iMiEV Operating Costs

JoeS said:

Have now covered over 9114 miles (14667km) since early February and here's the latest actual measured energy consumption (from the wall) summary since I started keeping track: ...... .....I can categorically say that, on average, my iMiEV goes 4.2miles/kWh (6.77km/kWh). Put another way, my iMiEV has a superb efficiency of 0.238kWh/mi (0.148kWh/km) in roughly a 50/50 mix of city/highway travel.

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Pardon me for jumping in so late, Joe. But as you know I've only been on this forum since March 2013 and only an MiEV owner since April 10th or so.

Using your figures and my low Oregon power costs I come out with my net out of pocket motive power costs are about 1.66 cents per mile. Which figuring gasoline at $4/gallon is equivalent to about 240 miles per gallon. That sounds great.
Until we look at the elephant in the room .... the unknown but likely significant battery replacement costs.
So I took a not exactly worst case battery replacment, but a not improbable one.
Currently Mitsubish wants about $13,000 to $16,000 for a battery pack, so I'm assuming $10,000 at 100,000 miles. That adds 10-cents per mile bringing the "eqivalency" to only about 34.3mpg.
Considerably less impressive as many ICE cars can do that (even after to be fair factoring in their own very significant maintainace costs).

So in truth until we know three future unknown factors -- first battery replacement cost , future price and availability of gasoline, and future costs of buying kilowatt hours -- we can't really say if driving an EV is less per mile than an ICE, and whether financially the up front higher cost of, say, our MiEVs over buying, say, a ICE econocar is justified dollarwise.
Could be if either gasoline hits $6 per gallon or more or if replacement batteries come down below $5000 (also possible).
Or of course if gasoline get rationed or long lines at the pump sometime in the next decade the "cost per mile" becomes irrelevant when we can drive while our ICE neighbors are stuck.

My four cents (inflation)

Alex

Of 439mi tracked I used 155.1kWh to charge giving me:
2.83mi/kWh
353Wh/mi on average

JoeS, recently the "elephant in the room" has been called out as being unlikely. Apparently Lithium Ion batteries may last longer than estimated.

Excerpt: ”Lithium-ion batteries should perform better because they have fewer impurities,” he said. “So the degradation will not be as fast.” He added that electronic battery management is simpler and more reliable if material quality is more consistent from cell to cell."

http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=261882&cid=NL_Newsletters+-+DN+Daily&dfpPParams=ind_184,industry_auto,aid_261882&dfpLayout=article&dfpPParams=ind_184,industry_auto,aid_261882&dfpLayout=article&dfpPParams=ind_184,industry_auto,aid_261882&dfpLayout=article

JoeS said:

Miles driven: 1937.3
Energy consumed: 442.813kWh
Yielding:
4.375miles/kWh
0.2286kWh/mi
22.86kWh/100mi

Which is significantly better than the 30kWh/100mi (27 City, 34 Highway) EPA Monroney sticker.

Using the EPA's conversion of 33.7kWh/gallon, this would yield 147.4MPGe. Not too shabby, even if I disagree with their metrics.

Now, with this information, if you know how much you're paying for electricity in cents/kWh and if you know how much you drive per month or year, you can quickly figure out what your monthly or yearly costs are.

For example, if I didn't have solar and had to pay the going rate for my off-peak (PG&E E-7) of $0.08/kWh, this would yield 0.08*0.2286 = 1.8 cents/mile!
Finally, as they say, YMMV.

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I just came up with such a low cost per mile (and low miles per gallon equivalent) that I’m wondering if I’m doing it right:

Anyone want to check me?

I drove 112 miles on a full charge (down to one bar).
It took approximately 13 hours to fully recharge, using the upgraded stock charger operating in its 12.5 amp mode plugged into 120 volts.

So I get 120volts times 12.5 amp had it drawing 1500 watts.
Times 13 hours is 19.5 kilowatt-hours.

Our local power cost rate here in Ashland Oregon is 7-cents** per kilowatt hour.

So that works out to it cost me 136 cents ($1.36) to drive 112 miles.*
That in turn is 1.214 cents per mile.
Well I guess that’s not out of the ballpark compared to Joe’s meticulous and more systematic measurement and more extensive experiments coming up with 1.8 cents per mile at his slightly higher 8-cents per kilowatt-hour utility rate.

