Re: Anyone Here Driving a Hybrid yet?



The electricity IS cheaper than gas (usually less than 1/3 the
price)

Based on what ratio of KWH:Galons equivalency?


Present gas and electricity prices.

US prices or the rest of the world? You're in the UK aren't you? You pay
like $10 / litre? vs. the US $2.69 / gal?

And again what KWH to gallon of gas equivalence?


No, I'm in the US. Check out this site.
http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf It claims around $0.03 per mile for
electricity ($0.09 per KWH), and about $0.139 per mile for gasoline ($2.50
per gallon @ 18 mpg). If you would rather, how about a car that gets 30 mpg
at $2.75 per gallon. I like those numbers because it's pretty close to the
1/3rd that I estimated.

That is hardly any proof of what you proposed. How about my car which
gets 50 mpg? At $2.80 for gasoline that yields ~$0.056/mile. And at
$0.11/kwh your electric car will cost me ~$0.04/mi(per the referenced
chart).

Now, all of this is just operating costs. Factor in maintenance
costs, purchase price, insurance, etc; and my little gas car will beat
you cost per mile by a a wide margin. The TCO I came up with about a
year ago for a Hybrid was ~$0.55/mile. TCO for my little Geo:
$0.11/mile. Not even close.

This does factor in my ability to maintain a slightly older car, my
annual mileage, driving style, etc. This will be different for others.
If you can't service the vehicle yourself maintenance costs will
become more significant. With a larger percentage of city driving,
overall mpg will be different. Local effects on insurance may be
important.

From a PURELY energy conversion standpoint:
1 gallon of gasahol(e10) = ~125k BTU
1 kwh of electricity = 3412 BTU

So 1 gallon of gas is ~36.5 kwh. Given the National avg of electricity
is $0.079 that yields an equivilent price of $2.88/gal. Pretty much
spot on with the current avg price for fuel.

Now granted there are different efficiencies with how that energy is
used, and varying markets will lend towards one or the other better. I
expect EV would be more useful in the southwest(stronger sun load, and
less need for supplemental heating). In the northeast, I think it
would be difficult to justify an EV.

JW

.

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