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http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=25556
The station features the only fast charger in the region with dual capability to accommodate most types of EVs manufactured by domestic and foreign automakers. It is believed to be one of the worlds first commercial installations of certified DC fast-charge hardware that meets the new industry standard. It is also one of the first fast-charge stations in the U.S. installed by a utility and the first that SMUD will open in the area in 2014.
Last year, Patrick Anderson went electric: He got a Porsche Taycan EV in dark blue.
Anderson, who is CEO of East Lansing-based economic consulting firm Anderson Economic Group, loves the zippy acceleration and "exciting" features the car offers. He also gets satisfaction in knowing that driving an EV benefits the environment, he said.
But Anderson's joy comes with a dark side.
"They are a wonderful driving experience. But at the same time, they're an enormous burden in time and in energy in finding chargers and getting them charged," Anderson said. "And you’re not really saving much in terms of charging costs ... you may be paying more.”
Costs to drive an EV compared with a gasoline car are detailed in a report Anderson Economic released Thursday called "Comparison: Real World Cost of Fueling EVs and ICE Vehicles."
The study has four major findings:
There are four additional costs to powering EVs beyond electricity: cost of a home charger, commercial charging, the EV tax and "deadhead" miles.
For now, EVs cost more to power than gasoline costs to fuel an internal combustion car that gets reasonable gas mileage.
Charging costs vary more widely than gasoline prices.
There are significant time costs to finding reliable public chargers – even then a charger could take 30 minutes to go from 20% to an 80% charge.
Anderson has worked with the auto industry for 20 years and given the industry's transition to EVs, the group decided to do the studies to assess the likelihood consumer will adopt the cars.
...
"Part of the strength of the analysis is we’re showing the real-world costs that EV drivers face," Anderson said. "You typically have to go to a commercial charger and commercial charger rates are two, three or four times that of residential charger rates."
Then, there are the "deadhead miles" car owners spend driving around trying to find a commercial charger. Even charging at home on a Level 1 or Level 2 charger is time consuming and expensive.
...
Anderson's report considers four costs beyond the cost of residential electricity when calculating how much it costs to drive an EV:
- Cost of the residential charger
- Cost of commercial electricity
- An annual EV tax
- Deadhead miles to get to a fast charger
Given all of that, the conclusion is EVs cost more to "fuel" than gasoline cars that get reasonable gas mileage, Anderson said. It all depends on how the car is used and how much commercial charging is involved.
A mid-priced internal combustion car that gets 33 miles per gallon would cost $8.58 in overall costs to drive 100 miles at $2.81 a gallon, the study found. But a mid-priced EV, such as Chevrolet Bolt, Nissan Leaf or a Tesla Model 3, would cost $12.95 to drive 100 miles in terms of costs that include recharging the vehicle using mostly a commercial charger.
On a yearly basis, assuming the mid-priced cars traveled 12,000 miles, it would cost $1,030 to drive an internal combustion car and $1,554 to drive an EV.
For luxury cars that get 26 miles per gallon and use premium gas at $3.25 a gallon, the cost to drive an internal combustion car 100 miles is $12.60. The cost to drive a luxury EV, such as a Taycan, Tesla Model S or X or Jaguar I-Pace, is $15.52 to travel 100 miles. That is using mostly commercial chargers.
“That’s apples to apples and includes the extra EV taxes, the commercial charging and the home charging and the allowance of driving to a gas station, which, for most Americans, is very short compared to driving to a commercial charger for an EV owner," Anderson said.
The study differs from some reports that show it's cheaper to drive an EV than a conventional car. For example, a 2018 study from the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute found the average cost to operate an EV in the U.S. was $485 per year compared with a gasoline-powered vehicle at $1,117. Anderson said most studies include only the cost of residential electricity and don't factor in the four other costs that this study does.
...
Charging costs vary much more for EVs than gasoline prices, too, by 100% or more from month-to-month or week-to-week, Anderson said.
"Even if you drive to the most expensive gas station, your varying price won’t be as great as that," he said.
