American Thinker
comment:
I've done this type of comparisons before on this blog. My opinion is a lot more friendly to electric cars, but there is still a problem. Particularly with the battery powered vehicles, like the Tesla and the Volt.
The author's analysis is probably a bit off because it is an apples-to-oranges comparison. This is two different kinds of locomotion and how they'll stack up is going to depend a lot upon other factors not taken into account.
An example is to include the cost of replacing a battery. Since the battery is expensive in a vehicle like this, this adds a great deal to the cost per mile calculation. The second example is the resale cost after 150k miles. It is deemed by this author that the Tesla may not have much of a resale value after 150k miles, but if the battery is good for 8 years, then replacing it at 8 leaves 6 more years of service left. That should increase the resale value of the car, especially since it should be more economical to drive. Finally, some other costs are not considered, like repair costs. It is assumed that there wouldn't be any repair costs to gas-powered engines---oil changes, tune-ups, emission repairs, etc.
Another unrelated thought: since coal powered energy is the cheapest, and since the Obama administration is closing down coal powered plants, he is effectively raising the cost of energy that is required to operate an electric vehicle. This won't help keep costs down. It is counter productive, in other words. They would possibly sell more electric cars if they keep energy prices as low as possible---which they won't do, oddly enough.
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3 comments:
Except that the author made gross math errors. The Volt's cost per mile is AT WORST 9 cents; the author used 24 cents. For the 40 mpg "economy" gas car he miscalculated again to give it 4 cents per mile; in fact that should have been ten cents, and 40 mpg is the highway rating for the typical economy car; the combine rating is more like 33 mpg or 11 cents per mile (using $3.49/gal reg gas). So the Volt is actually 2 to 7 cents cheaper to operate than an economy car, depend upon the driving pattern. The Volt also now costs just $27,495 to buy. The 5 year cost of ownership of a Volt is therefor less than MOST inferior driving and less equipped economy cars. Look it up on edmunds. It is now actually cheaper to drive electric and no amount of bad math can change that fact.
Mark,
Looks like the author did make a mistake. He went from 270 range for the Volt down to 170. I think that was a typo. Plus, it looks like he double charged on the battery amortization. It comes with the battery at the factory, so amortizing it already occurs in the price of the car itself. He counts that as an extra cost, which it is clearly not.
The author is biased against electric cars, no doubt.
Hi Greg,
An update: There were at least 7 glaring calculation and/or data errors in the piece, and the author and editor were contacted about them, and the piece has just been taken down by the site voluntarily...with the correct data, it appears to shown that the Chevy Volt would actually save the average driver at least $7500 to as much as $12,500 or more in 10 years over an economy gas car (an inferior driving/handling $20k Chevy Cruze Eco for example) This is the truth that big oil doesn't want the masses to know, and biased pawns like the author play right in to. Thanks for your response and helping to correct this deeply flawed story, which unfortunately quickly propagated to many sites like yours.
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