columnist Michael Coren has done the EV community a tremendous service. He has a neighbor who refuses to plug in his Toyota RAV4 Prime because the cost of electricity is “ruinous.” The right wing crazies at Faux News love to pummel their viewers with stories about how it costs more to charge an electric car than to buy gasoline for a conventional car.
, a non-partisan policy research organization whose primary mission is decarbonizing America’s energy sector. He wanted to know the cost of electricity for recharging an electric car in all 50 states in July of 2023. Thet went to great pains to inform its readers about the methodology used to arrive at the information provided by“The costs to fill up an EV vs. a gasoline vehicle were calculated for three vehicle classes: sedans, SUVs and trucks. All vehicle selections are 2023 base models.
That should give you some idea about how complicated it can be to answer a simple question like, “Does it cost less to operate an electric car than a gasoline powered car?” The correct answer, the study showed, is that in the vast majority of cases, the answer is yes, paying the cost of electricity is cheaper than the cost of gasoline. Not always though. Sometimes the cost of gasoline is less. Thearticle explains in exquisite detail why that is true.
Level 3 chargers are almost always operated by charging networks like Electrify America, EVgo, or ChargePoint. Those are for profit businesses who bill for the electricity they provide at rates high enough to repay their investments with money left over. They are like restaurateurs who charge $12 for a glass ofthat costs them 28 cents. The local cost of electricity is irrelevant, just as what the restaurant pays for its wine is irrelevant.