I've been considering an EV, but this got me to look at the break even point for how much I actually drive (5,000 mi / year), my gas mileage (30 mpg), my offpeak power costs ($0.20 / kWh), and typical gas prices here ($4.50 / gal). It would take me about 20 years to save $25,000, which is about the difference between my current car and a Tesla. That said, I probably shouldn't consider a Tesla, since it occasionally snows pretty hard here in Northern Nevada and the Tesla's snow handling is not the best.

I’d be curious to see your numbers. Based on my electrical costs of about $0.35/kwh and 87 gas holding steady below $5 for nearly a year, 1000 miles driven in my real-world 45 mpg Camry hybrid costs about $110 while the same in Tesla Model Y costs about $95. Tesla however is $10k to $15k more.

The only maintenance my Camry will need for the next decade or so that does not exist in Tesla is regular fluid changes which amortize to about $200 per year

Ps in SF Bay Area and don’t qualify for tax incentives

I agree. In the SF Bay Area, especially in PG&E’s regions where average KWh is $0.40, a hybrid makes more economical sense and it isn’t even close.

The math is skewed even further once you add the extra $500 you pay for CA annual registration for an EV vs. Hybrid (personal experience, Mach-E vs. Accord Hybrid).

Or you exploit the many many free level 2 chargers around the region. But anywhere else, a PHEV rocks.

> Based on my electrical costs of about $0.35/kwh

Definitely it's massively less compelling in areas with extremely high electricity costs. That's pretty much as expensive as electricity gets in North America, isn't it? I think it's significantly more compelling basically anywhere else. E.g. in Ontario where I live, if you're set up appropriately and charge between 11pm and 7am it's $0.028/kWh (CAD), i.e. less than 3 cents per kWh, or roughly 1/35th the price you're paying.

If I've done my math right, that's works out to be less than 2$ USD per 1000km? A difference of 108$/1000km is 1728$/year for the statistically average-driving Ontarian. Adds up pretty fast!

SF Bay Area is an outlier for electricity pricing, average US rate is less than half that according to: https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices... and off-peak rates are typically less than average where time of use metering is in effect (my off-peak rate is less than 1/3 of your rate). My family's EV costs about 1/4 to 1/3 as much per mile to fuel as our ICE (and I typically drive the EV with more spirit). For me, over 100k miles, I expect to save about $10k in fuel costs. I agree that the savings isn't as substantial to you because of your extremely high electric rates, but for many, a standard model 3 or y will offer lower TCO than a camry.

All of California is an outlier, but here we are with 10% of the US population.

I live in Ventura County and the cheapest my electricity gets is around 33 cents per kwh. During peak it's a whopping 60 cents per kwh.

I also assume that chart includes baseline credits and averages out the tiers - your first kwh is cheaper than your 600th kwh. Any brand new EV charging will be charged at your top rates and be more expensive than what those averages represents pretty much everywhere in the US.

> I live in Ventura County and the cheapest my electricity gets is around 33 cents per kwh

If you have an EV (or some other devices), you can qualify for the TOU-D-PRIME plan which gets you $0.23/kWh[1]; at this rate, for my car usage patterns, the Tesla Model 3 is a clear win over any car more than $25k or so. If you have solar, you can drive the prices even further down (I offset basically all of my 2022 bill, but 2023 was cloudier and rainier than typical and so I'm doing worse this year).

[1]: https://www.sce.com/residential/rates/Time-Of-Use-Residentia...

TOU-D-PRIME rate is a god-send compared DTO what PG&E gives its EV owners.

Here the EV time of use rate is 50-60 cents per kWh between 3pm and midnight and 34 cents the rest of the day.

Without spending another 10-20k on Solar, EV is a losing proposition at these rates.

In California of all places

Wow that blows. I'm on TOU-D-5-8PM because I work from home, and in a place that can have warm summer nights.

I stop work at 5pm so I can power down my computer before electricity gets expensive.

And 8pm works great for us because in summer it can be 70 degrees overnight, and the kids start going to bed at 8pm so I can cool down the house a bit without paying crazy prices for that.

I do a lot of thermostat trickery in the summer. During the day we set it to 76, from 4-5pm set it down to 72 (to avoid running in the expensive hours), then we raise it to 78 from 5-8pm, then we set it down to 74 at 8pm.

“For many” outside of California that is :)

Would you mind sharing this (if it doesn't contain any personal info).

The formula is pretty straightforward, the sheet itself is a bit of a mess. Take the price you pay for each car; take your number of miles driven a year; use the mpg and kWh/mi to calculate the operational cost of each for a year (I think I used a conservative value of like 180 kWh/mi for my 3). Then multiply by the number of years owned and add the purchase price.

Let me guess: you are low-balling your Tesla maintenance costs, because you haven't yet had an issue. Well, guess what, when you do, dealing with it will be expensive.

RepairPal says the average annual cost to maintain a Model 3 is twice that of a Honda Civic.

I’m not counting maintenance for either vehicle, though: and, over the expected ownership time, I save enough with electricity for the Tesla to pay for a $16k battery pack replacement (and, over the four years I’ve owned the tesla, I’ve probably spent like $2000 on Tesla maintenance and $6k on maintaining the Odyssey, so I think I’ll save enough on regular maintenance to break even when I have to replace the battery)

They’re not _that_ new anymore: the original Model S was sold in 2012. So, while they’re still young compared to ICE cars, we still have at least a decade of data on them.

I do agree, though, that there’s some novelty risk but (a) my numbers only include gas (and I’m not factoring my solar savings in at all because I ran the numbers before I installed solar) and (b) I’m spending quite a bit every year to maintain my Odyssey and basically $0 to maintain my Model 3 (only exception is I’ve changed the tires once, but I’ve gone through a couple sets of van tires in the same time period for a similar total expenditure). I think that I’d come out ahead even if I had to replace the battery (or sold the car when this is needed). Also, the depreciation on my Tesla over the last four years is much more in my favor than the van’s depreciation in the same time.

And those old Model S cars have had high battery replacement rates, often at relatively low mileage.

The 3 and Y seem to be doing better, as well as S/X after 2016, but those are still fairly new.

Although, there’s a question of under warranty vs. out of warranty replacement here: replacing the battery under warranty doesn’t really add to the TCO; also, I assume the battery packs across the Tesla models are similar enough that newer cars incorporate the learnings from older models.