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Do any of you who are EV owners compare your EV energy use to your household energy use?
I read recently that one charge of an EV can be the equivalent of powering a house for a week. I do not own an EV yet, but that seemed outrageous to me. So I started doing some of my own calculations.
Averaging out my last year of electric bills, I found that I used an average of 227 kWh per month. According to Edmunds, the "average driver" uses 394 kWh per month on their EV. This would mean I'd spend 75% more to charge my car than my house.
But I drive significantly less than the "average driver", and if I had an EV it would be an efficient model. I think I could get my EV kWh usage a little below my home usage.
I'd be interested to know whether EV owners pay attention to this and if so, what their numbers look like.
Do any of you who are EV owners compare your EV energy use to your household energy use?
I read recently that one charge of an EV can be the equivalent of powering a house for a week. I do not own an EV yet, but that seemed outrageous to me. So I started doing some of my own calculations.
Averaging out my last year of electric bills, I found that I used an average of 227 kWh per month. According to Edmunds, the "average driver" uses 394 kWh per month on their EV. This would mean I'd spend 75% more to charge my car than my house.
But I drive significantly less than the "average driver", and if I had an EV it would be an efficient model. I think I could get my EV kWh usage a little below my home usage.
I'd be interested to know whether EV owners pay attention to this and if so, what their numbers look like.
I do not think comparing EV charging cost against the cost of electricity for your home is valid. You should be comparing the cost of EV charging against how much you pay for gasoline each month. The chart on the linked site shows an EV cost of $52 per month in Texas. I pay that much to fill up my 4Runner once a week.
If you use 227kWh per month for your residence, you are on the low end of consumption. The average for Texas is over 1,000kWh per month.
Do any of you who are EV owners compare your EV energy use to your household energy use?
I read recently that one charge of an EV can be the equivalent of powering a house for a week. I do not own an EV yet, but that seemed outrageous to me. So I started doing some of my own calculations.
Averaging out my last year of electric bills, I found that I used an average of 227 kWh per month. According to Edmunds, the "average driver" uses 394 kWh per month on their EV. This would mean I'd spend 75% more to charge my car than my house.
But I drive significantly less than the "average driver", and if I had an EV it would be an efficient model. I think I could get my EV kWh usage a little below my home usage.
I'd be interested to know whether EV owners pay attention to this and if so, what their numbers look like.
Average household uses 900 kWh a month, 225 a week. So that's about right... for a Chevrolet Silverado 4WT or Hummer with 200 kWh batteries. Most EVs have batteries more in the 70-90 kWh range. Averages aren't all that useful though as there's huge swings. California most households use natural gas for heat, hot water, and then cooking/drier are more mixed between electric and gas. Coastal California here so I don't even have an air conditioner so electricity runs appliances and lights and that's about it. Lots of people have pools or hot tubs which hoover down the electricity. Household can mean an 700 square foot apartment with shared walls or a 3,800 square foot McMansion with walls of windows.
Just take the efficiency of whatever EV you're looking at and how much you drive. E.g., I'm still working from how part of the time, gas is better for longer trips so we take one of the gas cars. I do about 700 miles a month on the EV and it's 35 kWh/100 miles so 245 kWh per month charging. Plus some losses, call it 15% to be conservative and it's 282 kWh. I have solar though and it's looking like over a year I'll use about 2,000 kWh of grid electricity over the year for the house and EV. Makes sense. Solar system was calculated to generate slightly more electricity than I use for the house. I'll need to expand it to cover charging which I may/may not do. Rated efficiency is pretty accurate for non-Teslas (add 10-15% for Tesla) in mild climates. E.g., Rivian R1T is rated at 48 kWh/100 miles, Edmunds got 46 kWh/100 miles so slightly better than rated. Auto journalists tend to drive aggressively versus the average driver. Polestar 2 I have is rated at 38 kWh/100 miles, I get 35.
I do not think comparing EV charging cost against the cost of electricity for your home is valid. You should be comparing the cost of EV charging against how much you pay for gasoline each month. The chart on the linked site shows an EV cost of $52 per month in Texas. I pay that much to fill up my 4Runner once a week.
If you use 227kWh per month for your residence, you are on the low end of consumption. The average for Texas is over 1,000kWh per month.
Good point, although I do think it is interesting to compare house to vehicle energy use. It just never occurred to me before that it could be possible to use more energy powering a car than all other appliances in my house lumped together. But now it's dawning on me how much energy cars use.
A rough average is that I drive 8,000 mi./year. I don't know what the average price of gas will be going forward. If gas is $3.50/gal., and my car gets 27 mpg., then I'd spend about $86 on gas per month. That is way more than I pay for electricity, which averages $35/month. Good to know.
That means my kWh rate is $0.15. If I drive an EV 8,000 mi/year, and I get 0.35 kWh/mi., that's 2800 kWh at $0.15 = $420 annually or $35/month, same as the house, and $51 in savings per month over my ICE vehicle and a $612 savings annually. The initial outlay for an EV is much higher than I've ever paid for an ICE vehicle, however, a substantial barrier.