“That’s going to be a big surprise to a lot of drivers," Anderson said, adding that many commercial chargers will also require the EV driver to enroll and sometimes pay a $20 fee, but that might be reimbursed with charging.
Also, don't plan on ever having a 100% charge on your EV, he said.
"It’s very difficult to charge it up to 100%," Anderson said. "The chargers slow down and the manufacturers warn you not to do it because there is additional burden on the battery system when you get your vehicle above a 90% charge.”
That means if the vehicle advertises a range of 240 miles on a full charge, a driver in reality will get considerably less on, say, an 80% charge, he said.
For new EV drivers these costs, time constraints and other considerations are often a surprise, Anderson said.
“Unlike their reliable gas cars that have 300 or 400 miles of range that can be filled up at a number of gas stations in our country, you have to think about what available chargers you have and plan it out," Anderson said. "It’s more than range anxiety, it’s a burden of constantly monitoring the charging status.”
The Anderson report lists about two dozen sources in its research, which relied on consumer experiences and costs for drivers that go beyond government data on fuel economy and electricity prices. Anderson said it did stopwatch measurements of the time required to refuel gasoline cars and EVs, recorded customer experiences on reliability of chargers, charging time and costs. It used consumer reports from actual EV drivers, including those posted on forums for Taycan and Tesla drivers, Reddit and applications serving EV drivers such as PlugShare and ChargePoint.
Not So Fast on Electric Cars - WSJ
Allysia FinleyDec. 25, 2022 6:20 pm ET
Toyota’s CEO delivers a timely warning, and many states echo it.
Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda recently caused the climate lobby to blow a fuse by speaking a truth about battery electric vehicles that his fellow auto executives dare not. “Just like the fully autonomous cars that we were all supposed to be driving by now,” Mr. Toyoda said in Thailand, “I think BEVs are just going to take longer to become mainstream than the media would like us to believe.” He added that a “silent majority” in the auto industry share his view, “but they think it’s the trend, so they can’t speak out loudly.”
The Biden administration seems to believe that millions of Americans will rush out to buy electric vehicles if only the government throws enough subsidies at them. Last year’s infrastructure bill included $7.5 billion in grants for states to expand their charging networks. But it’s a problem when even the states are warning the administration that electric vehicles aren’t ready to go mainstream.
Maine notes in a plan submitted to the Federal Highway Administration this summer that “cold temperatures will remain a top challenge” for adoption, since “cold weather reduces EV range and increases charging times.” When temperatures drop to 5 degrees Fahrenheit, the cars achieve only 54% of their quoted range. A vehicle that’s supposed to be able to go 250 miles between charges will make it only 135 miles on average. At 32 degrees—a typical winter day in much of the country—a Tesla Model 3 that in ideal conditions can go 282 miles between charges will make it only 173 miles.
Imagine if the 100 million Americans who took to the road over the holidays were driving electric cars. How many would have been stranded as temperatures plunged? There wouldn’t be enough tow trucks—or emergency medics—for people freezing in their cars.
The Transportation Department is requiring states to build charging stations every 50 miles along interstate highways and within a mile of off-ramps to reduce the likelihood of these scenarios. But most state electrical grids aren’t built to handle this many charging stations and will thus require expensive upgrades. Illinois, for one, warns of “challenges related to sufficient electric grid capacity, particularly in rural areas of the state.”
Charging stations in rural areas with little traffic are also unlikely to be profitable and could become “stranded assets,” as many states warn. Wyoming says out-of-state traffic from non-Tesla electric vehicles would have to increase 100-fold to cover charger costs under the administration’s rules. Tesla has already scoped out premier charging locations for its proprietary network. Good luck to competitors.
New Mexico warns that “poor station maintenance can lead to stations being perpetually broken and unusable, particularly in rural or hard to access locations. If an EV charging station is built in an area without electrical capacity and infrastructure to support its use, it will be unusable until the appropriate upgrades are installed.”
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Arizona says “private businesses may build and operate a station if a grant pays for the first five years of operations and maintenance” but might abandon the project if it later proves unprofitable. Many other states echo this concern, noting that federal funds could result in stranded assets.
