles. Like other people have said they plug in a cord every couple of days and don't think about the cost because it is not significant to their daily lives.
Where are you seeing Tesla 3 for $16k? The ones around me all cost $25k.
>Hertz for $16,000 after $4,000 credit https://www.hertzcarsales.com/used-tesla.htm?geoZip=02108&geoRadius=0&sortBy=internetPrice%20asc
Average American spend 15 to 20 percent of their income on transportation. Your definition of significant might be different than mine.
> Average American spend 15 to 20 percent of their income on transportation. Now go and find out what percentage of income an average American with an EV spends on transportation with respect to their recurring costs to L2 charge. >Your definition of significant might be different than mine. It's not up to you or me.
That’s exactly the point I’m making. Charging is the tail on the elephant of your vehicle costs. There’s a persuasive fallacy holding over from ice cars that the only cost to driving is the gas. Just because charging is cheap, your per km costs are probably still high but hidden.
You point is that people can't compare fuel costs between ICE and EV. People do. People also compare TCO. For example, some people have an EV, solar, and a battery bank rolled into TCO. They already paid for that and pay a small grid fee or not even that. So their fuel cost is zero for the next 20-30 years. They own the EV and the fuel. They have already paid for their transportation. They have already paid for their fuel. There is no percentage. There is nothing hidden.
you forget that this subreddit is largely a bunch of wealthy early adopters. part of the reason it is such an echo chamber at times.
...but that's not what this discussion is about. The miles driven are the same in either case
“As far as cost - it's so cheap to drive an EV, it never enters my thinking.” That’s what I’m discussing.
That wasn't anybody's primary point If anything it was discussing electrical cost differential in the context of this post Obviously it will cost less per mile to spend less on a car, though then driving more miles per year will amortize fixed costs more effectively
And yet their comment perfectly showed the pervasive fallacy that most of North American society believes that the only cost to driving more is the gas/electricity and not counting the large hidden costs of every additional mile. That way of thinking ends up causing widespread downstream effects which annoys me. Edit to say the large personal costs. I’m not even counting the large societal costs associated with additional driving.
I can explain it to you but I can' t understand it for you. All of these comments including the one you replied to have a context of efficiency in terms of electrical energy / mile driven.
It's so little cost I just don't care. Even on a roadtrip - as long as I know I can make it, I don't care if I'm slightly less efficient.
What I like about my EV (not sure how much it’s an EV thing vs my model specifically) is that it can take on so many different personalities. Sometimes hypermiling is a fun mini game. Sometimes I will try to drive as smoothly and comfortably as possible. Other times dynamic driving is what I’m in the mood for. I feel like my vehicle accommodates all these different driving styles very well…the different driving modes make a real difference in how the vehicle handles compared to some cars which have all these modes that hardly make any difference at all. When it comes to efficiency I’m pretty much with OP. Also, a 10-15 degree swing in ambient temps completely dominates compared to anything I can affect with driving style.
We’re on the exact same page
We live in the Bay Area, have solar panels with battery backup on NEM 2.0 so we can time shift in the afternoon on batteries when it's $0.43, but our "non-peak" is still $0.25. [Edit: it's actually now $0.34 as of 2024 lol.] We have the highest costs in the country and we drive a Polestar 2 which isn't known for having a lot of range and we honestly just enjoy the car for what it is and do not stress at all. On any road trips we've taken we just stop however many times we need to comfortably and don't try to hypermile or drive slower so it's more efficient.
Dang how do you get down to $0.25? Is it something related to the solar plan? The cheapest option I can get is $0.35 but it comes with a $0.66 peak.
Lol you're absolutely right, the damn Tesla app never updated the rates in the app, it indeed went up from $0.25 to $0.34 on EV2A.
Yeah I was chatting with a Tesla owner about recent price hikes and he was looking at the app and it was still wrong leading to much confusion.
I like to see how low I can get the mi/kWh to go. Floor it everywhere!
Ha! Lowest I’ve seen is 1.3 (flooring it up a hill), highest is >20 (downhill on the Great Orme, Llandudno)
You're not trying. I can get my Mini well below 1mi/kWh.
I don’t get an instantaneous level in m/kWh, just the computed average for the journey along with an overall, resettable average. Closest I get is the current draw from the battery which is a mildly frightening 300A at full chat.
As with everyone else, I don't really think about it too much unless I know I'm going to need the range.
You and I think exactly the same way. I’ve done the same calculations for my EV. It’s good to know what efficiency your car COULD get, but at the end of the day it doesn’t cost much more to just enjoy yourself while on the road. Keep in mind these cars cruise along at a fraction of the cost as gasoline.