But when I try to convert this to a miles per gallon equivalent I use $4 per gallon as a gasoline price.
Here’s what I get:
For $4.00 (400 cents divided by 1.214 cents) I could “buy” 329.5 miles, so that comes to an impressive and un-EPA figure of 329 miles per gallon.
Even figuring gas at only $3.50 a gallon and Joe’s 1.8 cents per kilowatt-hour electricity cost it works out to an equivalent of 194mpg.

Alex
* We all know that’s not the full cost, that somehow the cost of battery replacement or depreciation of the car due to battery being old has to be added in.
We don’t know what that adds to the cost:
A rough worst case (if battery had to be replaced at 80,000 miles with a current Mitsubishi stock battery at $13,000) that would add 16-cents per mile to our miles driven cost, and assuming gasoline prices have not climbed up to $6+ per gallon in the meantime, would make our per miles cost at best no better than a 30mph half decently fuel efficient ICE car. Maybe worse. That scenario works out to about a 22mpg equivalent.
On the other hand if we get (as is possible) as much as 130,000 miles on a battery and by replacement time third party batteries are down to, say, $4000, that would add only abut 3-cents per mile to our cost,
Converting to an equivalent of about 97mpg if gas stay at $4 per gallon and my electric power stay about at current rates.
If gasoline climbs to $6 or $8 per gallon, or is rationed or there are lines at the gas pumps, of course that’s all moot.
In short, except possibly for those who have leased rather than purchased, and will turn in their car at the end with a known total cost, we can’t really know what our real cost per mile is going to be in the long run, despite Joe’s and others’ meticulous data.

** I actually have solar PV electricity so, like Joe, I don't actually pay what the local utility charges per kilowatt-hour. But like Joe, if I actually figured out the cost of my PV panels into my power it ain't free an is probaby more costly than buying dirty power from the utility, until such time as their rates climb (as they will.)

A new data point to consider: the new third-generation Smart Fortwo Electric Drive battery pack is said to cost $5010 for the 17.6 kWH lithium pack. That is considerably less than previous models. Hopefully the trend will continue its downward slope, and Mitsubishi will match the price of these packs. You can read up about it here:

http://insideevs.com/third-generation-smart-fortwo-electric-drive-begins-us-rollout-us-cheapest-ev-has-officially-arrived/

acensor said:

So that works out to it cost me 136 cents ($1.36) to drive 112 miles.*
That in turn is 1.214 cents per mile.
Well I guess that’s not out of the ballpark compared to Joe’s meticulous and more systematic measurement and more extensive experiments coming up with 1.8 cents per mile at his slightly higher 8-cents per kilowatt-hour utility rate.

But when I try to convert this to a miles per gallon equivalent I use $4 per gallon as a gasoline price.
Here’s what I get:
For $4.00 (400 cents divided by 1.214 cents) I could “buy” 329.5 miles, so that comes to an impressive and un-EPA figure of 329 miles per gallon.
Even figuring gas at only $3.50 a gallon and Joe’s 1.8 cents per kilowatt-hour electricity cost it works out to an equivalent of 194mpg.

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Alex,

The EPA's equivalent MPGe number has nothing to do with the cost of either electricity or gasoline. They calculated an amount of electricity which they say is the equivalent of the energy in a gallon of gasoline and they use that 'magical' number to give a nearly meaningless comparison between gas powered cars and electric powered cars. As you just discovered, when it comes to actual operating costs, their number is particularly meaningless

When it comes down to the energy actually used to move the car, they probably should have taken into account that a gas powered car wastes about 85% of the energy in a gallon of gas, mostly in wasted heat, but also in wasted fuel when the car is idling but not moving, or moving at an inefficient speed for the engine powering it. If you then compared THAT to the amount of electricity used by an EV, you'd get something closer to reality

Don

If gasoline costs $3.50/gallon and an ICE gets 30MPG, the cost to propel for one mile is 11.66 cents per mile. An EV cost of 1.8 cents per mile is more than six times cheaper.

BillThompsonMIEV said:

If gasoline costs $3.50/gallon and an ICE gets 30MPG, the cost to propel for one mile is 11.66 cents per mile. An EV cost of 1.8 cents per mile is more than six times cheaper.

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Absolutely correct Bill, in terms of out-of-pocket "at the pump" or "at the electric plug" costs.
Very impressive.

But when we have to figure in the unknown, but not cheap, cost of replacing the battery an unknown number of miles or years down the line, depending on whether we figure a best case or worst case scenario, we come out adding somewhere between about 16-cents per mile and 3 cents per mile to our REAL cost per mile. 3-cents extra is still great. 16-more cents more is far less impressive.... even when we adust the economy ICE car's cost upward to allow for the fact that it too has some significant hidden costs per mile above the fuel itself.
See my detailed calculation of this two or three messages above your post in this thread.

