How to Explain That Electric Cars Cost More to Run Than Petrol Cars
Joe had been distracted by the newspaper headline as he had drifted around the supermarket during the weekly shop. Over £17,000 for a Tesla replacement battery! It had made him think hard about the real economics of electric cars, ready to explain to Fred how electric cars conceal their costs and why they are inevitably more expensive than petrol or diesel cars.
Fred: (Beckoning Joe over as he polishes his new car.) Hey Joe, let me tell you about my electric car. It’s so economical to own.
Joe: Is it really?
Fred: Oh yes! Much better than that petrol car of yours. How much is that to run?
Joe: I suppose a full tank is about £70 nowadays. And I do about 500 miles with that. That’s 14p per mile.
Fred: My electric car’s much cheaper than that. I can charge it at home overnight with electricity at 16p per kilowatt hour. And since I can go four miles for each kWh, that’s only 4p a mile – tons better than your petrol car!
Joe: Gosh that’s really interesting. To be honest I need a new car. My Focus had to have a new petrol tank the other day. It was a pain to get one because they are so rarely needed. Cost me £100 on eBay – plus the labour – £300 altogether. (He pauses. Naughtily he asks.) Do you know how much a new battery costs for your Tesla?
Fred: I’m not sure I do actually. I guess it’s a bit more than that.
Joe: Go on – have a guess!
Fred: I’ve no idea. Do you know?
Joe: Yup. Near enough £18,000.
Fred: What?!
Joe: Exactly. But they won’t tell you that. It’s only when you have problems that you find out.
Fred: They are expensive but they do last the life of the car.
Joe: So do most petrol tanks. It’s only because my Focus is 20 years old.
(Both stand quietly, obviously thinking.)
Joe: (Breaking the silence) Tell me Fred, how many miles do you expect your fancy Tesla will do over its life?
Fred: I suppose it will be like any other car – probably around 120,000 miles before it gets scrapped.
Joe: So, when you think about it, that Tesla of yours, with its £18,000 battery lasting 120,000 miles… that’s (doing quick mental arithmetic in his head) 15p per mile just for the use of the battery.
Fred: I suppose you could put it like that…
Joe: (Interrupting)….plus the 4p per mile to charge it…
Fred: I suppose so..
Joe: 15p a mile for use of the battery and 4p a mile to fill it up – a total of 19p per mile. That’s more expensive than my petrol car at 14p per mile!
Fred: That does make it sound expensive.
Joe: And when you fill it up, when you’re not at home, how much does the charging cost then?
Fred: Mmm… It can be a bit more.
Joe: How much? Tell me!
Fred: Well, I did have to pay 80p a kWh the other day.
Joe: What! 80p a kilowatt hour? To take you four miles? That’s 20p a mile – on top of your 15p battery costs, that’s 35p a mile – more than twice what my petrol car costs.
Fred: I don’t often have to pay 80p. It’s more usually about 40p but I suppose that’s 10p for charging plus 15p for battery costs. Yes… 25p per mile when you think about it like that. A bit more than yours.
Joe: A bit more! It’s nearly twice as much! (Joe pauses) Yours is a Model 3 isn’t it? The long range model?
Fred: Yup.
Joe: I looked it up. About £50,000, am I right?
Fred: Yes it was about that.
Joe: When you think about it, that’s £32,000 for a normal car, plus £18,000 for the battery. That’s how it works. I know you don’t think of the £18,000 for the battery as running costs but that’s only because you’ve paid them up front, when you bought the car.
Fred: Makes sense.
Joe: And I’m thinking about a new Focus for £32,000 and at that price has the petrol tank included.
Fred: Mmm…
Joe: And costs 14p per mile to run – not somewhere between 18p and 35p.
Fred: (Half turning away) But I am helping save the planet!
Joe: (Joe remains quiet. He thinks he might have been too blunt. He ponders on the half ton of battery that Fred’s car has to drag around, the mines where they extract the rare battery chemicals, the impending piles of batteries needing so-called recycling all to ‘save the planet’. Out of respect for Joe, he tries not to snort audibly.)