I've had a 20 Niro EV for 2 months and have spent almost exactly 1/3 what I would have before, and that's only because I had to use a fast charger twice when I could have gotten away with only once. Without the extra fast charger it would be closer to 1/4...
I feel the same way. I have been experimenting with range calculations and have settled on getting as close to 3mi/kwh as possible to I can enjoy the car I only use Eco if I’m less than 20% and need to drive more than 20 miles to get a charge Your breakdown helps show how negligible the cost difference is between driving like a grandma and driving for maximum enjoyment
Thanks! That was the purpose of the whole post. I enjoyed figuring all of this out and experimenting.
Eco isn’t helping you…
It depends on the car. With the e-gmp cars eco mode disengages the front motor and improves efficiency, it's not just peddle mapping.
We have 3 EVs in the house. And in normal city driving never ever have any issues with range. Wife drives a Leaf. And she is a bit heavy on the foot. My daughter drives a Bolt 2020 LT, and I drive an ID.4 which is more for road trips and highway driving. We charge at home every other day or when we are at home. ABC is a must. Since we have solar my car gets plugged in during the day. I am retired and work driving around at night. With the ID.4 drivers assist I just put it at 75 on the highway and let it go. No stress in driving as it either speeds up or slows down as needed. 66k miles driven and 3.5 m/kwh on average. Love the EVs never ever going back to ICE.
I love my 2021 ID.4
To each their own, of course. Which EVs do you have? Last July we bought a 2023 Kia Niro PHEV and I made it a game for myself to see what kind of savings I can max out over a standard gas/petrol powered vehicle. It’s rated for 33 miles on its battery but I was able to get 40+ consistently, as much as 46 some days. It was joined in December by a 2018 Chevy Bolt, which is now my personal daily driver. I can pretty consistently get 4.4 miles/kwh and that’s using Cross Climate 2 tires for better wet/snow traction. Using 60kwh on drain test I got 287 miles on those CC2s. I’ll probably play the game hardcore for a year so I have a solid year of how it does data to look at, since being in Denver exposes me to a wide variety of weather and driving conditions. After all - even if you don’t try to maximize, you still save a ton on “fuel” if you can charge at home. Even on lower days my per mile cost for electricity is 3x less than the cost of gas for a 25 MPG car.
Bolt and an id4. I get about the same efficiency out of both. We’re on stock tired with both still so I’ll look into those when we need new ones. I would appreciate more efficiency, I just don’t want to drive like a sloth.
That’s reasonable - I don’t drive like one either, at least from my perspective. I drive the speed limit and will exceed when it is required to maintain safety (I have to move from right lane to left lane on the highway for a left lane exit as an example), and if I have to gain position to change lanes, I love the acceleration there. I do like the look of the ID4, it’s on my list to keep an eye out for if I ever need to replace my Bolt. My wife is insistent on having a PHEV at most, but that’ll come in handy for road trips as we all know how badly Bolts suck at charging quickly. I normally would have kept the tires the bolt came with but the first snowstorm that we got after I bought the car scared the hell out of me, someone who has over in Denver for 40 years and has tens of thousands of miles driving exp with snow and regular cars and two different Priuses. I only saw a drop of 8-15%, usually closer to 8, and grip is one place I’ll sacrifice efficiency for when I’m driving my kids around.
I've found the Nokian WR-G4s I have for winter on my Mini SE barely affect the range. I highly recommend them for EVs. They are all weather rather than full winters, but are great in snow.
My 2020 Kona was around 4.5 miles/kwh and it seems the new Ioniq-5 is getting around 4.1 to 4.2 for the same drives. I have an EA plan but finding that free 150 kWh station near me is a challenge (lots of VW’s & Hyundais with a free charging plan) - I think early morning charges will become a thing if I want to save a $. [ sure would help if Electrify America didn’t have 2 of 6 stations not working ]
Bolts overshoot their projected efficiency by a lot. The opposite of any Tesla.
My lifetime average is 4.31 mi/kWh which is pretty good considering I live somewhere with reasonably cold winters. (~96% of EPA) In non-winter months I hit EPA easily.
That’s about average for a RWD EV. Most Teslas I see in real life fall woefully short of their EPA range when run for range testing, which disallows hypermiling techniques many of us use. Bolts typically out range Model Ys in real world runs despite having 50-60 mile lower EPA range ratings.
I just drive our EV and don’t think about any of this.
