Comment by tzs
4 days ago
> After two years with the EV it became evident to me the hybrid doesn’t make sense
In some places in the US the hybrid can have lower energy costs per mile. Using the average price/kWh of residential electricity and the average price/gallon of gasoline in each US state as of maybe a year ago (I haven't updated my spreadsheet in a while) a Toyota Prius would beat my EV (which the sticker says is 129 MPGe city, 103 MPGe highway) on the highway in 15 states: Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, and Vermont.
The Prius would win in city driving in 8 states: Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
For people who do not have home charging or cheap destination charging and have to rely on public DC charging stations the Prius wins in most states even with today's super high gas prices. If DC charging costs $0.40/kWh for example, the Prius wins on the highway if gas is under $7.33/gal and in the city if it is under $5.85/gal.
If anyone wants to check it for their particular electrify and gas prices, compute the ratio of gas $/gal to electricity $/kWh. E.g., if gas is $4/gal and electricity at your home is $0.20/kWh the ratio is 20.
The Prius beats an EV with the MPGe of mine on the highway if the ratio is under 18.325, and in the city if the ratio is under 14.625. To adjust for your EV multiply those thresholds by my MPGe divided by your MPGe. To adjust for non-Prius hybrids or ICEs, multiply the threshold by the other car's mpg and divide by the Prius mpg (56 highway, 56 city).
MIT has a site called Carboncounter that lets you do this for lots of models at the same time.
http://www.carboncounter.com
You can customize the costs for various thing and it has state level presests. You can also set PHEV utilisation factor etc.
I'm not sure how up to date it is, I see 2025 model cars listed but you can tweak gas cost, tax credits etc. if they have changed.
The very cheapest cars seem to still be ICE, not hybrid or EV but different state incentives/fuel costs varies it dramatically.
And you have to consider some other things like is the Nissan Versa ICE a comparable car to the Nissan Leaf EV? The former seems cheaper to run in the USA.
Wow -- Nissan TITAN and Chevry BLAZER doing their part to guzzle gasolina!
I used this to compare hybrid Camry v. RAV4 – both are clustered on the opposite side of the diagram.
Thanks for the neat link! I went from a turbocharged Subaru to a Toyota hybrid... and the performance is similar with 2.25x the mileage (and no premium gas)! It's neat getting 50+ mpg and still being able to accelerate.
> For people who do not have home charging or cheap destination charging and have to rely on public DC charging stations the Prius wins in most states
I'm guessing you are assuming that either (a) your time is worth. $0/hour so that waiting time for charging costs you nothing or (b) you have a situation where you can charge while doing some other needful activity.
Filling with petrol is relatively quick and gas stations are everywhere. But still wastes some time.
> ... a Toyota Prius would beat my EV (which the sticker says is 129 MPGe city, 103 MPGe highway) on the highway in 15 states
I posted a not dissimilar comment in reply to someone else: I ran the numbers and in a country with high electricity the savings of an EV simply aren't that stellar compared to an ICE car. It's not clear at all if at the end the TCO is lower or not: basically the savings on gasoline / oil / brake pads may not be sufficient to offset the higher price and faster depreciation of the EV.
Many states also tack on an EV specific registration fee that applies regardless of miles driven, over $200 in some places.
Plug-in hybrids also have their interesting use cases. If you do live in an area with cheap electricity, that 20-60 miles of electric-only driving can produce savings.
You also get regenerative braking with hybrids.
Until charging times get better at most chargers, many people will prefer the convenience of gas fillups.