2011 Nissan Leaf: 99 MPG

If the cost of gas tracks the relative cost of electricity in every area, then this could work out, at least for relative comparison sake. But if some areas have comparatively expensive gas but cheap electricity, or vice versa, it could confuse things a bit. Ultimately you should be armed with your actual electricity cost (and current/local gas cost) if you really want to make a cost-to-operate comparison.

I actually just took my own advice and tried my hand at the calcs. I got interesting results.

According to a recent electric bill, my overall cost is about 16 cents/kWh (just divided the bill by actual kWh's used, since it's broken down into many pieces at different, individual rates, but the average is 16). Therefore, assuming ZERO charging loss, which is impossible, 34kWh to go 100 miles would cost me $5.44 in electricity.

In my neck of the woods, in southern New England, 87 costs about $3/gal, which means that $5.44 would have purchased 1.8 gallons of gas. And if I went 100 miles on that cost, in gasoline, I would have gotten 55mpg. That's a little over half of the equivalent EPA rating.

Perhaps I have skewed prices where I live, but when I look at these calculations, and the EPA's total lack of even attempting to admit that a lot of electricity isn't produced with zero emissions, it's pretty obvious the EPA is pimping electric cars here. Ah, agendas are wonderful, no? Cough, CARB, cough, cough.

For my final act (I should really make sure I've said all I want to say before posting) I just want to mention that when charging cars at home (or anywhere else, really) begins to catch on, the electrical grid WILL notice, and the cost of electricity will surely go up. That will have a positive effect on the rising cost of gasoline, which is good, but panacea electric cars are not. At least in the foreseeable future.

I'm more interested in the furlongs per knot this baby can achieve.

kevm14

Where I live I worked out I pay just under 7 cents/kwh but almost $5.00 a US gallon for gasoline... and since over 90% of our electricity come from hydro it really is zero emmisions.

It really does depend on where you live.

the 73 mile range is interesting since 100m is the range thats been touted thus far. Now Nissan is saying "mileage will vary" and the EPA estimate seems about right. If that is listed as the range, one wonders what it would be in the summer or on hilly terrain.

1487: I wonder if that is a "combined" range where as it probably can get worse or better based on driving conditions.

I think the equivalency rating is seriously flawed for the same reason kevm14 stated. Like in California that cost per year is probably skewed a lot since they have some of the highest electricity rates in the country and california is probably where this will sell the best.

I think they just need to have an average cost for electricity, and an average cost respectively where applicable. That would make it way easier. In the volts case, you have a $/mile while running on electricity and a $/mile while running on gas. That way you can compare the gas usage to a gas car and the electric to an electric.

They are making it confusing to make the car look better to the greenies!

@kevm14 - I went further along those lines.

In Hawaii, one of the seven 2011 Leaf states, electricity is 28.6 cents. At that rate it costs $97.21 to drive the Leaf 1,000 miles. For that money you could drive just as far paying the state average of $3.52 per gallon in a gas car if it got just 36 mpg. That's what I mean by mpg-c.

In Washington, another Leaf state, electricity is only 8.3 cents (lots of dams, I suppose). Here it takes only $28.29 to charge a Leaf up enough to drive 1,000 miles. Gas is cheaper at $3.11, but in this situation your gas car would have to achieve 110 mpg in order to go 1,000 miles for the same money.

The Leaf makes sense in Washington. It's very hard to see why Nissan is bother to offer the car in Hawaii. There must be a major electric-car discount electricity rate (yet another form of electric-car government subsidy) in the state that does not appear in the state average statistics.

@brn: agreed. The EPA's mpg-e is very misleading, and the mpg-c cost calculation is highly dependent on local prices. But I think cost is what people care about at the end of the day, and electricity rates are so different from gas prices that you can't compare a gas car to an electric one based merely on national average prices of the two commodities. The EPA has done that anyway, choosing 12 cents per kilowatt-hour to come up with $561 per year. That number is really only comparable to another electric car, not a gasoline one.

I also don't like this comparison just in the way the government compares it to everything else in its size class. By comparing it to all other midsized cars on the market, it has just skewed gas mileage and emissions to make all gas powered cars the worst in their class.

The government should compare cars by their means of propulsion, not by size class anymore.

firstwagon, where do you live that you are paying $5/gal???

greenpony

British Columbia

Good article about the true cost of operating an electric vehicle. But not much has been said about how to keep eCars going when production starts ramping up. Ever notice how the market reacts to consumer use. Our electric grid is antiquated and runs quite close to its maximum output. Only limited expansion to the grid is underway. What happens on a hot day when everyone plugs in there car and there is not enough electricity to run air conditioners and computers? We have rolling brown or black outs now! The price of electricity will jump and it will take TIME for the grid to come in line with the increased demand, if it can catch up. What will the MPHe be then? Hopefully the air, heat, and solid waste pollution generated from the new large electricity generating systems that will be needed will be better than running gasoline engines, but the balance of all these systems does not seem to be well understood yet. Being GREEN may not be so green.