Comparing electric to gasoline cars

2024-09-02

Two years ago, we went from two combustion vehicles (a Subaru Impreza WRX and a Hyundai Santa Fe XL) to two electric vehicles (a Tesla Model 3 and a Ford Mustang Mach E, both with dual motors and each with the largest available battery). Because of this, people sometimes ask me about EVs, so here is a summary of differences:

• EVs are fast. Even the most entry level, low-cost models feel fast as compared to relatively expensive ICE cars. This is mostly because there is no "torque curve" -- about 100% of system torque is available from 0, there is no "ramp up."

  Off the line, most EVs feel like driving a Ferrari. This effect wears off at some speed - maybe 80km/h or 100km/h, but even at high speeds the EV will still feel like a fast car.

  Acceleration at speed is also good. If you want to pass someone on the highway, and start out behind them at 100km/h, by when you are one car length in front of them (takes just a few seconds), you can reasonably expect to be moving at 140km/h. You will want to scrub that speed fast before getting a speeding ticket.

  If you don't have good self control, then an EV might be a great way to spend a lot of money on speeding tickets and maybe lose your license.

• EVs are quiet. You don't realize how annoying engine noise is until you've lived without it for a while. Driving a car where the only noise comes from the road (tires) and wind is surprisingly nice. Road trips without all that racket are *really* much nicer than in an ICE car. As an aside, I look forward to a future where most cars on the road are EVs, because most city noise is really car noise and cities will be much more pleasant once cars are quieter.

• EVs are somewhat expensive to purchase [*] but very cheap to own.

  • If you can mainly charge at home, then energy costs are about 1/5 of gasoline.
  • If you use public, "fast" chargers a lot, then energy costs will be about 1/2 of the cost of gasoline.
  • Maintenance (regularly scheduled or otherwise) is near zero. No oil changes. Fewer filters (mainly just the cabin air filter). There is no combustion engine. There is no transmission. There is no exhaust system. There is a small radiator but it's a sealed unit and rarely requires service. You use regenerative brakes so brake pads may last the life of the car.
  • In two years with two EVs, I have paid for tire rotation twice annually for each car (we live in a winter climate and I have a set of winter tires for every vehicle I own), plus two cabin air filters, plus two wheel alignments. That's all the maintenance for 50,000km of driving. Well under CA$1000.
  • [*] Think of an EV as a luxury car. A new EV is priced like an entry level BMW or Benz, but without the maintenance headaches down the road, and with advantages like speed and silence.

• Most EVs are medium sized cars. The "SUV" ones are just taller versions of a mid sized car. A 5 seat EV is typical.

  • If you need a 3-row SUV that seats 7 or 8 people, then yes, there are a few models on the market, but they are very expensive. You are probably better off with an ICE vehicle for now.
  • Truck options are limited and their utility is questionable. There are only a handful of pickup trucks with EV drive-trains available right now, and the manufacturers generally only offer them in high trim levels, which are very expensive. Moreover, if you carry a heavy load or tow a trailer of some sort (like an RV), then range will be very limited. If you want a reasonably priced truck, then an EV is probably not the best choice right now.
  • A base trim EV pickup truck is a great concept, which Ford promised with the F150 Lightning. Unfortunately, they never delivered the base trim. That's too bad, because trades people running around town to job sites, with lots of tools, etc. would be ideal users of such an "un-fancy" pickup truck EV that does lots of 300km day trips but always charges at home.
  • Rivian makes great off-road vehicles, which are EVs. Do you need to go off-road?
  • Tesla makes the Cyber Truck. Arguably the ugliest vehicle ever mass produced. Do you want one, for huge money?

• Charging an EV at home is great, but only if you have and park in your own garage.

  • It's about 1/5 the cost of gasoline.
  • You no longer have to visit gas stations (other than to buy junk food or use their bathrooms or wet windshield wipers).
  • It's super convenient to leave the house with a "full" car every morning!
  • Conversely, if you live in an apartment and there is no EV charge option at your home - may I respectfully suggest that an EV will be a pain to charge and you are better off with an ICE car until your building smartens up and lets you pay to install an EV charger in your assigned parking spot?
  • The worst case is if you live somewhere with no parking at all. Then you *really* can only use public charge locations, and it's really not going to be convenient at all. Get a combustion car until EV charge points are super common and not crowded where you live.