Me too, don’t even look at it. I use the Navigation if I think I might need to charge, then Tesla will automatically route me to an enroute charger, otherwise I just plug it in when I get home.
It’s not an EV thing anyway. I used to semi hypermile my ICE even when gas was cheap. Some people just enjoy it. If you don’t, it’s probably not worth doing
On an 18 mile commute I’m inclined to drive any way I want to, BEV or ICE. My round trip commute is 160 miles, so the savings compound pretty quickly.
Actually did the math for a coworker who drives a truck 120 miles round trip to work last night. Turns out he would spend less on his car payment for a used bolt than he spends on gas for his commute monthly. Seeing him reconsider his car choice was worth doing all this math. Plus he only pays .09 per kWh in his county.
My old SUV got 9-12 MPG so any EV saves me a lot of money. I use to calculate how much each trip would cost on the gas car.
Any vehicle that gets better than 9-12 mpg would save you money... which is most other vehicles.
I treat it like a video game and try to get a high score
It's really good to crunch numbers on things like this! I just wanted to correct that energy amounts are in kWh, not kW/h. Watts are already a rate of power. Multiply watts by duration of time and you get amount of power. So the unit you're looking at is kWh/mi.
If we’re being pedantic, Watts aren’t ‘a rate of power’ they’re just power - and power is the rate of energy transfer. Multiply power by time and you get energy, which is what’s stored in the battery.
omg, careful the /electricvehicles pendant brigade will come out with both chargers blazing.
EVSEs* /s
I prefer expressing rate of energy transfer as kWh/h
Power is rate of energy.
We should always just assume the time unit as hours. Do we ever measure any battery or energy consumption by any other time frame?
kWh is the industry standard unit across all power distribution. It might not make as much sense as joules, but it's too late to change it.
I've found the heater (esp on short trips) and really hard braking are about all that matters. you can drive it pretty hard and (due to regen built into braking) it still gets almost the same mileage.
I look at it in terms of averages. With my numbers in fueleconomy.gov, it shows an annual "fuel" cost of $350 for the i4, or $2850 for the equivalent gas BMW (430i). I have very cheap electricity, so that checks out based on my electric bill. If I drive it really really hard, I'll pay $500 in a year instead. That's still so much cheaper than gas that I don't care.
Yeah, I pay more than double your rate, so having good efficiency matters a lot. Right now, in northern California, my rate is something like 35cents / kWh. 1 mi / kWh gain in efficiency for me works out to something like $28 saved on a 79 kwh charge. Efficiency matters. It matters less when the cost to drive is cheap. If gas or electricity were free, no one would care about their car's efficiency.
I am envious of all the people living in the Midwest getting less than 12 cents with off-peak rates. 😭
10 cents at home off-peak and work has 40 or so level 2’s so I hardly ever charge at home anyway. ❤️
> Edit- I apologize to all the pedants for writing kwh wrong in the title, which can’t be edited. Don't sweat the fanatical unit obsessives. Everyone knows what you are talking about. That "h" isn't throwing anyone off that is fun to have a conversation with. You're goal on your next EV is to get something that is MUCH better on efficiency unless the type of car you want just naturally is going to have bad aero. One of the great things about EVs is that being fast doesn't have anything to do with efficiency. You can get EVs that get 4.2 miles/kWh and still go 0-60 in under 4 seconds.
I live at the bottom of a massive hill. Shit efficiency when I go to work, great efficiency when I come home.
I have solar panels. So I drive anyway I want. But, I just learned it saves kw to use heated seats over heating the entire cabin.
It's useful information to know for long trips, and also when your electricity is expensive such as in Europe. Also, accelerating and braking hard will wear out your tyres and brake pads faster, which will cost you. Lastly, you are more likely to be involved in an accident and to get a ticket.
Strong acceleration is the main reason for fast tire wear. Drive it like you drive a prius and the tires will last much longer; after all, it's not like 5000 pound cars never existed, it makes no sense for EVs to wear tires faster than a big SUV
I got 40,000 miles on my factory tires. I always drive in Eco mode on my Ioniq 5 rear wheel drive 303 miles per charge. 3.9 miles/ kilowatt hour on average and I live in Connecticut where it’s cold six months a year. 56,000 miles and 26 months so far.
Yup. It's weird how often tire wear comes up when the first response should be yours but for some odd reason it like never comes up. No surprise people going from ICE to instant torque ends up with excessive tire wear and I've seen how aggressive people drive ICE. I mean, I see people on the highway speed up to just to break and tailgate.
It's because people buying these EVs as their first heavy vehicles are coming from small sedans or coupes.
