Which is cheapest - hybrid, plug-in hybrid or fully electric?

Herzlos

Grumpy_chap said:

ComicGeek said:

No EV driver that I know pays 34p/kWh to charge at home, 

That part doesn't strike me as that exceptional.
What I found odd was the amount of public charging for the EV.
The Niro has 285 mile range (official).
Assuming the journey was planned, so fully charged prior to the start of test, the amount of public charging required should have been only a "splash and dash".  The £25.85 at £0.75/kWh equates to 34 kWh.
The original £17.51 at £0.34/kWh equates to 51.5 kWh whereas the Niro EV has 64.8 kWh battery.

I'm *assuming* they start the journeys with a full battery/tank, and those charges are done on return. So they used a public charger whilst out and got home with 21% battery remaining (or about 50 miles range). A more experienced EV user may have topped up with less at the expensive charger.

But there are a lot of other assumptions there. It seems like they travelled 273 miles - more or less a full battery, charged at the half way point and returned. Given this is a test (I can't see the article) I'm assuming they drove to a service station, charged and returned, but in the real world someone is only going to be making a 273 mile return trip if they are doing something at the other side, and thus can probably charge somewhere cheaper.

Whilst the Congestion Charge saving wasn't factored in here, assuming they didn't enter a LEZ, it's still worth noting that if the journey did incur a charge of over £11.42 that would have made the EV cheaper in all cases.

It's not even just a CC, an EV may have free parking at the destination.

But yeah, with those assumptions, which I'm not convinced are likely to apply to many real world users - standard rate home charging, huge motorway drive with no off-motorway destination, and nowhere cheaper to charge before/after the motorway, then yeah, you're cheaper with one of the hybrids.

However I think for the majority of drivers and miles, the city case is the most likely one. I have the longest commute of my peers @ 100 miles return, and even the motorway section is spend slowing down and speeding up at every junction.

ComicGeek

Goudy said:

ComicGeek said:

No EV driver that I know pays 34p/kWh to charge at home, that's just lazy journalism (and even more lazy EV ownership if that's you!)

I would have to pay more than that to charge at home, so would millions of others and some of those do.
It has nothing to do with what tariff I'm on at home either.

Not everyone can home charge, millions live in flats and apartments that make it impossible to use home chargers.
My street is now well supported with char.gy lamp post chargers which cost 66p per Kwh with a 12p connection charge.

But that's not the end of the outlay. As these chargers are in restricted parking bays, there's a £4.75 per hour parking fee or a £140 yearly permit, though as they are normal parking bays they aren't restricted to EVs so the chances are all the bays that have the chargers are full anyway.
When I left this morning there wasn't one EV in a space close to a charger, they were all normal cars.

My next nearest charger from a different supplier is 65p per Kwh with a similar parking charge.

There is something like 800 homes on my short street and likely the same with the next street.
A quick look around and I would estimate 3 homes on the two streets could possible fit a home charger, but they could not guarantee the spots outside their home to park and charge in.

Whether these EV and Plugin figures are right compared to what you might pay might be debatable but they are in fact a total underestimation for millions that just can't home charge. 

But the article isn't talking about a public charging point on the street which costs more - it refers to home charging. There is a justifiable separate debate about how to make EVs accessible/economically reasonable for those without private driveways, but that's not what the OP's specific quoted article discusses.

Keep the discussion on topic, they have been plenty of other threads that have done the public charging issues to death.

Those with access to home charging have the ability to sign up to tariffs that provide cheaper EV charging - if they calculate that they can't get enough electricity usage in the off peak period, or don't do enough EV miles to justify it, then yes they can charge at 34p/kWh.

What would have been good journalism would have been to add a separate row to the plug-in hybrid and EV options which showed the costs based on currently available off peak rates of 7.5 p/kWh - then people would realise how much of a difference this makes to the overall cost viability of EVs. 

ComicGeek

JKenH said:

ComicGeek said:

No EV driver that I know pays 34p/kWh to charge at home, that's just lazy journalism (and even more lazy EV ownership if that's you!)

I haven't paid over 7.5p/kWh to charge our EVs (apart from one time I paid 28p/kWh at a public charger over a year ago, for a total of £13). 

It would seem that not everyone takes advantage of these tariffs. In fact from this research less than half of EV drivers have smart meters.

Only a quarter of EV drivers on time of use tariffs despite significant opportunity for savings

Research from Cornwall Insight has found only a quarter of private electric vehicle (EV) drivers have made the switch to lower priced time of use tariffs, despite many drivers seeing their household electricity demand double after making the switch to an EV.

