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19:28 GMT

Are Electric Cars Worth It?

While reading Engadget we came across a post about a car called Think. This is just one of many recently announced electric car projects and we've always wondered.. but how much does it cost to 'fuel it up?' The press on this car (Forbes and the Intl. Herald Trib. have written about it) is very light in this regard, though for the Think we did see a mention of 3c per mile. Well that's at least a start but we are chronic cynics and needed to calculate this for our self.

Using the technical specs available on the Think website, we see that a full charge requires 10 hours of 230 VAC at 14 Amps. This works out to be 32,200 watt hours or 32.2 KiloWatt hours in common units of electricity use. In our area of the Northeast US, 16 cents per KWH is common (though we are told the unweighted national average is about 10c) which equates to $5.15 per complete charge. The Think is said to have a range of 111.85 miles (180Km) for a cost per mile of $0.046. Sounds cheap so far.

Lets compare to a gas powered car getting 40 mpg - there aren't many but they are available. And to make the comparison fair, in addition to the electric bill, we have to add in the "mobility charge". What's that you say? In order to make the purchase price of the Think more attractive, Think has decided to in effect lease the owner the most expensive part, the battery. This runs about $300/month in Europe but is expected to drop closer to $100 as production ramps up. For this analysis, lets go with $150/month.

A typical light driving commuter - to the train station and back 5 days a week and errands on the weekend or someone living in the city driving a few miles a day, 7,500 miles per year is typical (and usually the lowest usage on insurance policies). For this driver, the traditional, high mpg gas car would cost 187.50 gallons, or $750 per year at $4.00/gallon. The Think will run (in the Northeast) about $350 in electricity cost but an additional $1,800 per year in battery fees for a total $2,150 or nearly 3X the operating cost of the gas powered car. Stretching this out to a more common 15,000 miles per year, the Think would run $2,500 total while that old fashioned car comes in at $1,500. The break even comes about 32,500 miles per year! -more-
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