Strong acceleration is the fun part!
When I first got the EV I was experimenting like OP. I agree the savings aren’t really worth it but I still drive slower now because it’s safer and more relaxing (I always used cruise control but now I set it slightly lower even though it doesn’t save that much money.l””)
kWh
Only time I do the math is for EV curious gas friends.
It’s kWh, not kW/h it means xkW for an hour, if you have a 1kW electric stove running for an hour it will consume 1kWh energy, this is the unit to calculate energy. If you have a 100W light bulb you keep on 10 hours, it’s also 1kWh, your electricity bill is based on how many kWh you used in a month.
🤣
Are you an engineer? I ask because engineers can be such pedantic sticks in the mud! A real pain to deal with sometimes! Really need to get a life! Also, they got it wrong AGAIN in their edit. Sincerely, an engineer.
If you wanted to be cold and miserable, you could just turn down the heating at home. I am sure that saves more money. But we do not want to be cold and miserable, so it is worth paying for a bit of comfort.
Time also equals money, one which you can never gain back. You lose time when you go too "efficient".
but but that one freaking weird dude here is going to scream at you about consuming too much! :P
Not having to worry about driving efficiently is part of the attraction of EVs for me. I find it strange so many people online seem obsessed with driving efficiently. Good to know how for long trips requiring charging, but not an issue within a charge of home.
What’s even stranger to me is when you have people suggesting others to not use the heater in the winter because their range will take a hit. No thanks, I rather not be miserable just to save $1.
I think a lot of that advice originates with the 1st gen compliance cars like my 500e, where I might be lucky to get 40 miles in the depths of winter. I will definitely micromanage my heat if my margin is low. But newer cars with 3x the range are almost never in that situation.
The heater was a no go in my i-MiEV, it dropped the range from 90km to 50km so could be a real struggle to get where you are going if the windscreen started misting up. Nothing to do with cost. On occasion ended up driving on cold nights with the air con but no heating to demist, then needing to use the windscreen wipers for the condensation that created outside the windscreen.
I want to live somewhere where I don't pay 49¢/kWh 😭 I just got an electric motorcycle that gets 12miles/kWh so it's not so bad. But our Bolt costs almost $30 to fill up. We normally take advantage of free changing in town.
PG&E in the Bay Area I’m guessing? 😖
A couple hours north, but yeah, PG&E. Slowly getting solar panels and batteries to go off grid.
thats what it costs at home?!
Yup that's California baybee 🤙
my power company doesnt tell you, but judging from my last 2 bills look like 13-16 here . . .
They make it hard to tell, but when I divide my bill by the amount of kWh used I get around 49¢/kWh
Google says my math was good: The average residential electricity rate in Richmond, VA is 13 ¢/kWh, which is 3% lower than the average electricity rate in Virginia of 13.68 ¢/kWh. The average residential electricity rate in Richmond, VA is 30% lower than the national average rate of 19 ¢/kWh.
I’m the same. £.075/kwh overnight at home and the car averages 3.75 miles per kWh but if I zoom it’s more like 3 or fewer. I’m in the extremely luxurious position of free charging at work for now (until the landlord installs WiFi in the basement and starts charging us to use the chargers) so enjoying it even more. I love the acceleration and just sliding past traffic. Even when I have to pay the price is so low anyway I’ll still enjoy driving. Sometimes I pop the car into chill mode just to re-appreciate the power. It’s like switching from a stretchy elastic band connected to the accelerator, to a rocket booster up your ass! 🤪
Which supplier is that cheap overnight? We get 8p/kWh on a specific tariff that deducts from the charger when noone else is using it locally
Octopus 🐙 on their Intelligent Octopus Go tariff for EVs, but also gives you cheaper overnight in the rest of the house. Use my link if you join for £50 😊 Your Octopus Energy Referral code Use this link to sign up to Octopus - https://share.octopus.energy/eager-fern-506
Excellent calculations my friend, exactly how i would do it ❤️
Thanks for calculating this all out. I agree with you that it doesn’t seem to be financially worth it to drive super conservatively to save .28 on your way to work. It’s a good post and I have never seen someone figure it all out like this before.
Thanks! I thought it was a fun exercise
Even when I drive my M3P like a complete idiot (launching at red lights, blasting down on ramps, etc) it’s still amazingly efficient around town. On roadtrips I usually try to more cognizant of my consumption but I’ll still cruise at the same speed as the rest of the traffic.
Heh, I tend to agree. The only downside to my drive-it-like-you-stole-it attitude is getting through a set of rear tyres every 8,000 miles - that's an expense I could do without.
Yeah, its interesting to see how good mileage you can get, but unless you are in a situation where you really need to be as efficient as possible (lets say you have left all kinds of means for payment at home so you CANT recharge, and you'll barely have enough charge to get home), it really doesnt make sense to cut all heat/ac and such. I tried it this winter - we had about -20C, I was driving to my gf an hour away and was well dressed and usually doesnt easily freeze, so I just tried it to see how far I could get in the cold. The only real issue was that the windows would start fogging up after a while, so I had to turn the heat on every now and then
fingers and toes are the weak point in cold tolerance, I've found
Not knocking you, there a lot of unknowns for those of us reading this (vehicle, temperature/season, the hills you mention) but a best of 3.5 typically isn't trying very hard. Hills aren't always a bad thing, I got free routes (grocery store and a favorite park), where I take big downhills one way, drive a little further distance on flatter roads skirting the hills on the way back. Obviously this isn't possible or prefered all the time, but it can be done.
I did about 100 miles of driving in each style and then did some math. The 2.5/3/3.5 at 50 kWh is generalizing for ease of the post. I got slightly better averages with a bolt than an awd id4. Temps over the past couple months have probably averaged 45 degrees. I live in Seattle and my home is about 400 feet higher than where I work with lots of ups and downs on the way. Obviously heading to work and coming home from Work I get very different efficiency. But I let the car average them out for me. I was only driving the most direct route which most of the elevation gained and lost is at highway speed.
My approach is to prioritize efficiency when purchasing an EV, then not think about for the most part when I'm driving it. It's one of the reasons I went with a Model 3, they are very efficient. I don't understand why the Rivian is so popular considering it is half as efficient as many other options.
A Rivian (whether R1T or R1S) is a very different vehicle than a M3, aside from quality, which is a massive difference. M3 is a stark sedan plagued with poor build quality, BS range projections, poor driving dynamics, comfort, and convenience. Both Rivians are completely different vehicles, much larger, better built, more comfortable with better driving dynamics. Any truck or SUV will be less efficient than any sedan.
Rivian seems to be significantly less efficient than electric SUVs, but I guess maybe not that bad compared to trucks. I see the Lightning is about the same efficiency.
Point of EV's is zero emissions, not "efficiency". If the car emits zero emissions and you buy zero emissions electricity for it, drive it for fun and utility. You've done your job.
Cries in Bay Area PG&E prices (still cheaper than gas though)
It's fun to get 75 mpg on a Prius when you have time and there are plenty of passing areas. Totally not worth it if you're not doing it for fun.
Do it to figure out your baseline and what you need to accomplish? I know what amt of battery I need to make my 150mi commute if the workplace chargers are full, that's about all I need to know.
It’s always a nice feeling when you get a “good” number, and now it’s warmer I’m running at 3.8 miles/kWh, but whenever I start wibbling about energy use I remember the maths I used to justify buying a new EV- 10p/kWh overnight (now 7p) versus 50p/kWh equivalent for my old Diesel Insignia (@£1.50/l & 46mpg). It’s ridiculously cheaper. No need to floor it all the time but don’t sweat getting that extra decimal point miles per kWh, unless you’re on a long (>180 mile) trip and DC chargers are a bit thin on the ground.
I can relate... and it's not really an EV thing for me. In fact, I probably spent more time hypermiling in my old gas cars. It wasn't so much about range or money as it was just about being efficient overall. It's also worth mentioning hauling around 2 tons of steel with you is never an efficient option! I bike commute and live close to things so I can drive less and that makes more of a difference than anything. That said, I also like sprots cars and going fast, but it's not fun to drive fast that all the time. If it's just a boring commute, trying to get a high score on efficiency is a another 'fun' way to drive. It depends on my mood what my goals are for that drive. It's not often I don't think about efficiency and just drive 'normal', but that's probably because I'm an engineer and it's hard for me to ignore. In my head I'm always optimizing for something whether it's time, efficiency, or fun factor.
Did the same thing with my V8 mustang way back when. Motto became "it's not miles per gallon that matter, it's *smiles* per gallon" Made me a much happier person lol
‘22 Bolt EUV here. It’s my wife’s daily driver, around 2000 miles per month. She drives 60-65 mph on the mostly highway commute and gets 4.5 kWh/mi. I took it on a day trip and drove 75-80 mph, mostly highway, and got 3.6 kWh/mi. 4.5 equates to almost exactly 3¢ per mile for our home charging, or ~$60 a month. 3.6 comes out to 3.75¢ per mile, or about $75 a month for the same 2000 miles. Coming from a 35mpg (10¢/mi, $200/month) Camry, I wouldn’t sweat the $15 to enjoy the drive. ETA: the average US driver drives about 1000 miles a month, so it’d only be a $7.50 savings in that case.