The administration aims to build 500,000 stations, but states will likely have to spend their own money to keep them running. Like other federal inducements, these grants may entice states to assume what could become huge financial liabilities.
Federal funds also come with many rules, including “buy America” procurement requirements, which demand that chargers consist of mostly U.S.-made components. New Jersey says these could “delay implementation by several years” since only a few manufacturers can currently meet them. New York also says it will be challenging to comply with the web of federal rules, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970, and a 1960 federal law that bars charging stations in rest areas.
Oh, and labor rules. The administration requires that electrical workers who install and maintain the stations be certified by the union-backed Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Training Program. New Mexico says much of the state lacks contractors that meet this mandate, which will reduce competition and increase costs.
Technical problems abound too. Virginia says fast-charging hardware “has a short track record” and is “prone to malfunctions.” Equipment “previously installed privately in Virginia has had a high failure rate shown in user comments and reports on social media,” and “even compatibility with credit card readers has been unexpectedly complicated.”
A study this spring led by University of California researchers found that more than a quarter of public direct-current fast-charging stations in the San Francisco Bay Area were unusable. Drivers will be playing roulette every time they head to a station. If all this weren’t disconcerting enough, Arizona warns cyber vulnerabilities could compromise customer financial transactions, charging infrastructure, electric vehicles and the grid.
Politicians and auto makers racing to eliminate the internal-combustion engine are bound to crash into technological, logistic and financial realities, as Mr. Toyoda warned. The casualties will be taxpayers, but the administration doesn’t seem to care.


How in the flying fuck do you need suspension work at 50k miles?? $10k is a full rebuild, like take the axels off and put new ones on. I just did my suspension at 220k miles and it was $800. I sniff bull shit in this story.
Pretty much the only reason you need NOT to buy EV. You know they chip these things, and probably most lithium battery items with chips, for remote detonation. Even without DEW, you could firebomb an entire suburb with lithium batteries in the stuff the homeowners already bought.
But, but the EV fluffers here on PatNet have repeatedly told us EVs don't spontaneously combust anymore than ICE vehicles do!
WookieMan says
How in the flying fuck do you need suspension work at 50k miles?? $10k is a full rebuild, like take the axels off and put new ones on. I just did my suspension at 220k miles and it was $800. I sniff bull shit in this story.
Talk to socal2. He's our resident Tesla fluffer here. Make him own this bullshit.
Yeah - don’t buy cheap Communist Chinese EVs.
Millions of Teslas on the road over the last 10 years, where are all the fire stories? God knows that the Leftist anti-Elon media would trumpet every negative safety report against Tesla if they could.
BTW - my wife reluctantly told me the other day how much she absolutely loves her new Tesla and can’t stand driving anything else.

socal2 says
Yeah - don’t buy cheap Communist Chinese EVs.
Millions of Teslas on the road over the last 10 years, where are all the fire stories? God knows that the Leftist anti-Elon media would trumpet every negative safety report against Tesla if they could.
BTW - my wife reluctantly told me the other day how much she absolutely loves her new Tesla and can’t stand driving anything else.
That has nothing to do with the point I referenced and you know it.
Explain the odometer scam, socal2





before the Tesla RoboTaxi bump happens.
"...there is still time before the Tesla RoboTaxi bump happens."
There are also tutorial videos available as soon as you sit in the seat for the first time. You used to have to read the manual. They are literally spoon-feeding the new owner.
rocketjoe79 says
There are also tutorial videos available as soon as you sit in the seat for the first time. You used to have to read the manual. They are literally spoon-feeding the new owner.
You think a 19 y.o. girl would read a manual or sit through a tutorial video? LOL.
Thing is: the whole thing is completely unnecessary. Just make fucking door handles mechanical and intuitive like in every other car on the road. Boom! Done. That wasn't hard, was it?
The issue is that the mechanical release isn't particularly convenient (in operation and/or placement). Thus people use the electronic button all the time and have no practice with the backup system when the need arises. Rolled vehicle filled with smoke, airbags in your face, and broken bones make matters ever so complicated when seconds count.
The whole electric door release is a perfect example of why-tech.
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