I saw a Prius today....it had xenon's...Interesting...?!?!
So in terms of the Leaf and other plug in electric cars, you obviously save money on fuel and any RUC, but how much does this offset with additional electricity bills for your house?
Id have to plug this bad boy in every night i suspect, so how much is this going to hit me in the pocket for increased domestic electricity costs?
Just looked it up"Prius" and "HID" on trade-me, A handful of previous generation Priuses do have them.
Current generation (NZ New) has LED headlights across the range - Leveling, auto high beam etc. (spose it makes sense as toyota's halo efficient car to use the most efficient headlight tech available). Does make the camry hybrid look a bit antiquated with Halogen's as the only option.
The Nissan leaf's EPA rated energy consumption is "19.1 kW·h/100 km" (combined cycle) or '21.2 kW·h/100 km" (Highway cycle). Taking the worst figure, and multiplying by 109 km commute, gives 23kWh per trip.
At 24c/kWh marginal cost of power, that works out to be $5.55 per trip, or $55.5 per week (for 10 trips). (The $4800 cost saving I quoted was based on a rough calc, with you saving $100 per week over a 48week working year). (I had you currently spending $150 per week on Diesel & RUC's, and I used a slightly more optimistic calc for power cost that came out at $50 per week).
Many power companies offer a big discount to electric car owners for power used in the middle of the night (wholesale prices generally drop at night due to lower demand). I'm currently with Flick electric and my (marginal) cost of power is way below 24c/kWh (and the more use you shift off peak (away from breakfast & dinner times), the better you do with flick). So there's definitely opportunity to drop the power cost.
As a rule of thumb, electricity running costs (at a high 24c/kWh) seems to be about 1/3 of the fuel cost fairly efficient normal car, or half of something like the camry hybrid, or 70% of a Prius.
Yes, you would need to plug in every night, and every day at work for this option to be feasible.
You would need to come with some arrangement with your employer regarding power costs at work. Perhaps you are such a good employee they are prepared to turn a blind eye to an extra $25 odd per week on the company power bill. On the other hand, the scale of the power consumption, makes it a bit different than plugging in your cell phone at the office.
I have been thinking a lot about electric car. I think it will be a great investment to own shares in electric company right now.
There will be no such thing as low usage at night time soon because many people will be plugging in their electric cars at the end of the day.
Smoothing out the daily peak is great for electricity companies & the grid. Long term we would expect smart grid technology to apply to electric car charging to shave peaks and lessen infrastructure needs.
nakedmolerat:
Whoever can simplify the charging method will get my vote ie. wireless charger with a huge charging pad underneath the car! That will be awesome!
The technology is available, Cost is around US$3k, effichency is around 90% (quite a big loss compaired to normal charging)
I saw a Prius today....it had xenon's...Interesting...?!?!
So in terms of the Leaf and other plug in electric cars, you obviously save money on fuel and any RUC, but how much does this offset with additional electricity bills for your house?
Id have to plug this bad boy in every night i suspect, so how much is this going to hit me in the pocket for increased domestic electricity costs?
Just looked it up"Prius" and "HID" on trade-me, A handful of previous generation Priuses do have them.
Current generation (NZ New) has LED headlights across the range - Leveling, auto high beam etc. (spose it makes sense as toyota's halo efficient car to use the most efficient headlight tech available). Does make the camry hybrid look a bit antiquated with Halogen's as the only option.
The Nissan leaf's EPA rated energy consumption is "19.1 kW·h/100 km" (combined cycle) or '21.2 kW·h/100 km" (Highway cycle). Taking the worst figure, and multiplying by 109 km commute, gives 23kWh per trip.
At 24c/kWh marginal cost of power, that works out to be $5.55 per trip, or $55.5 per week (for 10 trips). (The $4800 cost saving I quoted was based on a rough calc, with you saving $100 per week over a 48week working year). (I had you currently spending $150 per week on Diesel & RUC's, and I used a slightly more optimistic calc for power cost that came out at $50 per week).
Many power companies offer a big discount to electric car owners for power used in the middle of the night (wholesale prices generally drop at night due to lower demand). I'm currently with Flick electric and my (marginal) cost of power is way below 24c/kWh (and the more use you shift off peak (away from breakfast & dinner times), the better you do with flick). So there's definitely opportunity to drop the power cost.
As a rule of thumb, electricity running costs (at a high 24c/kWh) seems to be about 1/3 of the fuel cost fairly efficient normal car, or half of something like the camry hybrid, or 70% of a Prius.