• What does it cost to charge ("fill") an EV?

  • In Alberta, electricity costs about CA$0.18/kWh. That's going up: when I have to renew my contract it might be CA$0.20/kWh (10% more).
  • A typical EV has a battery with a capacity of about 75kWh.
  • A typical "charge" is from 20% to 80%, so 60% of the capacity.
  • 0.6 * 75 * 0.18 = $8.10. That will get you 60% of the range, which is say 450km, so 270km.
  • Put another way, energy costs about CA$.03/km (3 cents/km).
  • Gasoline in Alberta currently costs about CA$1.6/L. A typical car takes about 50L and will go about 500km on that. So the equivalent cost to drive it is CA$0.16/km.
  • In short, home charging is roughly 1/5 the cost of gasoline.
  • Lets say you drive 1000km/month (a lot!). That would add $30 to your monthly electricity bill.
  • If you want more accurate numbers, go look at your electricity bill. What's your actual $/kWh rate, including all the random fees you pay to the utility company? Would you really notice another $30/month or whatever it comes to? Probably not.

• Setting up home charging is cheap ... usually.

  • Level 1 charging means plugging into a normal 110V outlet. This is only useful if you go for a vacation and want to leave the car plugged in.
  • Level 2 charging means plugging into a 240V / 32A plug (like your dryer) or hard-wiring a charger so that it can deliver 240V/40A. This is how most people charge at home, and a "full charge" from say 20% to 80% takes a few hours - so think of it as filling the battery overnight.
  • Level 3 charging uses DC, not AC power and is available at stops along the highway. You can fill the car in 20 to 30 minutes, but you cannot afford this equipment at home, nor will the utility coming into your house support this.
  • You will want a Level 2 charger in your garage if you get an EV. The charger itself costs about $500. Paying an electrician to hook up either a 240V outlet or a hard-wired connection to a 40A charger will cost another few hundred bucks, or even a thousand if you need a long cable run of thick (and expensive) copper wiring.
  • If the electric service coming into your house is not big enough, you may have to spend thousands to upgrade it - including a new main electrical panel - so check how many amps your home service has before going shopping for an EV!

• Range in an EV car is more than enough for most people, most of the time, but definitely less than an ICE car.

  • In an ICE car, you can typically get about 500km on a tank of gas. You will typically fill the tank full and can run it down to about 10% full before getting stressed about range. That's 450km "between fill ups." On a very long road trip (say >500km), this means very few stops and the stops are short.
  • In an EV car, you can typically get about 450km on a full battery. That sounds similar, but in reality you usually only charge to 80% -- at home because that improves battery life and on road trips because charge speed drops of significantly after 80%. You then typically only drive the battery down to 20%, mostly because there are fewer public EV chargers than gas stations, and you don't want to experience "range anxiety." So really on road trips you use about 60% of the battery capacity per charge, which is about 270km. The range may be even less if you drive fast, which is really easy to do if your car feels like a Ferrari. :-)
  • If you typically make drives that are under say 250km or 300km long, then this lower real-world range is just not an issue.
  • If you often make drives of over 500km, then you will need to stop at public EV charge stations, which will add 20 minutes or so per stop to your trip.
  • Road trips with a 20 minute mandatory stop every couple of hours ... in a very comfortable car, which is really quiet and has awesome acceleration (for passing, etc.), are actually very pleasant. They take longer than an ICE car, but you will arrive feeling refreshed. In contrast, an ICE car will get you there sooner, and you will want a beer and a nap on arrival due to the more stressful driving experience.
  • Most routes to most destinations have adequate public EV charge stations on the way. However, if you routinely drive to really remote locations, then there may be no viable EV charge stops and an EV will simply not get you there. Think about every road trip you made over the last 10 years - did you go anywhere really remote, where you see almost no other cars for tens of minutes at a time, during the day? An EV might not be a good car to take to a destination like that.

• EVs have a surprising amount of storage space. Think of all the space that an ICE car's engine, gas tank and transmission use up. Now replace most of that with storage. The cargo capacity of a typical EV is much more than that of a comparably sized ICE car.

