Gas is expensive these days in the United States. Here in Colorado, consumers are currently paying about $4.50 per gallon at the pump.
Meanwhile, I am paying 10 cents per kWh to fuel my all-electric 2020 Chevy Bolt.
That’s what I pay my community here, Highline Crossing Cohousing, for electricity in our community garages where I plug my Bolt in. Those garages, by the way, have a 9.3 kW solar system on them that went online in November 2020, thanks to efforts by me and several neighbors to persuade our community to go solar on the garages and on our so-called Common House, which has a 10.3 kW solar system on it.
I drove 10,200 miles in my Bolt last year. Using a formula that we employ here at Highline Crossing Cohousing of 4 miles/kWh x .10 cents/kWh, driving those 10,200 miles cost me just $255 dollars.
Meanwhile, a gas car getting 20 miles per gallon, which is roughly the mileage many pick up trucks and SUVs in the United States get, would pay $2,295 to drive those same 10,200 miles, assuming a cost of $4.50/gallon.
That’s nine times as much to fuel a 20 miles per gallon vehicle 10,200 miles as it is to charge my 2020 Chevy Bolt.
Double the miles per gallon average of the gas vehicle to 40 miles per gallon and you’re still at 4.5 times as much to fuel a very fuel efficient gas car as it is to charge my 2020 Chevy Bolt.
What was that about electric vehicles being “too expensive”? 😉