Study says EV charging can exceed costs of fueling costs:

The study has four major findings:

  • There are four additional costs to powering EVs beyond electricity: cost of a home charger, commercial charging, the EV tax and “deadhead” miles.
  • For now, EVs cost more to power than gasoline costs to fuel an internal combustion car that gets reasonable gas mileage.
  • Charging costs vary more widely than gasoline prices.
  • There are significant time costs to finding reliable public chargers – even then a charger could take 30 minutes to go from 20% to an 80% charge.

Source: Which is more expensive: charging an electric vehicle or fueling a car with gas?

Specifically, they have included the costs of adding charging stations at home, the costs of additional taxes on EVs (my state charges EVs several hundred dollars per year that is not charged to ICE vehicles, to make up for loss of gas taxes), and the costs and time of driving extra distances to find commercial charging stations, and then waiting for a suitable charge to complete.

Other studies have found that EV maintenance costs much less than ICE vehicles. There are no engine tune ups, oil changes, gasket changes, spark plug changes, and EV mechanical parts are simpler than ICE vehicles.

If I had an EV, my home and local charging cost would be zero since our solar PV array already produces sufficient power annually for all local driving activities.

With a few exceptions, most existing EVs would not be suitable for the type of cross country driving I am prone to do, but all would work well for local and regional travel. I live in the eastern half of Oregon where it can be 100+ miles between very limited charging stations, for example. A day’s drive to a common destination to our east is about 12 hours of ICE driving today – throw in a couple of EV charging stops (at least) and it likely becomes 14 hours of driving, putting it in the realm of not being safe due to fatigue.

Future EVs may have 400-500 mile ranges and faster charging options. Probably see these among more makers by about 2025.

Coldstreams