Alex

The topic of iMiEV operating costs is a good one but had intertwined itself into a number of other threads, especially those dealing with energy consumption. I created this topic and have now moved a number of those previous posts here so that we can continue this discussion.

Bear with me as I this was my first attempt at doing this and I hope I didn't mess things up...

Thanks for your patience,

JoeS (in Bonny Scotland recovering from JetLag).

Thanks Joe for sorting things out

Just to complicate things some more...

On the matter of pulling the battery replacement into the cost evaluation, then on the other side of the equation for the ICE you have to consider the possible cost of a Major Component replacement ( Motor, transmission, Catalytic converter, Turbo unit, etc)
over the course of lets say 125,00 miles (200,000Km)

Vehicle "Operating Costs" are often all encompassing, not only considering 'fuel', maintenance, taxes, insurance, licensing, etc., but also attempt to allocate costs of potential future major repairs/replacements over certain periods of time. Depreciation is, to me, a separate element that is, nevertheless, often lumped in as part of Operating Cost.

To maintain an apples-to-apples comparison, I thought that perhaps we should only focus on EV- vs. ICE-specific differences.

For example, replacing or rebuilding a battery after 10 years to me is a cost tanamount to an ICE engine or transmission rebuild, with a comparable future cost and uncertainty factor.

Perhaps someone with accounting skills could perhaps define what all of these elements are and how they should be treated?

sandange, thanks for your post. I posted my subsequent one not having seen yours first.

To me, a major element of a vehicle operating cost is Fuel. "Fuel" is either liquid (gallons) or electric (Kilowatt-Hours, kWh). Regarding "Fuel" cost comparisons, I had developed a couple of spreadsheets comparing electric energy costs for various $/kWh with gasoline costs for various $/gallon, yielding what I felt was a 'superior' equalizing technique in terms of Miles Per Gallon.

Although a bit OT, here's the thread for that discussion for those who may have missed it:

Using EPA's iMiEV rating of 3.33miles/kWh: http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=923#p923

Using my measured 4.25miles/kWh: http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3710#p3710

JoeS said:

Vehicle "Operating Costs" are often all encompassing, not only considering 'fuel', maintenance, taxes, insurance, licensing, etc., but also attempt to allocate costs of potential future major repairs/replacements over certain periods of time. Depreciation is, to me, a separate .......we should only focus on EV- vs. ICE-specific differences.

For example, replacing or rebuilding a battery after 10 years to me is a cost tanamount to an ICE engine or transmission rebuild, with a comparable future cost and uncertainty factor....

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You and sandang are right that dragging in the battery replacement costs in the EV cost per mile without considering the ICE owners' repairs and depreciation isn't an apples to apples comparision, and is complex iffy to do right.

There are however important and somewhat unfavorable (to us EV owners) differences between an ICE owner's risk of engine or tranny rebuild and depreciation 10 years down the line and our risk of battery replacement and depreciation:

# It is likely most ICE cars of the 2012 model years will not need engine or tranny rebuilds within 150,000 miles. ICE engines and trannies may have theoretical "design lives" but don't have known expected degredation rates, and in practice many modern ICE engines and trannies can and do go well over 200,000 miles and still perform about as when new. In contrast, as far as it is possible to tell it is almost certain the close to 100% of the current generation of EV batteries will either need replacing before 150,000 or be down to a very signficicantly reduced performance.

If we do an apples to apples comparision on replacing a MiEV battery pack with rebuilding a comparable type ICE car, here's what I get comparing current pricing:
I just called a Honda dealer (which is the very top end of rebuild prices) and you currently can get a new factory shortblock Honda Fit engine for $3600. Complete engine (carbs, all electronics, etc) for $6500. Aftermarket top end third party rebuilders much less. And a robust market of used low milage engines. Found one with 15,000 miles for $1500 dollars.
Our Mitsubishi dealers quote currently $13,000 to $16,000 for a battery pack.
Yeah, prices MAY come down, but there's unlikely to be much of a market of low milage low age used low price battery packs. If available at all they'll all ,even if low milage, be age/time degraded.

Yes, battery replacement cost may well go down and indeed better and cheaper battery technologies may come along by the time we're looking at replacments.
But, even if that happens, that could work in our favor or against it: In our favor if it turns out Mitsubishi or third parties or our own hacking can, say, replace our current lithium batteries with something else with twice the range at half the price, great. On the other hand if 8 years from now the new crop of Mitsubishi or other EVs on the road and in dealerships have twice the range and twice the power at the same out the door cost, and for technical or market availability reasons we can't stuff the newer better batteries into our current EVs they may be both significantly degraded in range and even more significatly depreciated in resale value.