Time of use tariffs – where p/kWh rates change through the day to reflect demand levels, grid constraints, and levels of renewable generation – have the potential to reduce the costs of transport decarbonisation across the industry. They provide consumers with the opportunity to shift charging to a lower priced, off-peak window, giving them the chance to make large savings compared to charging on a standard flat-rate tariff.  

On top of the quarter of EV drivers on time of use tariffs, a further 18% of EV drivers have smart meters installed (giving them access to time of use pricing) but are yet to take advantage of these tariffs. The remaining drivers are yet to have smart meters installed or have smart meters that are no longer operating in smart mode, so are currently locked out of time of use tariffs.

https://www.cornwall-insight.com/press/only-a-quarter-of-ev-drivers-on-time-of-use-tariffs-despite-significant-opportunity-for-savings/

Reading that article in more detail, it's only referring to circa 220,000 private EV drivers, so the assumption is that it doesn't include any of the company car EV drivers which would make up the vast majority of the over 750,000 EVs currently.

So that article only looks at less than 30% of EV usage, and probably only deals with the lower mileage vehicles then. At very low mileage then it probably doesn't make sense to use cheap off peak tariffs. So not anywhere near the 'less than half of EV drivers have smart meters' that you claim. 

Typhoon2000

The article also does not consider the difference in purchase price and finance charges on the difference. I suspect that this will be a bigger financial factor for most than fuel/electricity running cost.

JKenH

ComicGeek said:

JKenH said:

ComicGeek said:

No EV driver that I know pays 34p/kWh to charge at home, that's just lazy journalism (and even more lazy EV ownership if that's you!)

I haven't paid over 7.5p/kWh to charge our EVs (apart from one time I paid 28p/kWh at a public charger over a year ago, for a total of £13). 

It would seem that not everyone takes advantage of these tariffs. In fact from this research less than half of EV drivers have smart meters.

Only a quarter of EV drivers on time of use tariffs despite significant opportunity for savings

Research from Cornwall Insight has found only a quarter of private electric vehicle (EV) drivers have made the switch to lower priced time of use tariffs, despite many drivers seeing their household electricity demand double after making the switch to an EV.

Time of use tariffs – where p/kWh rates change through the day to reflect demand levels, grid constraints, and levels of renewable generation – have the potential to reduce the costs of transport decarbonisation across the industry. They provide consumers with the opportunity to shift charging to a lower priced, off-peak window, giving them the chance to make large savings compared to charging on a standard flat-rate tariff.  

On top of the quarter of EV drivers on time of use tariffs, a further 18% of EV drivers have smart meters installed (giving them access to time of use pricing) but are yet to take advantage of these tariffs. The remaining drivers are yet to have smart meters installed or have smart meters that are no longer operating in smart mode, so are currently locked out of time of use tariffs.

https://www.cornwall-insight.com/press/only-a-quarter-of-ev-drivers-on-time-of-use-tariffs-despite-significant-opportunity-for-savings/

Reading that article in more detail, it's only referring to circa 220,000 private EV drivers, so the assumption is that it doesn't include any of the company car EV drivers which would make up the vast majority of the over 750,000 EVs currently.

So that article only looks at less than 30% of EV usage, and probably only deals with the lower mileage vehicles then. At very low mileage then it probably doesn't make sense to use cheap off peak tariffs. So not anywhere near the 'less than half of EV drivers have smart meters' that you claim. 

 It isn’t actually stated in the article what constitutes a private electric vehicle. You have made an assumption that it excludes company cars. You may be right but we don’t know. It may simply mean a private vehicle which is electric. 

You have also compared the 220,000 with the current number of cars on the road - not the number at the time of the survey. 

Below is a link to the MSE advice regarding EV tariffs. In the comparisons made you will see that, allowing for the cost of charging your car for 160 miles a week or 8160 miles a year, your annual bill works out basically the same whether you are on a specialist EV tariff or a standard variable tariff. What you gain on charging your car you lose on the rest of your consumption. 

MSE also point out that there are a number of constraints regarding the availability of EV tariffs.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/ev-energy-tariffs/

JKenH

ComicGeek said:

Goudy said:

ComicGeek said:

No EV driver that I know pays 34p/kWh to charge at home, that's just lazy journalism (and even more lazy EV ownership if that's you!)

I would have to pay more than that to charge at home, so would millions of others and some of those do.
It has nothing to do with what tariff I'm on at home either.