Generally I wouldn't recommend someone without $20K of discretionary funds to own an EV out of warranty because financial risk for a high-cost component (while low probability) could be crippling for the owner. Until the cost of repair comes down, availability of parts increases, or affordable insurance covers these components, I think the average person should stay away. On the flip-side, I believe most EV owners are saving quite a bit on money on fuel costs, maintenance, and average repair compared to ICE vehicles.
If you're a multi-vehicle household, adding one EV can be quite impactful. My wife and I bought a used off-lease 2013 Fiat 500e with 20K miles on it for $7,300 out the door. My wife would use it for her local errands and her commute 45 miles away to downtown Los Angeles. The savings came from free toll-lane access, free charging at her office garage, and low electricity costs from our roof-top array with Net Energy Metering Agreement 1.0 and TOU rates made an instant price arbitrage. The car paid for itself in savings in just 1.25 years compared to the 28mph Lexus Rx400h my wife used to drive. With adding the Fiat, we cut our gasoline demand by about 1,000 gallons of gasoline and 200 gallons of diesel each year. We now have 92K miles on the Fiat, bought a used Tesla Model S85 and added 80K miles to that car too.
I'll need to expand it to cover charging which I may/may not do. Rated efficiency is pretty accurate for non-Teslas (add 10-15% for Tesla) in mild climates. E.g., Rivian R1T is rated at 48 kWh/100 miles, Edmunds got 46 kWh/100 miles so slightly better than rated. Auto journalists tend to drive aggressively versus the average driver. Polestar 2 I have is rated at 38 kWh/100 miles, I get 35.
Why would you need to add 10-15% for a Tesla? A Model 3 used 24 kWh for 100 miles.
Good point, although I do think it is interesting to compare house to vehicle energy use. It just never occurred to me before that it could be possible to use more energy powering a car than all other appliances in my house lumped together. But now it's dawning on me how much energy cars use.
A rough average is that I drive 8,000 mi./year. I don't know what the average price of gas will be going forward. If gas is $3.50/gal., and my car gets 27 mpg., then I'd spend about $86 on gas per month. That is way more than I pay for electricity, which averages $35/month. Good to know.
That means my kWh rate is $0.15. If I drive an EV 8,000 mi/year, and I get 0.35 kWh/mi., that's 2800 kWh at $0.15 = $420 annually or $35/month, same as the house, and $51 in savings per month over my ICE vehicle and a $612 savings annually. The initial outlay for an EV is much higher than I've ever paid for an ICE vehicle, however, a substantial barrier.
I don't know what part of NM you live or if HVAC is something you use a lot. But that is def. the biggest energy draws for me - East Coast.
But just to give you some numbers. Tesla Model 3.
Driven 12.6K miles last year.
about 4000Kwh used.
About $460 spent on that "fuel".
My house averages about 820KwH / month (2500 sq ft TH - live alone) - this is inclusive of charging the EV. According to my app - 96% of my charges were at home. So my EV charging is about 1/3 of my energy use. There also some nuance there as my EV charge rate is about 35% less (vs. my other electric uses) as I am enrolled in my utility's off peak program. So the overwhelming majority of my charging are done between 11pm and 5am.
Do any of you who are EV owners compare your EV energy use to your household energy use?
I read recently that one charge of an EV can be the equivalent of powering a house for a week. I do not own an EV yet, but that seemed outrageous to me. So I started doing some of my own calculations.
Averaging out my last year of electric bills, I found that I used an average of 227 kWh per month. According to Edmunds, the "average driver" uses 394 kWh per month on their EV. This would mean I'd spend 75% more to charge my car than my house.
But I drive significantly less than the "average driver", and if I had an EV it would be an efficient model. I think I could get my EV kWh usage a little below my home usage.
I'd be interested to know whether EV owners pay attention to this and if so, what their numbers look like.
Your usage is incredibly low. I don't know what my average usage is, but in the spring and fall it's in the 1100 kWh range, winter 2500-3000 and summer around 1800. My house is all electric - hot water, heating & cooling (2 heat pumps), dryer. Gas is not even available in my neighborhood.
If I had an EV, I suspect it'd be a small, maybe 20% increase, since I only drive 7,000 miles or so a year, and my wife fewer than 5,000.
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA): "In 2022, the average annual amount of electricity sold to (purchased by) a U.S. residential electric-utility customer was 10,791 kilowatthours (kWh), an average of about 899 kWh per month. Louisiana had the highest annual electricity purchases per residential customer at 14,774 kWh (1231 kWh/mo)and Hawaii had the lowest at 6,178 kWh (515 kWh/mo) per residential customer". https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=97&t=3
Yes, 227kWh/mo seems very low - just about 1/4 the US average. But if you have a small and energy efficient house and use gas for heating, hot water and cooking, I guess that would explain it.
Last edited by OutdoorLover; 04-06-2024 at 08:09 PM..
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