Recently, I was discussing with a friend who lives in the US; he owns an electric vehicle, and his friend a petrol car. While traveling together, his car ran out of battery, and his friend’s car was out of gas/petrol. It cost him around $10.50 to charge himself, but his friend’s SUV cost $56 to fill up the gas. The friend cried with envy, saying that it was too economical to drive an electric car. Today, I will discuss the cost of recharging an electric car vs. refueling a petrol-powered vehicle. Since it is a fact that the driving cost of electric cars is cheaper, why are some people still delaying their switch to electric vehicles?
For Further Reading:
-
What Kind of New Energy Does Electric Vehicles Need?
-
Four Factors Unrelated to Mechanics That can Increase Your Fuel Consumption
-
How your Driving Behaviors can Improve your vehicle’s fuel Efficiency
Cost of Recharging an Electric Car Vs. Refueling A Petrol Car: Which is Higher?
Judging from the current global oil price, a model with a slightly larger fuel tank, such as 60 liters, does need close to $60 to fill up. For pile charging, the electricity price is less than $1 per kWh, and an electric car with a battery capacity of 50 kWh only needs about $46 to charge fully, which is a huge difference.
The difference is about ten times the cost of Filling up a 50-liter gas tank. Even if the battery life of an electric car is half that of a fuel car, the running cost will be much lower than that of a fuel car.
If calculated from the cost of driving, electric vehicles are cheaper than fuel vehicles, especially for car owners with home charging piles. However, why are so many people still unwilling to switch to electric vehicles?
Three Reasons Why Many People Are Unwilling To Switch To EVs Despite Its Driving Cost Advantages
Although the driving cost is lower, it has to be admitted that there is still a gap between electric vehicles and fuel vehicles in terms of convenience.
-
Charging Time Vs. Refueling Time: Convenience
First of all, in terms of charging time, fuel vehicles at the gas station, as long as they don’t queue up, can be refueled in 3 minutes, but the charging time of electric vehicles is much longer. It takes one hour for fast charging and more than 8 hours for slow charging an electric vehicle. In the absence of a home charging pile, it is not as convenient to drive as a fuel car.
-
Battery Life Stability
Secondly, regarding battery life stability, the high-efficiency ranges of fuel and electric vehicles are just the opposite. Fuel vehicles consume much fuel on congested city and urban roads and low fuel consumption at high speeds.
By contrast, Electric vehicles have high energy consumption at high speed and low energy consumption at a constant speed in the city. They are greatly affected by temperature, so they are not suitable for long-distance travel and are not ideal for consumers in tropical climates for the time being.
-
Availability of Infrastructure
Finally, in terms of dependence on infrastructure, gas stations can be seen everywhere in large and small cities across the country. Sadly, the number of charging piles is still relatively small, and the distribution is uneven, especially in economically underdeveloped areas.
In addition, the number of charging piles is also insufficient, and it is challenging to meet the demand for travel on holidays. Unless household charging piles can be installed, the convenience of using pure electric vehicles is not as good as fuel vehicles.
Therefore, even if the cost of use is much lower than that of fuel vehicles, the popularization of electric vehicles still has a long way to go. If the mileage anxiety and infrastructure construction problems of electric vehicles cannot be solved, it will be difficult for electric vehicles to replace fuel vehicles quickly.
Leave a Reply