Not everyone can home charge, millions live in flats and apartments that make it impossible to use home chargers.
My street is now well supported with char.gy lamp post chargers which cost 66p per Kwh with a 12p connection charge.

But that's not the end of the outlay. As these chargers are in restricted parking bays, there's a £4.75 per hour parking fee or a £140 yearly permit, though as they are normal parking bays they aren't restricted to EVs so the chances are all the bays that have the chargers are full anyway.
When I left this morning there wasn't one EV in a space close to a charger, they were all normal cars.

My next nearest charger from a different supplier is 65p per Kwh with a similar parking charge.

There is something like 800 homes on my short street and likely the same with the next street.
A quick look around and I would estimate 3 homes on the two streets could possible fit a home charger, but they could not guarantee the spots outside their home to park and charge in.

Whether these EV and Plugin figures are right compared to what you might pay might be debatable but they are in fact a total underestimation for millions that just can't home charge. 

But the article isn't talking about a public charging point on the street which costs more - it refers to home charging. There is a justifiable separate debate about how to make EVs accessible/economically reasonable for those without private driveways, but that's not what the OP's specific quoted article discusses.

Keep the discussion on topic, they have been plenty of other threads that have done the public charging issues to death.

Those with access to home charging have the ability to sign up to tariffs that provide cheaper EV charging - if they calculate that they can't get enough electricity usage in the off peak period, or don't do enough EV miles to justify it, then yes they can charge at 34p/kWh.

What would have been good journalism would have been to add a separate row to the plug-in hybrid and EV options which showed the costs based on currently available off peak rates of 7.5 p/kWh - then people would realise how much of a difference this makes to the overall cost viability of EVs. 

Why is it off topic? The WhatCar article is about how the cost of fuelling an EV compares with a PHEV and a hybrid - not just home charging. It includes an example where the EV is charged away from home. You then introduce your cheap rate tariff and also mention you once used a public charger. The lack of access to home charging is a perfectly legitimate point to make when discussing whether EVs work out cheaper than hybrids. 

I have in my last post added the currently available cheap off peak charging rates and shown how for an average mileage driver these work out overall around the same as being in a standard variable tariff. 

EV enthusiasts almost invariably bring up the subject of how cheaply they can charge at home on a EV tariff while conveniently forgetting the daytime rate they pay is higher. 

Petriix

The fundamental point is that no-one is going to (in good conscience) recommend an EV as a cost saving to anyone who can't access cheap charging. If you can only charge at 34p per kWh (let alone 66p) then it would be a terrible idea right now. 

Any study more than 12 months old will be skewed by the previously available cheaper fixed tariffs that many people were on. I had no need for a cheaper overnight rate while my whole house was paying 10p per kWh.

Yes, we are in the minority on this forum, but we have the ability to disseminate helpful information to a wider audience by sharing our experience and knowledge rather than perpetuating the FUD by focusing on misleading generalisations and myths.

As ever, people should look at their own circumstances rather than these 'average' figures. People with off street parking, in areas with good smart meter signal, who don't regularly drive over 300 miles per day, should consider an EV as a likely cost saving measure. Other people may well be unlikely to save anything. These articles are absolutely misleading if they fail to convey such facts.

[edit: And as for more expensive daytime rates... People love to claim that a higher peak rate automatically increases your home electricity costs while ignoring the effect of load-shifting. On Octopus Intelligent, you only need to shift 20% of your home usage into the off-peak period and you've already broken even (on home usage alone); any more and you're actually saving vs th SVR. So this claim is yet more FUD.]

ComicGeek

JKenH said:

ComicGeek said:

JKenH said:

ComicGeek said:

No EV driver that I know pays 34p/kWh to charge at home, that's just lazy journalism (and even more lazy EV ownership if that's you!)

I haven't paid over 7.5p/kWh to charge our EVs (apart from one time I paid 28p/kWh at a public charger over a year ago, for a total of £13). 

It would seem that not everyone takes advantage of these tariffs. In fact from this research less than half of EV drivers have smart meters.

Only a quarter of EV drivers on time of use tariffs despite significant opportunity for savings

Research from Cornwall Insight has found only a quarter of private electric vehicle (EV) drivers have made the switch to lower priced time of use tariffs, despite many drivers seeing their household electricity demand double after making the switch to an EV.

Time of use tariffs – where p/kWh rates change through the day to reflect demand levels, grid constraints, and levels of renewable generation – have the potential to reduce the costs of transport decarbonisation across the industry. They provide consumers with the opportunity to shift charging to a lower priced, off-peak window, giving them the chance to make large savings compared to charging on a standard flat-rate tariff.  