Alex ... playing devil's advocate (or wet-blanket )

Alex- thanks for some very valid points. Our i's may be just as functional as my original iMac in 8-10 years, and just as worth upgrading. However, my expectation is that battery pack rebuilds will be just as feasible and upgradeable as they are today for early hybrid owners. Thankfully, the Chinese remain willing to sell cells at reasonable pricing to anybody with cash, unlike the American companies that either don't respond to non-OEM inquiries, or place outrageous markups on the few consumer sales they will do.

jray3 said:

Alex- thanks for some very valid points. Our i's may be just as functional as my original iMac in 8-10 years, and just as worth upgrading. However, my expectation is that battery pack rebuilds will be .... feasible and upgradeable.... Thankfully, the Chinese remain willing to sell cells at reasonable pricing to anybody with cash, unlike the American companies that either don't respond to non-OEM inquiries, or place outrageous markups on the few consumer sales they will do.

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And your iMac analogy is also a valid point.
The new computer I just built for my wife in 10 years won't be worth upgrading most likely.
OTOH... I'm not into it for $22,000 so won't be as bummed if it's good only for the recycle bin.

A well off topic for sure: Your comment about the Chinese reminds me that is one of several reasons I don't quake in fear and loathing, as many do, about predictions that we're at the beginning of a century when China, much as the US did for the last half of the previous century, is dominating the world culture, technology, and economy.

Alex

Something else you may want to consider is the maintenance costs of an ICE vehicle:

According to AAA:
The costs associated with maintaining a vehicle had the single largest percentage increase from 2012 to 2013, growing by 11.26 percent to 4.97 cents per mile on average for sedan owners

Plankton said:

According to AAA:
The costs associated with maintaining a vehicle had the single largest percentage increase from 2012 to 2013, growing by 11.26 percent to 4.97 cents per mile on average for sedan owners

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No doubt about it... ICE cars have much higher routine maintenance and intermittent repair costs. But I wonder if THAT 4.97 cents ALREADY included averaging in the occasional ICE cars' major repairs like the who who DOES get hit with the tinny rebuild or engine rebuilds?
Or is the just tires, oil changes minor repairs?

If our batteries prove to be much longer lived than the CYA projections of the EV makers or replacement costs go down a lot we'll do really well wil our tiny fuel costs and low routine maintenance.

Don't forget that regular maintenance on an ICE car costs between 3.3 and 3.8 cents per mile i.e. $3,000-3,500 per 100,000 miles.

acensor said:

... playing devil's advocate (or wet-blanket )

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Alex, I think you're perhaps introducing an unnecessary seed of doubt into this discussion. After our eight year warranty expires, I personally think that there will be third-party battery rebuilders happy to help us - just as there are for the NiMH batteries for the hybrids of the last decade. When the Insight first came out twelve years ago, that was quite a leap in faith in battery technology by both the manufacturers and buyers.Time has shown this to not only NOT be an issue but you can now get a better-than-new rebuilt battery pack for under $2K. Heck, the gasoline costs saved by that particular car will have paid for that battery rebuild many times over! I contend the same will be true for the iMiEV ten years from now, although I suspect EV technology will have progressed to such an extent that we'll want to purchase the latest whiz-bang. Hmmm, this sounds like something someone else wrote here somewhere recently...

OK, found the AAA writeups. Here's a link to the latest brochure that they've published on this topic:

http://newsroom.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/YourDrivingCosts2013.pdf

Their approach is to treat the following as "Driving Costs":
Fuel
Maintenance
Tires
Insurance
License, Registration, and Taxes
Depreciation
Finance Cost

Since they're the authority, I'll restrain myself...

Focusing on only differences between our EVs and ICE vehicles, here's some food for thought:

According to Forbes a year ago, the average price of a new car in the US is $30,303

http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2012/05/10/average-price-of-a-new-car/

Our iMiEV is close enough to the average to say there's no delta in purchase price.

I personally would like to throw depreciation out of the equation. We suspect it may be higher than average for the iMiEV ... but, on the other hand, if gasoline hits $10/gallon then perhaps we may have quite a demand for our little iMiEV.

I don't see where AAA includes anything for major repairs, so shouldn't battery replacement not have the same status?

For purposes of addressing Operating Costs, I submit that we should only limit the discussion to Fuel and Maintenance. :?: