Jones Beene <[email protected]> wrote: > Ø About 4 times cheaper, depending on the cost of gasoline. > > > > Not in Sept. 2015. Today, with the drop in fuel cost, electricity is about > 2 times cheaper, on average, but not everywhere; and most of that is due to > no road tax on electricity – not the relative cost of fuel at the pump. >
It will probably soon be back to ~4 again in many states. There are three reasons: 1. Electric cars use far less energy per mile, as I said. Comparing fossil fueled generators to ICE, it takes 9.5 units of gasoline energy to produce 1 unit of vehicle propulsion, whereas it takes only 5.1 units of generator fossil fuel. See exhibits A1 and A2: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/NRELenergyover.pdf That is for 1997 technology. 2. The fossil fuel used in generators is usually cheaper than gasoline. It is coal or natural gas. Uranium is far cheaper. 3. Oil is cheap now mainly because of fracking. This is also lowering the cost of natural gas, which will lower the cost of electricity in the near future. In Georgia the power company is talking about reducing the cost to the consumer next year. > The national average cost for electricity in the U.S. (average residential > rate) is about 11.7 cents per kWh. Average electric vehicles have energy > efficiencies of about 2 miles per kWh. The average cost in the USA for > electric cars is therefore about 6 cents per mile. > As I said, this should come down for the same reason gasoline is getting cheaper. Hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars are another matter. With them you pay more for the motor but less for the fuel over the life of the vehicle. - Jed