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Great concise article. I would’ve snorted audibly.. This guy is good to follow on the EV BS…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqVFTEFvSBA&ab_channel=GeoffBuysCars
A lifelong pal of 60 plus years informed me this week that his son-in-law and daughter have ordered a VW ID Buzz. (No change out of 60k sterling). In addition, an elecric charging point is being fitted to their detached house.Before I could voice an opinion, I was informed that the son-in-law “had done his homework and was pretty clued up on the topic.” Carrying three children and three dogs for limited mileage, local journeys obviously necessitates forking out 60k then, as only the VW is up to the task.
Seldom has my ‘flabber’ been so ‘ghasted’. In the interests of harmony, I remained schtumm.
For the same reason, I’ll resist the temptation to forward this article to them.
More money than sense – springs to mind.
My little Skoda failed its MOT a while back – due to ’emissions’. The garage ran a fuel system cleaner through it and it passed the retest. It was 19 years/125,000 miles old at the time – and has passed 2 tests since with no problems.
Does anyone know what sort of things BEVs fail for? Or are they still too new for many to be failing? What do people need to look out for – apart from dents?
It seems it is mostly battery problems. The batteries being underneath are prone to damage, if for example, the car bumps up onto a curb and hits the bottom on the curb stones.
Another problem is electronic problems.
They are heavy on brake pads and tyres because of the extra weight and high torque motors.
They are heavy on brake pads and tyres because of the extra weight and high torque motors.
Most (possibly all) of them use regenerative braking.
I live in the West Country in an area which tends to flood quite regularly when we get prolonged periods of rain. If I had an EV my ability to drive anywhere would be severely restricted due to the risk of driving through any depth of floodwater.
I’m a firm believer in old diesel bangers. They do get expensive as they get older but a diesel VW Passat estate like mine which is 17 years old still rolls along very nicely. I don’t tend to do many long distance trips but it is certainly up to it. The problems ahead, apart from the obvious wear and tear on an old car, lie in the ever narrowing goal posts of the MOT. What was acceptable last year has or is changed: ‘cos climate, innit? Against such odds we can’t win. They want to get rid of the old car stock and in the same breath make EVs so expensive that ordinary people can’t afford them and the outcome of that is we don’t have cars: job done.
“the outcome of that is we don’t have cars: job done.”
That’s it in a nutshell Aethelred.
They will incur the people’s anger in due course. If they take away our freedom, hard won over the past 150 odd years, they who do this will be punished
Let’s hope so, Grim.
The British people’s anger! They are as sheep based on the majority of the public’s gushing servitude to COVID’s freedom sapping rules.
Correct. And Khan (or whoever) will steadily tighten the ULEZ restrictions, so that once the “low hanging fruit” has been forced off the road, they will start charging the next tier of emissions.
The slow-boiling frog strategy: so all those people not resisting the tyranny because they think their cars are OK will soon find out that Pastor Niemoller was right…..there’ll be no-one left to fight for them.
And you Vill be happy!
Electric cars are the greatest example of Hutber’s law, deterioration marketed as progress.
And that’s what I love about the commenters here…you get to learn something new every day. Never heard of Hutber’s law. Thanks Wokeman.
A bit off topic, I see the Grauniad have been having a go at Heat Pumps and how they are a magnificent success in Norway. I’m currently in Norway at my mother’s modern house. She has a heat pump and it works ok with underfloor heating. That makes a LOT of difference. I can really see underfloor heating being put into UK housing stock with ease NOT!!! Not to mention the issue of cheap electricity here, largely modern housing stock and plenty of space so no grumbles about noisy heat exchange unit fans outside. But, heh, what do i know?
My next door neighbour had to replace their underfloor heating system after 10 years due to leaks. The heating pipes are embedded in concrete so replacement meant the use of pneumatic drills. They went away for a week, it was their poor s*d of a neighbour who had to put up with it one hot summer.
They sold the house a few years later and another poor s*d bought it. When winter came and he turned the heating on water poured through the ceiling and we both realised why the original owners were so keen to move.
He had it repaired and when the pressure was turned up leaks appeared downstairs.
He had radiators and a conventional CH system installed as the far cheaper option.