• The range figure you see on an EV's sticker is just an estimate, and in the real world will depend on environmental conditions and how you drive:

  • Range does decline in cold weather. In -20C, you will get about 1/3 less range than in +20C. In -35C, probably about 1/2 the range of +20C.
  • If you tend to drive shorter distances in cold weather - then yes, the car will cost a bit more to operate in the winter (still much less than an ICE car), but otherwise - no big deal.
  • If you plan on many long road trips in very cold weather, then maybe an EV is not the best choice.
  • The energy you use while driving is mostly used to push against the wind. That means that if you drive into a headwind, or drive really fast, then your range will be less. Energy used to push against wind resistance is actually a function of speed *cubed* so this is a big effect.
  • If you make a road trip that usually takes 25% of your battery capacity, but today there is a 50km/h headwind the whole way, then it could easily take 50% of your battery capacity. The converse it also true - if you make a road trip that usually takes 25% of your battery capacity but today you get a consistent 50km/h tail wind, then it could only take 15% of the battery. These are not small impacts.
  • The same is true of how fast you drive. If you go 20km/h faster on a trip, it will significantly add to the energy usage and use up more of the battery capacity / reduce range.
  • All of these effects due to driving speed and wind speed affect ICE cars too - we just tend not to think about it as much, since ICE cars have more usable range and we can fill them up faster, in more locations.

• EVs are actually really nice in the winter.

  • All EVs have "remote start" from a smart phone app, which really just means warming up the cabin and battery pack without having to go to the car.
  • Since there is no exhaust, it's perfectly safe to "remote start" your EV in a closed garage, from the house, or scheduling departure, long before setting out.
  • On a cold day, you enter the car and it was warmed up (while plugged in - so not using the battery at all) and ready to go. Very comfy!
  • Note that reduced range in very cold weather remains a thing, but only if your planned drive is quite long.

• You don't have to worry about "replacing the battery pack."

  • Yes, it's true that the most expensive part of an EV is the battery pack, and replacing the whole unit might cost $10k to $20k. That would be an awful repair bill. But ...
  • The battery packs have very long warranties.
  • The likelihood of having to replace the battery pack is similar to the likelihood that you have to replace an ICE engine. When was the last time you had to do that?
  • Yes, battery packs do degrade over time (lost range). This is very similar to loss of power output in an ICE engine over time. It's reasonable to expect 10% or 15% range loss after 10 years and many tens of thousands of kms.
  • Real world battery degradation in EV fleet vehicles with high mileage has been lower than predicted (and warrantied) by the various EV manufacturers. Because the battery pack in your EV is actively managed for temperature and load, unlike say the one in your phone, it lasts *much* longer than you might imagine.
  • There are auto repair shops (including one in Airdrie) who will remove a defective battery pack from an EV, fix it (replacing dead power cells, etc.) and reinstall it. This is much less expensive than replacing the whole thing.
  • This whole "issue" is just fearmongering by people who hate EVs for some reason.

• EVs are cheaper to own, in the long run, than ICE cars.

  • There are taxi and limo companies (including here in Alberta) who were early adopters of EVs and have some cars with half a million to a million km on their odometers. They have required *some* maintenance over those long distances, but much less than ICE cars. Long term survivability and cost of ownerships of EVs is much lower than ICE cars.
  • It's true that Hertz bought many, many Teslas and found that they were expensive to own, and are now selling them off. What you don't read in the headlines is that the high costs are due to the high rate of fender benders in rental fleets, and the fact that luxury cars (all EVs are basically luxury cars) incur higher auto-body fees than "regular" cars. EVs are expensive to repair after a crash in exactly the same way as BMWs, Audis, etc.
  • The Hertz situation means that there are lots of really low mileage, high quality Teslas on the second hand market right now.
  • If you tend to crash your cars, then EVs are not the best choice... Also, don't buy a BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Porsche or Jaguar....
  • On the other hand, most EVs have really good crash avoidance systems (auto emergency braking, etc.) so perhaps you are less likely to kill yourself if you drive an EV.

• EV depreciation is ... weird.

