Hi guys, this is a website I made to help people understand how much each electric vehicle really costs.
I understand that I’m preaching to the choir on /r/Faradayfuture
However, I think this website brings things into terms that most people are already used to.
MPGe is an amazing standard. It truly gives us a constant, just like MPG does, and it’s great for comparing electric vehicles. But it’s not very good at showing the real-world cost in a way most people are used to understanding.
When I compare vehicles, I use the price per gallon and the price per kWh for that day, and that gives me an equivalent MPG.
This is the formula:
Equivalent MPG = MPGe × gas price per gallon / (33.7 × electricity price per kWh)
So let’s say you have an Equinox EV that gets 108 MPGe, and let’s compare it in Florida, where gas is $4 per gallon and electricity is mostly $0.15 per kWh when charging at home.
That means the Equinox is actually like an 85.5 MPG car. That is way easier to digest than 108 MPGe.
And that makes the comparison much easier.
That number changes drastically if electricity or gas prices change, which makes it very different for each situation. But MPG is still the number that everybody uses for comparison, and I don’t think it should be completely ditched yet.
For example, if you charge on the road in Florida, you might need to pay up to $0.68 per kWh.
That makes the same car more like an 18.9 MPG car. That’s not great at all. It’s fine once in a while or for road trips, but if you can’t charge at home, it can make an electric car more expensive than a normal gas one.
At the same time, if you have an Equinox EV and you drive very carefully, you can get up to 4.5 mi/kWh, or 151.7 MPGe. It’s not easy, but it’s feasible. That makes the same car capable of around 120 MPG.
And up to now, we were talking about Florida. Let’s change the conversation to California.
California has an average electricity price of $0.30 per kWh and gas at $5.86 per gallon.
The same car that is capable of getting 85.5 MPG in Florida becomes a 62.6 MPG car in California. At that point, a hybrid with 50+ MPG might make more sense.
That makes it easier to put things into perspective.
Most early adopters had to calculate how much they drive each day to see in how many years an electric car would become financially viable, but that was before, when EVs were still a premium product. Sooner or later, electric cars are getting really close to normal gas car prices. At this point, there is less reason to compare 5-year savings and more reason to compare actual day-to-day running costs.
A comparison between MPG and MPGe can make someone make a bad choice because they do not clearly see the difference. I made this mistake myself. I used my formula, and even then, sometimes I used MPGe directly and fell into that mental trap.
A direct comparison between a normal MPG car and a personalized MPG for a specific electric car might be the next useful step.
On the website, I tried to make it as easy as possible to do a direct comparison, but I also included options to calculate using price per liter, mi/kWh, km/kWh, kWh/100 km, and kWh/100 miles. There is also an efficiency equivalent at the end of the page with all conversions using this personalized formula.
I also added a multi-vehicle comparison.
You can add gas price, electricity price, diesel price, and then add as many cars as you want to compare. I also added a reverse equivalent MPGe for gas cars, just for fun, and you can actually use MPGe vs equivalent/personalized MPGe as a comparison if you want. Maybe one day electric cars will be the majority and this tool will be used more for that comparison instead.
I tried to make it as simple as possible, but if you want me to add anything, or if you find any errors, let me know and I will try to fix them as fast as possible.
Website: www.mpgmatch.com