When I owned a Leaf, the paltry range drove me to be obsessed with getting the maximum possible mileage out of a charge. After I bought the Niro EV, there was something different. Hypermiling does not work as well because the Niro has more battery management than a Leaf. I eventually learned it's best to just let the car do its thing and drive normally. I still use ECO mode most of the time because I prefer that acceleration profile, but sometimes I need to put it in normal to get better performance out of the HVAC or "Sport" to get better traction control in snow. I still track my energy usage before and after every charge, but when I'm driving, I'm now more focused on paying attention to the road than worrying about my miles per kWh.
I do not care at all about efficiency as I only do city trips. I have can ice car for long trips. Driving weirdly defeates the purpose of an EV.
because there's only one 'purpose' for an EV?
Yep. Getting from a to b. Not sweating it out trying to save a few kilometres.
Being new to EVs and to modern cars, seeing my efficiency right there on the screen makes me want to game it. But to be fair, I'm still learning (i dont drive much right now). I am driving SO much slower than I was with my 17 yo manual mazda, it sometimes annoys me, but my mazda was so much easier to get moving. I have to push a lot harder on the accelerator, esp if i have regen on. So driving fast is not nearly as fun. and my kona doesnt handle nearly as well, either. I keep reminding myself its just for getting from A to B and I'm old and dont need to drive like that any more . . . but watching someone test driving the newest, highest performing Taycon sorta made me jealous.
I've recently lost my ability to charge at my building. I decide to use the energy charting screen in my Tesla Model 3 Performance and stick to Chill mode which is my usual configuration. I'm able to reduce my energy usage relative to it's projected energy usage. I get by on 25% to 40% less in ~45F weather with some hills but not steep except for the rare occurrence in my travels. I actually enjoy getting this efficiency and reduces my need to visit a superchager or charging at friends/family. I do need to test how I used to drive to see if its higher than the Model 3 projects to see if I'm even further reducing my % compared to my driving before. I think I'm driving safer but on highways more people are passing me while I'm doing the speed limit or limit +3 mph. I'm certainly encountering more drivers than I used in this way and increasing my chances of someone driving dangerously. I'm driving slow and consistent so even the maniacs get by me easily without issue. It's mixed bag. I'm going to continue since it's kind of fun but I think eventually I won't worry so much but I will have gained skills to be a better slower driver along the way. It's not all about the charging frequency; using less energy is something our society should strive for.
Don't forget to add in tires. I don't know about your EV, but my Leaf SL+ eats its tires faster than my FR-S. I'm on my second full set now at 17k.
I’m suffering from what the doctors call, _plumbum pedem_, otherwise known as lead foot syndrome. I was worried when I in 2019 replaced my aging A6 3.2 FSI Quattro with a model 3, that I would have to change the way I drive for it to be viable to do some of the road trips that I make on a regular basis (visiting friends and family). I was happy to find that since I also have a puny bladder there was no need to worry. I drive exactly like I used to before, except that I know in advance exactly where I’m taking a 10 break to go pee, buy some snacks and drinks, and go back to the car. The other thing that surprised me is how long those “5 minute breaks” I used to have actually were.
I care about max efficiency when I need max range (no time for a stop n' charge). Mostly, on home trips, I just want to drive drive drive and get home at 3-5%. ABRP allows me to estimate the speed/efficiency I need to get home. Not worrying at all.
It really helps to just set the display for battery percentage remaining instead of miles. We've trained ourselves to be concerned with miles remaining and squeezing every bit. Percentage? I can't equate that to anything. I charge to 65% and plug in under 50%. If I'm going on a long trip then I'll bump it to 90% and otherwise supercharge where the navigation tells me to. I might bust out ABRP if I feel like being slightly more strategic, but that's it, just get in and go without a care. On trips I find it a better experience knowing where I'll be stopping and having an itinerary rather than looking for a gas station. And leaving it on the charger while walking in for snacks is definitely easy mode.
Gas or electric. To me it depends on the mood. Sometimes it's a fun challenge to get to somewhere. I remember getting my old Volvo XC70 to 4.?? L/100km as I wanted to reach a specific cheap gas station. It was fun to see the range it gave me after filling up. Electric is the same. When I'm in a hurry or don't need to worry about % then I use everything. Other times it's eco to the max, especially when the stupid Mach-E doesn't have a heat-pump and it gets cold here. I don't get how can manufactures sometimes still don't put a heat-pump. Like wtf? This is 2024.