Yes, you would need to plug in every night, and every day at work for this option to be feasible.
You would need to come with some arrangement with your employer regarding power costs at work. Perhaps you are such a good employee they are prepared to turn a blind eye to an extra $25 odd per week on the company power bill. On the other hand, the scale of the power consumption, makes it a bit different than plugging in your cell phone at the office.
Cheers Scott
So your figures are pretty accurate, so i can fill up for between 65 and 70 dollars something like that, and can travel, high 1200, sometimes low 1300'ks each tank, so i can cruise through a week without filling, then perhaps past the next Monday and usually fill up on the Tuesday for example.
What I'm put off by with the electric car is the definite faff factor. When i get home after being out for 12+ hours and i HAVE to charge the car up. I HAVE to charge it up in work and i can't forget as otherwise I'm going nowhere. Also, i do have the occasional trips to Auckland for work, we have other offices there and although not often i do stray from the standard 109k each way. If i had an electric car i would have to factor lots more stuff in and my level of flexibility would drop considerably.
I get an electric car for occasional town pottering, but a daily commute like this, I'm not totally convinced. If there is a crash on one of the SH's on my way home and I'm detoured via goodness knows where, there could be some significant range problems and ill spend the night at the side of the road as i can't get home!
While your long commute means there is a lot of money to be saved from running an electric car, it means you only have 60km or so in reserve (and things like a headwind or super cold day would eat into that). What would concern me is if I arrived at work, and say felt really sick, or forgot something vital. Normally you could just turn around and drive home, but with the leaf you would need to wait hours for the car to charge if there were no fast chargers nearby. Power Cuts would be a massive pain too.
A Tesla (350-500km+ Km of range) would be perfect, but the capital cost (and tire consumption) outweigh any fuel saving. Awesome to drive though.
For some reason both the leaf and i3 have seats that I wouldn't really want to spend 15 hours a week sitting in. If I was going to use my car as much as you I would pay a lot of attention to the seat comfort.
On the face of it the BMW i3 (with range extender) seems to be a good fit. All the good things about an 120km - 140km Electric car, with the ability to run it petrol beyond as long as you top the tank up every 100km. However the setup of the i3 is city focused. Stiff suspension, sharp & heavy steering, Hard seats with limited adjustment etc.
Might be worth crunching the numbers on a plug in hybrid like the Audi E-tron, Holden Volt / Vauxhall ampera. But again neither really suit comfort wise as a long distance cruiser.
The Lexus hybrids look really nice, but the price of entry (even used) is quite high.
While your long commute means there is a lot of money to be saved from running an electric car, it means you only have 60km or so in reserve (and things like a headwind or super cold day would eat into that). What would concern me is if I arrived at work, and say felt really sick, or forgot something vital. Normally you could just turn around and drive home, but with the leaf you would need to wait hours for the car to charge if there were no fast chargers nearby. Power Cuts would be a massive pain too.
A Tesla (350-500km+ Km of range) would be perfect, but the capital cost (and tire consumption) outweigh any fuel saving. Awesome to drive though.
For some reason both the leaf and i3 have seats that I wouldn't really want to spend 15 hours a week sitting in. If I was going to use my car as much as you I would pay a lot of attention to the seat comfort.
On the face of it the BMW i3 (with range extender) seems to be a good fit. All the good things about an 120km - 140km Electric car, with the ability to run it petrol beyond as long as you top the tank up every 100km. However the setup of the i3 is city focused. Stiff suspension, sharp & heavy steering, Hard seats with limited adjustment etc.
Might be worth crunching the numbers on a plug in hybrid like the Audi E-tron, Holden Volt / Vauxhall ampera. But again neither really suit comfort wise as a long distance cruiser.
The Lexus hybrids look really nice, but the price of entry (even used) is quite high.
Hi Scott,
Your right, although a great drive the Telsa is a bit of a money pit!
The Audi Volt and Ampera do seem quite "specialist" vehicles and don't seem to have the depth of choice on Trade me, also your right the Lexus H's do seem to have a very high resale value, which may be beyond my current budget...
Cars aside, i now have a great new deal for my domestic home electricity - i have just jumped to Flick (as i did a quick comparison to my current supplier and i was being fleeced!) so I'm in that 10 day swap period ready to experience some SWEEEEET savings! Thanks for the insight....
Are you subscribed to our RSS feed? You can download the latest headlines and summaries from our stories directly
to your computer or smartphone by using a feed reader.
Trusted