That is what you get with retrofitted underfloor heating, even in a house that was designed for it at the outset.
That absolutely nails it! Take an inferior product, wrap it up in a shiny new box and a slick advertising campaign and sell it as being better than you’ve already got! Ev scam perfection!
You can’t polish a turd!
I’ve not much idea about what components are required in an EV, but I’d suspect it can’t be much more than a battery, a control module, and a motor (or motors). So that’s far less to repair, replace and service. The engine on a diesel/petrol vehicle has hundreds of parts that could fail, and that’s ignoring all other parts like radiator, alternator, fuel pump etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the whole EV thing is a joke atm, but I don’t think this article is an accurate comparison of total costs over time at all. I certainly wouldn’t use this overly simplistic analysis to argue against EV – I’d be setting myself up for a fall.
“The engine on a diesel/petrol vehicle has hundreds of parts that could fail, and that’s ignoring all other parts like radiator, alternator, fuel pump etc.”
Except that nowadays these parts don’t fail with any regulatory.
True. But they fail less frequently, that’s not the same as never failing. A service still requires the replacement of oil, oil & air filters, water, engine coolant, fuel filter etc. That’s a service alone, not considering the failure of one of the many other mechanical parts that an EV doesn’t have. I’m merely saying that there are other considerations that this article doesn’t account for and I wouldn’t use the simple calculation of battery costs vs fuel costs.
So you replace the part, not the whole essence of the vehicle, the battery!
Let’s not forget an ev is a battery with a car wrapped round it!
Insight: Scratched EV battery? Your insurer may have to junk the whole car https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/scratched-ev-battery-your-insurer-may-have-junk-whole-car-2023-03-20/
The batteries can fail, Geoff buys cars was talking about this the other day;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaRlAV18iaI&t=16s
In theory you should be able to repair failed batteries, in practice all too often all people are simply offered a replacement at £15,000 or more. Also, the electronics are quite complex and people have had EVs where the computer says NO and nobody can get it to change its mind.
The electronics shouldn’t be much more complex than what’s in a standard car these days, it’ll be the software that’s more advanced. Anyway, I’m not professing to know exactly what the 10-15 year difference in running costs for an EV vs petrol/diesel car is, but it’s more complex than the article suggests. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not trying to promote EV’s; personally, I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.
“more advanced” = more failure prone
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-climate-scaremongers-wind-farmers-wring-yet-more-cash-out-of-the-taxpayer/
Paul Homewood over at TCW with his weekly round-up of eco nuttery.
Electrickery prices are only going one way.
Well, knock me down with a feather! More anti-EV propaganda.
And quite right too.
Can you be surprised that here on a site for ‘sceptics’ we are sceptical of what is being promoted and thrown at us all due to the biggest lie of all, the lie of global boiling/warming/whatever? If you have a point in favour of EV, maybe now’s your chance to engage in some robust discussion.
Did you ever consider being sceptical about the anti-EV PoV? If you are only sceptical of opinions you don’t like then that amounts to “I only want to hear/read stuff that supports my PoV.”
If you have a point in favour of EV, maybe now’s your chance to engage in some robust discussion.
I have tried that from time to time and mostly I just get personal insults (but not this time I admit)
Did you ever consider being sceptical about the anti-EV PoV? If you are only sceptical of opinions you don’t like then that amounts to “I only want to hear/read stuff that supports my PoV.”
The trouble is that the use of narratives to push “liberal democracies” where the people don’t necessarily want to go is not a symmetrical question. The scepticism almost necessarily comes from one direction. That is because TPTB need to be devious or underhand, whereas (most of the time) those arguing against the view being pushed don’t have anything to gain by lying.
What was the motivation of those arguing against the vaccines or against lockdowns? The question of whether you believe Chris Whitty or Dr Peter McCullough revolves to some extent around your view of their respective motivations.
That is because TPTB need to be devious or underhand,
You are assuming your point of view is correct to justify biased scepticism. TPTB don’t need to be devious or underhand if they telling the truth, if vaccines really are effective and safe then that is their motivation right there. No doubt many of those opposed to vaccines sincerely believe they are ineffective/unsafe but that doesn’t mean they are invulnerable to scepticism. We all have to struggle to base our beliefs on the evidence not evidence not beliefs.