  • For a while there (post COVID), it was really hard to find a new car, and because EVs don't break down as much as ICE cars, second hand ones were really expensive. Sometimes costing more than a new EV since they were available immediately, without a multi-month wait for delivery.
  • More recently, there has been a price war started by Tesla, and new EV prices have dropped a lot, which made second hand EV prices drop too. If you purchased an EV new, before the price war, then you have seen crazy high depreciation because of this.
  • The Hertz situation of buying tons of EVs and now selling them all off again 2 years later has also flooded the second hand market, depressing prices.
  • So EV depreciation went from "very low" to "very high" very quickly. Both the "very low" and "very high" rates of deprecation were weird historical events and are not likely to continue or recur.
  • Today, it's possible to buy a good quality 2nd hand EV for cheap. That's actually a really good idea. Just have a shop check battery health, as that's the single most expensive part of the car. This is no different than checking engine health of a used ICE car before buying it.

• What about hybrids or plug-in hybrids?

  • One of the reasons EVs are nice is that they are much simpler machines than ICE cars. There are just fewer moving parts, fluids, high temperature components, etc. This makes them super reliable and easy to maintain.
  • A regular "hybrid" is just a gas car but with a small battery and motor/generator that recovers energy from "braking" and lets you recycle that to "accelerate" - it gets better fuel efficiency in the city than a regular car, but that's about it.
  • A plug-in hybrid is a hybrid with a somewhat larger battery that you can charge at home.
  • Hybrids are more complicated machines than regular ICE cars and much more complicated machines than EVs.
  • Hybrids are more expensive than ICE cars though typically a bit less expensive than EVs.
  • If you can't charge an EV at home, or make lots of road trips and don't want to deal with EV charge stops, then hybrids make sense.
  • If you want to get away from ICE noise, and from ICE maintenance, and want better performance than ICE, then a hybrid is the wrong approach.
  • If you have a short daily commute, then a plug-in hybrid may offer some of the advantages of an EV (energy efficiency) while retaining the range of an ICE car.

• So which brand is best?

  • Do your own shopping!
  • Tesla is mostly owned by Elon Musk, who is both a genius and an idiot/asshole. Some people don't want one because of Elon. I can respect that.
  • Tesla sells more EVs in North America than everyone else combined. And they have the best network of public, fast chargers. If you will road trip a lot, get a Tesla.
  • Ford and Hyundai/Kia make very nice cars. You can get a Tesla public charger adapter for Fords, so they are pretty good for road trips too.
  • GM is getting serious about EVs with both entry level models (Bolt EUV) and luxury ones Cadillac Lyric, etc. A contender.
  • Specialty brands for specialty use cases are out there, like Lucid (fanciest cars in the world) and Rivian (most capable offroaders).
  • VolksWagens apparently have really crappy software. Perhaps best to avoid.
  • Volvo, BMW and Jaguar make some apparently nice EVs, but there aren't a lot of them here. Make of that what you will.
  • Porsche and Benz make some EVs, but they have the price tag you would expect. The Benz ones are supposedly quite good, while the Porsche ones apparently drive very well but have the software of a VolksWagen...
  • Toyota (and therefore also Subaru) doesn't really want to make EVs, so their "effort" is just a token for regulators. Best to avoid.
  • Nissan makes the Leaf - the oldest mass market EV. Very basic but also very cheap.
  • Honda is just geting into the game now. We shall see.
  • Chrysler/Stellantis is a joke. ICE or EV.
  • Beyond the above list, there aren't a lot of serious options....

So should you buy an EV?

• If it's already time to replace your current vehicle (yes/no),
• ... and you don't need a heavy duty pickup truck (yes/no),
• ... and you don't need a car for 6+ people (yes/no),
• ... and you rarely if ever drive to really remote places on road trips (yes/no),
• ... and you can park it at home in your own garage (yes/no).

Did you answer "Yes" to every question above? Then your next car should be an EV. If you answered "No" to any question above, then get an ICE car.

Wait ... all that, and you didn't mention that EVs are environmentally friendly. WTF?

• Cars are not environmentally friendly.
• If you really want to do something good for the environment, have fewer kids and walk / bike / take transit.
• This page is for people who want a car. They are not "real" environmentalists, and neither am I. Heck, I like to take trips in airplanes, and I live in a big house, so any pretense at being "green" would be total BS.
• Sure, an EV will use way less energy over its life than an ICE car. You know what will use even less? A bicycle. Even an e-bike. If you are motivated by "saving the planet" - then live in a small house or apartment, don't drive a car and avoid airplanes.

Feel free to share a link to this page with your friends who are "EV curious."