On top of the quarter of EV drivers on time of use tariffs, a further 18% of EV drivers have smart meters installed (giving them access to time of use pricing) but are yet to take advantage of these tariffs. The remaining drivers are yet to have smart meters installed or have smart meters that are no longer operating in smart mode, so are currently locked out of time of use tariffs.

https://www.cornwall-insight.com/press/only-a-quarter-of-ev-drivers-on-time-of-use-tariffs-despite-significant-opportunity-for-savings/

Reading that article in more detail, it's only referring to circa 220,000 private EV drivers, so the assumption is that it doesn't include any of the company car EV drivers which would make up the vast majority of the over 750,000 EVs currently.

So that article only looks at less than 30% of EV usage, and probably only deals with the lower mileage vehicles then. At very low mileage then it probably doesn't make sense to use cheap off peak tariffs. So not anywhere near the 'less than half of EV drivers have smart meters' that you claim. 

 It isn’t actually stated in the article what constitutes a private electric vehicle. You have made an assumption that it excludes company cars. You may be right but we don’t know. It may simply mean a private vehicle which is electric. 

You have also compared the 220,000 with the current number of cars on the road - not the number at the time of the survey. 

Below is a link to the MSE advice regarding EV tariffs. In the comparisons made you will see that, allowing for the cost of charging your car for 160 miles a week or 8160 miles a year, your annual bill works out basically the same whether you are on a specialist EV tariff or a standard variable tariff. What you gain on charging your car you lose on the rest of your consumption. 

MSE also point out that there are a number of constraints regarding the availability of EV tariffs.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/ev-energy-tariffs/

The anti EV bashing is so tedious on here - fine, you don't personally like EVs, but trying to post every single one sided article is just wrong. And by the way, the Intelligent Octopus off peak elec rates have dropped by 25% since that out of date MSE page was posted. 

The idea that you would just change to an EV without also considering the rest of the home usage, and looking to move energy usage to different time periods, is crazy. That's the bit that people need additional support with. I currently manage to run 95% of our home electricity usage from off peak - that has been financed solely from savings from the EVs, no additional financing.

To be honest, I'm quite happy for no one else to realise the cost savings - the more that you discourage people to swap, the longer I keep my tax benefits as the government will have to keep providing incentives. All the while I save thousands each year.

Martyn1981

Petriix said:

The fundamental point is that no-one is going to (in good conscience) recommend an EV as a cost saving to anyone who can't access cheap charging. If you can only charge at 34p per kWh (let alone 66p) then it would be a terrible idea right now. 

Any study more than 12 months old will be skewed by the previously available cheaper fixed tariffs that many people were on. I had no need for a cheaper overnight rate while my whole house was paying 10p per kWh.

Yes, we are in the minority on this forum, but we have the ability to disseminate helpful information to a wider audience by sharing our experience and knowledge rather than perpetuating the FUD by focusing on misleading generalisations and myths.

As ever, people should look at their own circumstances rather than these 'average' figures. People with off street parking, in areas with good smart meter signal, who don't regularly drive over 300 miles per day, should consider an EV as a likely cost saving measure. Other people may well be unlikely to save anything. These articles are absolutely misleading if they fail to convey such facts.

[edit: And as for more expensive daytime rates... People love to claim that a higher peak rate automatically increases your home electricity costs while ignoring the effect of load-shifting. On Octopus Intelligent, you only need to shift 20% of your home usage into the off-peak period and you've already broken even (on home usage alone); any more and you're actually saving vs th SVR. So this claim is yet more FUD.]

True about the daytime rates. Even with PV it just didn't quite work for us to go onto an E7 type deal. We couldn't shift that much demand. But with an EV it's not only a large amount of leccy, but also a demand that can mostly be time shifted, in fact you pretty much want too.

But another major issue of stories like this, is that they are focusing on a point in time, in the case here of massive leccy price spikes, it's a very specific time period. In a few years Europe will have managed to reduce its leccy demand from gas by the amount lost from Russian imports and replacements from LNG imports. Note those LNG imports are still higher than the old gas price, but lower than the current spike prices, and will also in turn be removed as gas generation demand continues to fall. In fact we are already starting to see some small reductions.