Guilty as charged. I guess it depends on how you view the world. I (naively, it turns out) viewed “western liberal democracy” as a force for good, and the media as a vital cog in the machine, holding power to account (Watergate, for example).
Sadly, once trust or integrity is lost, it can never be regained. Such is my attitude now (post the covid years) to Government, media, public health – and even my GP.
To be frank, no, but come on, if you have an argument for them, go ahead, I’m happy to engage.
Just to be clear, I am not sceptical of the anti-EV position because I can see the lie of global warming and the whole march towards Agenda 21 of which it is a part. EVs are being promoted as something to ‘help fight climate change’ and personally I think it’s a load of b*llox.
Also, I have never said “I only want to hear/read stuff that supports my PoV.” – you did by putting words in my mouth. The whole concept of being sceptical is about having doubts and questioning things, it is not about ‘things I do not like’ it is about ‘things I don’t believe’. Two very different statements.
Just to be clear, I am not sceptical of the anti-EV position because I can see the lie of global warming and the whole march towards Agenda 21 of which it is a part.
Don’t you see that is my point – you are not being sceptical about position X because you “know” X is right. But how would you ever know if X is wrong if you not sceptical about it?
Also, I have never said “I only want to hear/read stuff that supports my PoV.” I never said you did. I said that being sceptical about one side only of a debate amounts to that position.
The whole concept of being sceptical is about having doubts and questioning things, it is not about ‘things I do not like’ it is about ‘things I don’t believe’.
Of course – I couldn’t agree more. But refusing to be sceptical about one side of a debate is rejecting scepticism in favour of things you like.
But it is only one side of the debate that is being forced down my throat. There is only one side of the debate that tries to coerce me into changing my car, changing my central heating, changing what I eat, changing if I can fly and how often, what fuels I can use, and almost every other aspect of my life. ————-I don’t feel I need to be much in the way of sceptical about the side of the argument that doesn’t insist on changing everything I do –and leaving me poorer and colder.
👍👍👍
Jim, can you state what’s factually incorrect about the article which you’re describing as ‘propaganda’?
You could start with the cost of batteries (see my earlier comment )
It gives you a good opportunity to share with us your pro-EV propaganda, so what stopped you?
Maybe there is no ’pro’?
Any good that requires taxpayer subsidies and legislation to force people to buy it, has no ‘pro’.
16p per kWh. It is foolish to imagine that cost will not increase, not least as the grid becomes overstretched with demand as (if) the number of BEVs increases. Lost excise duty, VAT, green taxes from motor fuels will be transferred to electricity for battery chargers. And commercial charging points will become even more expensive. It is an example of the topsy-turvy World of the Net Zero fantasy. Normally as a market develops, end-user prices fall as demand increases due to economy of scale and profit motive of suppliers to supply more, and more suppliers enter the market. But in our screwed-up electricity sector, suppliers cannot supply more because they cannot manufacture more wind or sunshine. Infrastructure costs increase without sufficient revenue to cover cost and return in capital. New suppliers wont enter the market as there is insufficient return on investment. See lack of enthusiasm for off-shore wind licences and demand for higher subsidies to take up licences. The market goes into reverse. The higher the demand, the more supply decreases, the higher go end-user prices in order to ration by price and lower the demand. Then Govt will step in because ration by price ‘unfair’ to the ubiquitous… Read more »
Great piece, Mark – thank you.
A follow up article elaborating on the numbers behind the last paragraph would be genius if you had time and appetite.
Once the commissioning and decommissioning of so-called “renewable energy” generators is taken into account (children mining cobalt, effluent offrun, cost of transport, burial of defunct wind turbines, leaching of their toxic concrete bases into land and sea for decades to come, etc, etc) we are looking at the anatomy of a social and environmental catastrophe.
And all for a small number of people to make a very great deal of money.
Scraping it at 120,000? You’ve got to kidding! With ordinary maintenance a diesel will be good for 200,000 plus, I know, my last one did and is still on the road now on its way to 300,000. My current diesel is at 130,000 and still going strong, only just had it first cam belt.
