DIYbanter - View Single Post - No longer worth it to plug in Electric Cars or Plug-In Hybrids inAreas wit High Electricity Costs and Low Gasoline Costs

Vandy Terre

On Tue, 04 Nov 2014 16:35:39 -0800, sms
wrote:

On 11/4/2014 2:23 PM, wrote:
On Tuesday, November 4, 2014 3:22:13 PM UTC-5, Vandy Terre wrote:
On Tue, 04 Nov 2014 10:58:00 -0800, SMS
wrote:

Thanks to high electricity prices and low gas prices it now costs less
per mile to run our Prius Plug-In on gasoline than on electricity.

Miles per Gallon: 45
Price per Gallon: $3.00
Cost Per Gasoline Mile: 6.67¢

Miles per KWH: 4
Price per KWH: $0.324 (no joke!)
Cost Per Electric Mile: 8.10¢

A Tesla is about 0.5 KWH/mile so at the same electricity cost it's far
more expensive than a gasoline powered vehicle.

The problem is the high electricity cost in my area. In areas of the
country where the electricity cost is half the price then it'd be
break-even for the Tesla, and a savings on the Prius. We are not big
electricity users since A/C is rarely needed here, and the water heater,
furnace, and clothes dryer are natural gas. But we always end up in the
top tier for electricity usage ($0.32445/KWH) which starts at 201% over
baseline.

The tremendous advantage of a plug-in hybrid, or all-electric, in
California, is the carpool lane access with a single person. And due to
state and federal tax credits, and factory to buyer incentives, the
Prius Plug-In was the same price as the gasoline-only model, and Plug-In
came with navigation and several other features. The carpool lane access
is really nice even though I don't really agree with the idea that
single occupancy vehicles should ever get to use the carpool lane; OTOH,
every additional vehicle in the carpool lane means less vehicles in the
other lanes so there is some benefit to everyone.

This is true for the moment, but what about the
future? Why not set up a solar powered recharging
station for your vehicle? Yes, there is the high
expense of the solar panels but those panels can
also help reduce the household power bill.
Expences will constantly rise given time. Going
solar now might save a true fortune in the future.
BTW, there are small solar panels that can be
stuck on the inside of the vehicle window, then
plugged into a cigarette lighter to help charge a
vehicle battery while parked for the day.

do the math
how many Watt hours can you get from a little solar panel in a typical day?
or even a big solar panel for that matter?
how many watt hours does it take to recharge a car?

The Prius Plug-In requires 3KWH to charge the battery. A fully charged
battery provides 12-14 miles of driving. This is actually enough for the
spousal-unit's daily commute so during the week this vehicle rarely used
any gasoline.

Those little solar panels are not going to make a dent in 3KWH. Plus,
the battery packs cars require a minimum of 120VAC to charge, there is
no option to charge small packs of cells with a 12VDC charger. It would
take 200 hours to charge the Prius Plug-In battery with a 15W charger,
assuming no losses. The reality is that it would take about 300 hours.

I was under the mistaken impression that batteries
did not care what the voltage was. I don't expect
a small charger to make a big difference just
making use of vehicle being parked in the sun. I
would like to see vehicles with solar panels built
into the roof such that a charge is added anytime
there be sunlight.