Motorists can save as much as $14,500 on fuel costs over 15 years by driving an electric vehicle (EV) instead of a similar one fueled by gasoline, according to a new analysis conducted by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL).
Previous studies assumed a singular value for the cost to charge an EV, but this new work provides an unprecedented state-level assessment of the cost of EV charging that considers when, where and how a vehicle is charged, and considers thousands of electricity retail tariffs and real-world charging equipment and installation costs. The cost of charging is compared against the price of gasoline to estimate total fuel cost savings over a vehicle’s lifetime.
“Finding out the purchase price of a vehicle is relatively simple, but the savings related to fuel aren’t readily available, especially since electricity cost varies greatly for different locations and charging options,” says Matteo Muratori, a senior systems engineer at NREL and co-author of the article, “Levelized Cost of Charging Electric Vehicles in the United States.”
Read the article at NGT News.
