By Robert Donnan, McMurray, Washington County

With electric vehicles (EVs) a fast-growing part of everyday transportation around the world, I wanted to share my personal experiences and opinions on driving a Chevy Bolt EV over 32,000 miles during the past 4 years, mostly in western Pennsylvania.

Yesterday [July 1], GM sent their monthly report on our 2019 Chevy Bolt, so let’s begin with their numbers, followed by my personal interpretations.

EV – 3.3 Cents/Mile

My June 2023 Chevy Bolt EV efficiency report shows my electricity cost for the month was equal to 3.3 cents/mile.

The details—708 miles of driving used 163 kWh of electricity at my local cost of $23.50 with a per gallon equivalent of 147 miles per gallon.

VW Jetta – 13.2 Cents/Mile

Compare this to our VW Jetta 1.4L driving 708 miles which would use 26 gallons of gasoline at $3.60 per gallon (local cost) or $93.60  equaling 13.2 cents/mile or four times as much.

Our June savings: Electric Vehicle (EV) vs Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) = $70.10

Solar Energy Advantage

Actually, our savings are greater since over half the kilowatt hours (kWh) came from our rooftop solar panels, increasing our June savings to well over $100 and that’s just regarding the ‘fuel cost’ savings of our EV over the ICE.

Lifetime savings

Our four-year comparison between these same two 2019 vehicles shows these savings--

-- Oil changes $650 / Emission tests $164 = $814

-- The same insurance coverage on the Bolt is 3% cheaper than the Jetta = $113

-- Gasoline avoided: 1,185 gallons = Lifetime savings guesstimate: $6,000

-- Considering both sticker prices and US/PA incentives:

        -- Since the Bolt’s cost was $5,400 more than the Jetta, the actual savings estimate is: $600

        -- If we had gotten the full $7,500 ITC instead of our the reduced $3,750 half-credit, our savings could have been $4,350 at his point in time

GM estimates indicate our Bolt saved--

--1,401 gallons of gasoline (even more than my 27 MPG Jetta comparison)

--26,983 lbs. of carbon dioxide (CO2) avoided

Additional Comments

-- My insurance analysis is quite revealing, since it debunks the ‘spin’ (at least in our personal realm) that EV insurance rates are higher than Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles. In our case, the EV insurance is 3-percent less expensive than our ICE.

-- Range anxiety for us is non-existent, since 90-percent of our driving is local, with the remaining 10-percent on local highways and interstates.

Home charging with a Level 2 charger (adding about 25-miles of range per hour) when the EV isn’t being driven, solves those range concerns and keeps our charging costs low, especially with our rooftop solar array providing a large portion of that electricity.

Cold weather does limit EV range, partly due to cold weather lithium battery characteristics, as well as electric space heating of the passenger compartment, while summer AC is far less of a power draw, and warmer temperatures are more favorable to battery storage capacity.

-- Lithium battery fires draw widespread media attention, but the statistics I’ve seen in multiple places show that even though EV fires are far more intense, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are over 50-times less likely to experience a fire than gasoline-powered ICE vehicles.

With that being said, we do follow recommendations to charge our EV more often, while maintaining the battery between a 30-percent and 80-percent charge, and only charging to 100-percent right before longer trips.

You will see similar recommendations for other lithium batteries, like the ones on rechargeable lawn and garden tools.

Statistics seen in news reports: “Hybrid-powered cars were involved in about 3,475 fires per every 100,000 sold. Gasoline-powered cars, about 1,530. Electric vehicles (EVs) saw just 25 fires per 100,000 sold.”

-- Pennsylvania’s proposed registration fee increase for EVs from the current $45 to $290 is excessive, considering my actual EV driving analysis of our 8,000 miles per year.

News reports indicate $290 would be the highest in the US.

My analysis shows that for us, somewhere between $200 and $225 would be fair, basing that on our annual EV miles driven and vehicle weight.

In Pennsylvania’s new plan, mileage could be recorded during annual state inspections, along with a weight class consideration (since EVs are heavier) as currently done with trucks and trailers.

That would be the fairest overall, with both mileage and weight class (our Bolt weighs about 3,500 lbs) included, as with my $200-$225 conclusion.

An excessive EV registration fee won’t come anywhere close to solving the huge Pennsylvania deficits for repairing and maintaining our roads and bridges, and rest assured, ICE vehicles are next in line for similar road use cost increases.

-- One pedal driving with an EV is awesome, greatly easing daily drives, especially in traffic; saving on expensive brake replacement costs, and recharging the battery in the process of slowing the vehicle down more quickly… as soon as your foot comes off the accelerator, the vehicle is braking, greatly improving response times.

-- Quiet & Smooth would best describe our EV driving experience! And the combination of rooftop solar with driving an EV, could also get your annual home electricity costs (that includes both the house and charging your EV) down to $ 212.14, as was our total for 2022.

Robert Donnan is a retired landscape contractor with a Penn State education in horticulture.

NewsClips:

-- WESA: PA’s Transition To Electric Cars Is Going Just OK - New Report

-- Post-Gazette - Anya Litvak: The Battery Push That Got Pittsburgh-Based Matthews International Into Tesla’s Electric Cars

-- PittsburghUnionProgress.com: Truckers File Suit To Stop PA From Using California Clean Air Standards

Related Articles:

-- PJM Interconnection Announces New Project Evaluation Process Begins July 10; More Than 260,000 MW Of Mostly Renewable Projects In Queue [PaEN]

-- PJM Interconnection Issues Hot Weather Alert For Entire Electrical Grid Footprint for July 5   [PaEN]

-- PA-based Evangelical Environmental Network Blog: Caring For Our ‘Garden Of Ed’ - Solar Energy Benefits For Pennsylvania - By Julian Burnett, PosiGen Solar & Energy Efficiency  [PaEN]

-- Feature: Comparing The Cost Of Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles versus Electric Vehicles: Which One Is Right For You? - By Robert Donnan, McMurray, Washington County   [PaEN]

[Posted: July 3, 2023]

7/10/2023