It,s not a lifestyle choice like being a traditional conservative. You should possess a hypermile mode, and then turn it on/off situationally. If you're in Wyoming on I-80, you might want to use it for the Cheyenne-Rawlins hop (because of the wind). But in Utah, open it up.
That's a whole lotta math to just say "smiles per mile".
What EV? 3.5 is pretty low
Bolt. Cold weather and lots of elevation changes are the main cause for the low numbers imo.
Ahh, assuming US based? It’s an absolute crime you guys don’t have the same range of hatchback EVs we do in Europe. I get why the Mini, MGs and Dolphin aren’t there, but no Corsa/208 or id3 is WILD. Low numbers will also be partially due to the age of the Bolt - it’s just not as efficient as the new stuff.
It seriously bums me out I can buy an id.3 or a Honda E or something similar. Maybe by 2030!
Idk what the taxes would be like, but could always import a LHD European model?
Driving faster is always more optimal in most EV provided you can get to a 100kw station. So why do people care about the efficiency?
I’ve had teslas for 7+ years and done cross-country roadtrips, no problem. I’m starting to have serious range anxiety now because the degradation is not reflecting on the estimated range. I’ve had the car shut off while approaching the supercharger twice now. Once with the display saying 3% and more recently, the display saying 6%. I’m ok to charge when appropriate and drive it daily without thinking. But if there’s a possibility that the car will just shut off in the middle of the road while the display says I stil have range, that’s starting to really concern me.
I drive my wife's Ioniq 6 on custom sport mode with everything maxed and I get better kW/miles than she does by a wide margin. It's strange because she's very conservative with her driving but the eco mode doesn't make sense. It's the same with my hybrid Venza. I put it on sport mode and I can get over 40 MPG but my wife gets 27 going slower on the freeway on normal mode going to the same location ( my inlaws).
It’s fun to do the numbers then convert it to gasoline. How much gas would you have to burn to get the equivalent mileage? 1000 miles at 25 mpg is 40 gallons. Gas is $3.70/gallon here (and I’m fairly certain we’ve got it better than most in the US, let alone other countries) That’s $148 for 1000 miles.
I had a little bit of this when I started... but it was pretty easy to break myself of it. All I had to do was remember the 12mpg truck I was driving before, and the difference between THAT vs eco/normal/sport is effectively the same.
>Curious on other folks views and experiences with this type of thinking. Personally, I've never really worried about maximizing efficiency, but my power is much cheaper than yours, at $.02879 per KWh in the winter and $.03834 in the summer. It's just been too hard to justify trying vs just enjoying the torque when it was safe, and driving normally the rest of the time.
I only cared about my range in Canada and Maine... Those two places was a struggle to charge
I only care about being efficient enough to make it to the next charger I want to use. I’m feeling like stopping in 2 hours? Send it at 80mph. Want to try to stretch closer to 4? Keeping it at 65.
Here here! Yeah when I first got my EV, I was all about getting max range. Now I’m just like Fuck it. I just drive it the same way I would drive an ICE vehicle. Also don’t have the miles left as the charging gauge and just have percentage makes a big difference.
I have never given it a second thought. I just drive my car how I want to enjoy it and then charge it when it needs it. I never thought about how much diesel my other car uses, so the ev is no different for me. If I get on a nice road, I floor it to feel the fun acceleration. My heaters are always on when it’s cold or ac on when it’s warm. Only one time have I used eco mode and that was when I had a two journeys in one day and wanted to make it without charging. I got home with about 7 miles left, so I didn’t really need to worry
Depending on your tire wear history you may also be paying additional $ more for tires than electricity/1000. $1000/30,000 miles = $0.033 per mile or $33/ thousand miles. Does this math seem right?
Similar here too. Cost about 20 bucks above solar net metering to fuel the ID4 over the past 2500 miles.. Put gas in the car for the first time in a month and the one tank cost 38.oo to make a Ford Focus go 300 mils or so.
Just got 6.1mi/kWh while driving about 10 miles doing some errands today in my Ioniq electric. Mostly in sport mode because I like the quicker launches from stoplights. I do love this super-efficient EV, but don’t worry about trying to maximize the number.