Cobblers to scrapping perfectly good cars at that small mileage, that definitely doesn’t save the planet!
For a reality check look at the actual costs of replacement batteries. I have no idea why that couple were screwed by Tesla.
If you buy a new EV now you are not going to have to pay for a new battery for about 8 years (Almost all new EVs come with an 8 year/100,000 mile warranty on the battery and I am sure driving in the rain does not invalidate the warranty.) In the course of 11 years (2010 to 2021) battery costs came down by about 90% – how much less will they cost if you have to replace them in 8 years time?
Also why compare this to the cost of a new fuel tank? I have never had that problem with any car but I have had plenty of far more expensive repairs.
How many evs will most buyers have had within 8 years? 2 or 3 maybe? The reality is evs aren’t bought they are leased on a 3 yearly basis so what happens to all the resources that have gone into building one only for it to be used for 3 years and then no one wants a second hand battery car!
All in all, they cost the earth and the so called owner!
no one wants a second hand battery car!
Used battery electric vehicle (BEVs) sales continued to soar in the second quarter, growing by 81.8% to 30,645 units, representing 1.7% of the market – a new record – up from 1.0% last year.
A small beginning, but then it is new technology, and very fast growth.
In order to shift unsold EVs many dealers are pre-registering new EVs and then selling them as ‘used’ demonstators, It begs the question as to how many secondhand EV sales are real secondhand sales.
When you say “many dealers” how many and how many EVs are they selling this way?
Also, why is it easier to sell a used demonstrator than a new car at a reduced price?
A two year old Taycan is now worth about 50 grand, new was 110 ish, you won’t see any for sale at that price, just look in the adverts and they’ll be many many of these so called second hand taycans for sale at around 90 to 100 grand! It’s just a con to shift them, if so popular, why so many available? Don’t take my word for it check out the auto ads, any you like!
Uhm – I am afraid I don’t move in the world of Porsches. They are hardly representative of the market. Look at adverts for say Nissan Leaf or Kia Soul and second hand prices are very varied and there seems to be a lot of them.
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/cars/uk/nissan/leaf
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?advertising-location=at_cars&aggregatedTrim=&body-type=&colour=&fuel-type=Electric&make=Kia&model=Soul&postcode=SO20%206EU&sort=relevance&transmission=&year-to=2023
But really we need data.
The very fact “there seems to be a lot of them” is the problem, dealers can’t shift them! If ,like any well respected brand, they were that good, you’d have a job getting one!
That doesn’t follow at all. We have concrete evidence the market is growing fast.
Concrete, from whom? Surely not governments and msm?
Please say you don’t believe all their shyte!
See my link above.
Better way of putting it than I did! 👍
That’s just books cooking and you know it mate! Most evs for sale aren’t second hand, they are new ones that haven’t sold ,then discounted usually with just a few 1000km on them run up by the sales staff just to get rid, it’s just a well known con when products won’t shift
Evidence?
I’m not going to search for links but just visit : the mac master : geoff buys cars : Mguy TV and especially: Auto expert, John cadogan to see real life info to back up all I say
John Cadogan is incredibly intelligent and groaning under the weight of degrees in engineering, and very entertaining too!
I am sure he is very intelligent and knowledgeable and fun but some blokes you tube channel is opinion not evidence. Be sceptical and demand to see the evidence.
Oh my, the whole article above is real world evidence and you chose not to see it! A true evangelist! No one will convince you otherwise, I’m done here!
Oh my, the whole article above is real world evidence and you chose not to see it!
We were debating the market for second hand EVs. The article doesn’t mention that at all!
The kind of evidence you seem to pay attention to! Msm evidence
Insight: Scratched EV battery? Your insurer may have to junk the whole car https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/scratched-ev-battery-your-insurer-may-have-junk-whole-car-2023-03-20/
What evidence have you that CO2 is causing or will cause dangerous changes to climate? You always want everyone else’s “evidence”, so where is yours? And ofcourse without that evidence there might not be any use for electric cars, or at least we would not all soon be coerced into them. —-And remember that computer models are not “evidence” and consensus or opinion is not evidence.
