December 25th, 2009 | 
Author: With the economy in a state and fuel prices rising, many people are turning towards purchasing an electric car. The real question is whether electric cars can actually save you money. Unfortunately, the answer really depends on the individual car owner.
Let’s start by discussing the technology involved. When individuals say “Electric Car,” they’re referring to one of two things. The first is a completely electric car. Instead of a traditional gasoline powered engine, these cars run wholly on batteries. We’ll discuss these in just a moment.
When most people talk about an “electric car,” though, they’re talking about a hybrid – a gas/electric vehicle designed to function just as typical gasoline powered engines do. Wondering if these will save you money? Let’s take a look.
When purchasing a hybrid car, you will quickly find that the sticker price of the car is much higher than the gas-guzzling counterparts. The reason for this is simple – supply and demand. Of course, the technology in an electric car is also much higher than a typical gas vehicle, so the cost increases again. However, even with the higher price of the vehicle, do the monetary savings at the gas pumps close the gap? Actually, no.
Even with gas as expensive as it is and an economy in turmoil, the gap between the cost of an electric car and the gas savings is not closed -meaning that you’re spending more for your electric car than you would a traditional vehicle.
Another major issue with electric cars is depreciation. According to Consumer Reports’ analysis, electric cars lose two to three per cent more in value after five years of ownership when compared to identical gas vehicles.
However, there seem to be two electric hybrid vehicles that would save money over five years – the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic hybrid save a little over $300 in five years. The only reason these vehicles would save owners that money is do to the US federal tax incentives for hybrid vehicles – otherwise, the cost of ownership rises to $2,700 out of pocket. Other hybrid vehicles cost their owners thousands of dollars more than the non-hybrid versions in five years of ownership, even after the tax credits.
When you’re talking about savings, though, there is an argument that we can’t put a price on the environment. This is true, and perhaps there is a payment due for trying to fix what has been broken. This seems to be coming onto the backs of vehicle owners today, in the cost of “green” vehicles that will help to reduce emissions and the use of fossil fuels.
There are technologies for full electric vehicles, such as the ZENN vehicle that is made in Canada. The ZENN (which stands for zero emissions, no noise) is a full electric vehicle – running on a battery you plug in to your home electrical socket. While the technology might not be all the way there yet, these types of full electric vehicles may save more money in the long run, as they do not use non-renewable resources at all, but rather electricity which can be man-made and generated through renewable resources such as wind and water.
Many people are looking to save at the gas pumps, especially with the rise in gas prices in the recent years. Gas prices will continue to rise as wars erupt overseas and the demand for gasoline increases. With this, eventually, if gas gets expensive enough, electric hybrid vehicles will be cheaper to run, however gas needs to be almost $10 a gallon before the savings will be worth it.
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gilbert gottfried has a wierd voice.
Yes, you can save money by going electric. Like others have said, it can be as cheap as a few pennies per mile driving an electric car.
In the short term it might seem like a great idea to convert and save, but I'm surprised nobody mentioned the price of batteries and their life span. Batteries cost money and they have to be replaced. Of course you can always find bargains and great deals on E-bay and the growing number of online EV organizations with trading posts and so forth.
On the other hand, it's not like gas cars don't have combustion components that require to be maintained and replaced.
So, it may seem like they are very close in long term cost, but the only factor left out is the volatile cost of gas. Are you willing to trust gas prices? Over the past few years prices have doubled. Who knows where they will go. They might go down or they might go up!
For my purposes, I prefer a more stable price of travel so I went electric a long time ago and it saved me a lot when gas prices shot up from $3-4.
5:17 Kronk talks about Yzma’s scheming against Dirk Brock and there’s no background laughter.
You are correct. It does cost energy and money to recharge an electric vehicle. However, as a comparison of overall efficiency, a small gasoline car might obtain 40 mpg, while a 2-seat EV would get 100 – 120 mpg equivalent. At $4 per gallon, this is 10¢ per mile for gas, versus 3.3¢ to 4¢ per mile for electric.
Now, the widespread use of EVs would require a substantially beefier electric grid. In a typical daily commute, an EV would use about 80 kW·hrs. If there were 50 million EVs in the US, it would increase electric demand from 3,600 billion kW·hrs to 4,600 billions kW·hrs per year. Roughly a 30% increase in total electric demand (an 80% increase in residential demand).
Even if charged during off-peak hours, a substantial amount of on-demand generating capacity would need to be in use continuously. The current "maximum" US output is only 8,600 billion kW·hrs per year at the generator. This includes all of the on-demand capacity running continuously, has all facilities running at maximum, and allows for no generator down-time. The maximum main-line capacity is only 5,400 billion kW·hrs per year, assuming no down time. After including grid efficiencies, only a maximum of about 3,700 billion kW·hrs is available from main-line generators (plus another potential 2,200 from the on-demand sources).
This situation would inevitably require the construction of 25% more main-line capacity, which is something that will be rather difficult to do, as many environmentalist groups in the US have already successfully blocked the construction of numerous new power generation facilities. Assuming the generation facilities are constructed, power costs will remain approximately the same. If they are not constructed… you might want to think about that bicycle.
Also, while most home wiring will handle the extra load, the mid-grid wiring between the substations and neighborhoods may become overloaded and need reinforcement. Otherwise, we might have frequent repeats of the massive blackouts in 1965 and 2003.
As for hoarding electricity during off-peak hours and selling it back during peak hours…. it won't happen for three simple reasons. One, there is a reason it is called "on-demand" power generation. They turn the generators on to handle the peak, and off during the lulls. Simply put, the power company never makes more or less electricity than is used. Two, it is rather inefficient and would ultimately consume more power. It won't be allowed legally for environmental reasons. Three, the electric grid is a complex system. Individuals are not allowed to muck around with it.
I'm still trying to understand if were going to use electric cars do we not need fuel to make the electricity to charge the battery's for the millions of users.Fuel for the makers of the products.This will over load our consumption of electricty causing more fossel fuel to generate it.
Gilbert Gottfried’s voice!