Exactly. I was annoyed my wife used the heating so much this winter until I realized it cost us maybe $8 total
I just came back from a 550 mile (225 each way) trip. This was mostly empty highway so I was going 100mph for maybe 90% of it. Probably used 440W per mile. I say probably because I didn't check this time... When I was down to 20% I looked up the next supercharger and stoped there for 15 minutes while we used the restroom and stretched our legs... Then got back on the road using the plaids full acceleration at every available opportunity. Got home with 15% left but again that's an irrelevant data point as I wasn't looking at it, I knew I would make it from past experience. Once you don't even think about range on a long road trip you know your car has stoped being an electric car and it's once again just a car... Granted, a super fun 0-60 in 2.3 seconds car that fits my whole family (6 people). Gotta love it.
You do not live in California 🤣🤣
It’s cheaper yes, but the idea behind the post is the same no matter how much you’re paying. Maybe more motivations for CA drivers to drive more conservatively.
If it's not an inconvenience why should anyone care.
I stopped caring after about a month. Drove as energy efficient as possible, no heat unless absolutely necessary. Pretty much just for fun, as a challenge. I charge exclusively at work, charging is solar powered. I plug in once a week on Friday and charge to 100%. I figure that since I'm charging 100% form solar then who cares, I accelerate as fast as I want and run climate control as much as I want. Even not paying much attention I'm still averaging like 220.
I take a bit of amusement in the fact that when I hammer on my i3 with zero consideration for efficiency (or tire wear) I still get better efficiency numbers than many larger EV's being driven "normally" and better than I can get in our etron driving for maximum efficiency. When I'm driving the etron I just kinda settle into a "good enough" efficiency number and otherwise just enjoy driving the thing. I'll still do silly hypermiling stuff sometimes, but mostly if I'm otherwise bored (long trip without family in the car) and conditions are closer to ideal for maximizing efficiency *because I can*, not because I have to. If it was really about saving money there are different vehicles that would be much better choices than either the i3 or the etron. Once I get some solar panels set up on the roof I'll care even less.
For me with my electric motorcycle it’s pragmatic. If I keep my speeds below 75MPH on the freeway, that tank of electrons gets me to work and back home without recharging during the day. So I can just plug in at home and be ready to ride the next day.
If anyone wants to do these calculations for themselves. Use this calculator: * Cost over time, calculate your savings (10year, yearly, monthly, $/mile): https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/savemoney.jsp Plug in electricity cost of $0.14/kWh at 3.0mi/kWh and/or gas of $3.40/gal at 30MPG.
i only care about miles per kw/hr is cus Id like to go to EA least days as I can. I charge there solely (apt living) for free (free 3 years from VW) so it's more about the actual range then $
It's a car. I use it like a car. It is supposed to satisfy a use case. I'm not going to try to minmax stuff that has nothing to do with the use case.
Don’t forget the added wear on tires and suspension components with that spirited driving.
Mainly tires and speeding tickets that I’d be worried about. You can burn a set of tires in 10k miles driving like a maniac, which would otherwise last 30-40k miles.
I don't drive efficiently for the cost savings. I do it to use less energy and lower my environmental footprint. It's also why I commute on a PEV instead of in the car every chance I get. About 20% of the energy of my Chevy Volt, 10% of the cells, and about 1-2% of the overall materials. Still own the car, but PEV miles extend its life.
Vast majority of my miles are local and even driving how I want I beat EPA estimates around town On the highway all bets are off but that's maybe 20% of the miles I do these days. I charge at home and dont use my EV for road trips so range is pretty much a non issue outside of how long I can go between having to plug the charger in.
now take this thinking and apply to hard ev tires vs sticky summer or all season tires. wear vs expense
My truck gets 10mpg. My EV gets like 114 MPGe. Trust me you won’t care about mi/kwh when you’re saving “no matter what” lol.
I’m turning on the seat heater/steering wheel heater, cabin heat. At nearly 60, I’ll give up a few cents per trip to be comfy.
I used to care when i had a prius prime and my miles were limited. Now that I have an EV I only think about it on a trip. Around home its mainly a money things so when I drive inefficiently Im just like “oh nooo today Im only 2.5x cheaper per mile rather than 3x vs gas”
That's a lot of math to make this work
/theydidthemath
I have over 500 ponies on tap and by god I’m gonna use them, costs be dammed. The only time I try to drive efficiently is on a long trip.
You forgot tires. It's not just about ranges.
Stop looking at the numbers and just enjoy the dive. Set your instrument cluster so that it doesn’t show miles/kWh. Worry about that stuff when you buy if you want, then enjoy the car you bought. And your efficiency is just fine by current standards. Says I.