Hear hear EVs are a “solution” (not) to a problem that doesn’t exist.
😆 exactly! 0.04% worth of damage!
At the dawn of the age of the motor car, I imagine there were many loquacious horse and carriage owners sceptical of the new machines, not believing their horses would be replaced in the years to come. Would one have wasted one’s breath and ink arguing they were wrong, or would one have left them to their delusions and let the market and history judge?
P. S. I’m a climate change sceptic and anti net zero.
That’s the problem! No one forced ,or paid you ,to scrap your horse and cart, neither did they offer hugh incentives/ subsidies to get you to buy a car.
The buyers bought them on merit not subsidies and bans! Simple as this, take away government subsidies/tax breaks and evs sales would fall flat on their arse!
I agree there should be no subsidies or tax breaks, but EVs will still take over as they become cheaper.
With current technology EVs will not take over, it may well be that the technology, especially the battery technology changes and improves beyond all recognition and that may make EVs more usable but we do not have that technology yet.
Also of course, there is the question as to whether we can generate and distribute enough electric to power EVs. We have been told we cannot have an EV charging point in in our village car park because the electric supply into the village will not support it.
And there were no garages in your village when cars first came along.
If evs become more common then more battery materials will have to be mined, that means much much more mining worldwide just to get cobalt,lithium, copper etc that will likely mean more expensive in the fight for raw materials!
And don’t forget, they’ve been promising the latest ready to go new battery tech for 40 years evey since the invention of the lithium iron battery and nothing can yet beat its energy density and efficiency! Don’t hold your breath if your expecting new tech to save the day!
Batteries that are unrecyclable by the way. All that effort, mining, processing, transportation, assembly etc and then landfill. Unless the manufacturing process and battery technology don’t improve significantly and doesn’t require the labour of children, the poisoning of the water and land, EVs should be shelved. It’s all a big green lie anyway.
Yep but no one had to be bribed or coerced into giving up their horse and cart. The advantages of the motor car were perfectly obvious.
Joe: 15p a mile for use of the battery and 4p a mile to fill it up – a total of 18p per mile. That’s more expensive than my petrol car at 14p per mile!
By my reckoning 15p plus 4p equals 19p.
And don’t forget the tyre replacement costs. Bound to be higher given the increased weight,
And the airborne particulates which is higher from a soft compound ev tyre! Zero emissions? My arse
“By my reckoning 15p plus 4p equals 19p”
Nah it’s all changed now! 🤣
Greenwash————-The Utopian Green fantasy world has many believers and is probably now the third biggest religion in the world. Like all other religions it is more about faith and emotion and the will to believe rather than any facts and reason. You see the believers insist that renewables are now much cheaper than coal and gas. ——–But they are really only praying that they are. A quick look at their electric bill over the last 10 years will reveal the very opposite, but the Green Lord acts in Mysterious ways.
There was a bloke on GB News with Martin Daubney yesterday representing the EV industry blatantly lying saying EVs are cheaper to run did Daubney question him? Did he heck!
Incredible what these people are getting away with.
EV’s are the Betamax of the automotive industry.
Good analogy!
“Geoff Buys Cars” does some great videos on YouTube. One is a race between a diesel BWW and an EV from John O’groats to Landsend. EV took extra 9 hrs and cost twice as much, spending 6 hrs waiting for charging.
There is so much hype and politics around all electric cars that it is almost impossible to get a true evaluation. More information is finally coming out. Basically they are neither environmentally friendly nor sustainable as being sold. It takes 7 years of use before an all electric vehicle emissions falls below that of an ICE vehicle. This is due to all the emissions involved in manufacturing and mining. Manufacturers continually inflate their range. One car expert who has owned a Tesla 3 for many years & who loves the technology & car, basically states that although the car is rated as 340 mile he has never been able to get anymore than 200 miles. The other limitation is that you must have your own house and private charger. For practical purposes you must also travel less than about 130 miles per day. All of the hype & politics never address the real problems of electric car ownership. They are being hyped as a panacea to reduce emissions, the same as wind turbines.
15 + 4 = 19 not 18.
Just saying!