This, I think, fits in with your first paragraph, and not recommending an EV during such turbulent times, rather than it being a permanent cost issue for EV's. Domestic leccy prices should go back to where they were, so perhaps 5-10p cheap rate and 18-20p day rate (but plus the impact of inflation during the time period). I'm not sure what the exact time period will be, but given the rollout of RE and heatpumps across Europe prior to the Ukrainian invasion, and the acceleration since, perhaps 5yrs from the start of the invasion? But that's a very rough guess.

Also, the charge rates for rapid chargers vary too, again having spiked. Tesla currently charges around 40p to 42p per kWh* (plus about 5p to 7p more between 4pm and 8pm) for it's chargers, though I appreciate that non-Tesla drivers have to pay more for using the service. They've recently been cutting prices (as leccy prices fall) all over Europe. Also street/rapid chargers include 20% VAT, not the domestic 5% rate.

*That's just a quick check on my phone app, looking at about 10 supercharger locations across S. Wales and the M4 corridor. So other locations may be more (or less) I don't know.

JKenH

ComicGeek said:

JKenH said:

ComicGeek said:

JKenH said:

ComicGeek said:

No EV driver that I know pays 34p/kWh to charge at home, that's just lazy journalism (and even more lazy EV ownership if that's you!)

I haven't paid over 7.5p/kWh to charge our EVs (apart from one time I paid 28p/kWh at a public charger over a year ago, for a total of £13). 

It would seem that not everyone takes advantage of these tariffs. In fact from this research less than half of EV drivers have smart meters.

Only a quarter of EV drivers on time of use tariffs despite significant opportunity for savings

Research from Cornwall Insight has found only a quarter of private electric vehicle (EV) drivers have made the switch to lower priced time of use tariffs, despite many drivers seeing their household electricity demand double after making the switch to an EV.

Time of use tariffs – where p/kWh rates change through the day to reflect demand levels, grid constraints, and levels of renewable generation – have the potential to reduce the costs of transport decarbonisation across the industry. They provide consumers with the opportunity to shift charging to a lower priced, off-peak window, giving them the chance to make large savings compared to charging on a standard flat-rate tariff.  

On top of the quarter of EV drivers on time of use tariffs, a further 18% of EV drivers have smart meters installed (giving them access to time of use pricing) but are yet to take advantage of these tariffs. The remaining drivers are yet to have smart meters installed or have smart meters that are no longer operating in smart mode, so are currently locked out of time of use tariffs.

https://www.cornwall-insight.com/press/only-a-quarter-of-ev-drivers-on-time-of-use-tariffs-despite-significant-opportunity-for-savings/

Reading that article in more detail, it's only referring to circa 220,000 private EV drivers, so the assumption is that it doesn't include any of the company car EV drivers which would make up the vast majority of the over 750,000 EVs currently.

So that article only looks at less than 30% of EV usage, and probably only deals with the lower mileage vehicles then. At very low mileage then it probably doesn't make sense to use cheap off peak tariffs. So not anywhere near the 'less than half of EV drivers have smart meters' that you claim. 

 It isn’t actually stated in the article what constitutes a private electric vehicle. You have made an assumption that it excludes company cars. You may be right but we don’t know. It may simply mean a private vehicle which is electric. 

You have also compared the 220,000 with the current number of cars on the road - not the number at the time of the survey. 

Below is a link to the MSE advice regarding EV tariffs. In the comparisons made you will see that, allowing for the cost of charging your car for 160 miles a week or 8160 miles a year, your annual bill works out basically the same whether you are on a specialist EV tariff or a standard variable tariff. What you gain on charging your car you lose on the rest of your consumption. 

MSE also point out that there are a number of constraints regarding the availability of EV tariffs.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/ev-energy-tariffs/

The anti EV bashing is so tedious on here - fine, you don't personally like EVs, but trying to post every single one sided article is just wrong. And by the way, the Intelligent Octopus off peak elec rates have dropped by 25% since that out of date MSE page was posted. 

The idea that you would just change to an EV without also considering the rest of the home usage, and looking to move energy usage to different time periods, is crazy. That's the bit that people need additional support with. I currently manage to run 95% of our home electricity usage from off peak - that has been financed solely from savings from the EVs, no additional financing.

To be honest, I'm quite happy for no one else to realise the cost savings - the more that you discourage people to swap, the longer I keep my tax benefits as the government will have to keep providing incentives. All the while I save thousands each year.

And of course your submissions are more balanced. Who is bashing EVs? You obviously haven’t read many of my posts in the past. 

This was me 3 years ago. I love driving EVs; I just got fed up of the charging infrastructure - not EVs. If you last did public charging over a year ago when it was 28p/kWh it won’t be a problem you are familiar with.