Electricity Cost Vs Petrol Cost for PHEV

[adamtoonarmy]

By my reckoning, a 30% rise in energy prices this autumn and a further 30% in early 2023 (this is quite conservative estimate by according to some) will see my cheapest running option to be HV mode (assuming fuel prices stay where they are now and they are falling at the minute)

Im on a standard tariff with British Gas at 27p per KW/h with no option for an EV rate. I can switch to another company and get an EV rate though but this puts my overall bill up by £thousands so obviously Im not doing that.

As more people end up on standard electricity tariffs could we end up in a position where we are all choosing to run around using petrol instead of electricity as its cheaper?

If so then how bonkers is that......

 

[Hybrid21]

There's also the fact that people have paid to have charging points installed at their homes, I'm now on the standard tariff with EDF and it's frightening 😨

[Mike2222]

The depressing reality is that petrol & diesel prices are unlikely to stay static or significantly fall alongside rising electricity prices, for the simply fact that electricity prices are tied to natural gas prices, and my understanding is that most refineries run on gas (plus need to keep the lights on etc!), so the end cost to the consumer will need to go up commensurately if energy prices keep rising. 

 

This is entirely seperate from the various geopolitical events that have impacted the fossil fuel markets in recent years. 

 

So the only deductions one can realistically make are that the cost per mile to use any vehicle is going to continue to rise, and anyone who installed solar panels in recent years before all the covid/semiconductor/Ukraine crises is probably going to get a better/faster return on their investment than previously expected! 

[philip42h]

This has all seemed a bit inevitable to me - I have never believed that an EV would be more economical to run in the longer term and special EV tariffs are just an inducement to encourage folk to switch that won't last.

However, at current fuel prices of around £2 a litre the RAV4 will cost around 20p per mile to run (HEV or PHEV).

At 3 miles per kWh (approximately) and 27p per kWh the PHEV will come in at around 9p per mile to run. PHEVies can argue about exactly how efficient their cars are ... 😉 Even when the cost rises to 45p per kWh that's still only 15p per mile as an EV as opposed to 20p per mile as a hybrid. And you get 300 bhp and rocket-ship performance (so quit complaining 😁)

Electricity would need to rise to around 60p per kWh to achieve parity with petrol - and that assumes that petrol remains where it is - and if that were to happen folk would have quite a lot more to worry about rather than just the cost of motoring ...

 

[Mike2222]

28 minutes ago, philip42h said:

At 3 miles per kWh (approximately)

This is an accurate estimation for me over last 4months (car delivered March 2022), over relatively hilly terrain usually. 

 

29 minutes ago, philip42h said:

and if that were to happen folk would have quite a lot more to worry about rather than just the cost of motoring ...

Also a very accurate estimation 😱! 

[marlinleg]

This will not help anyone I remember when 1 gallon of petrol 4.5 litres was 2shillings and 6pence thats 12 1/2pence 😵‍💫

[Hornet3D]

At least present users have the option in a few years time when both petrol and diesel cars are banned electric car owners will be stuck with only electric and who knows where the price is going to be by then.  I am not against electric cars and would love to be able to afford one but I do think we would be better off phasing the change over by allowing hybrids to be available for a lot more years yet.   It would give manufacturers longer to extend the range and thus ease the stress of range worries and would allow the energy companies longer to make changes to the national grid to accommodate the extra demand.

[Hornet3D]

2 minutes ago, marlinleg said:

This will not help anyone I remember when 1 gallon of petrol 4.5 litres was 2shillings and 6pence thats 12 1/2pence 😵‍💫

Not quite as bad but I do remember having a second job working in a petrol station and having the discussion with customers that petrol prices could reach £1 a gallon by the end of the year.

[marlinleg]

👍

[Cyker]

IIRC my Yaris was actually cheaper to run than my mate's Tesla on Superchargers before the petrol prices shot up (Home and destination chargers were muuuch cheaper tho'); It'd be interesting to see as petrol comes down and electricity goes up whether I'll overtake him again  

It would require me to drive a bit less 'enthusiastically' tho'...  

But this is why I consider home charging to be essential if you want to own an EV, otherwise you're barely saving any money; Public chargers are already ridiculously expensive - 30p/kWh is considered cheap now, and with electricity price hikes will likely be going up - 60-70p/kWh is already fairly common if you are using contactless or are not a member of that particular charging network.

This is the dilemma at the moment as it seems Toyota will be focussing on shorter-range rapid-charging EVs, whereas my goal is to never ever use a Public charger except on exceptionally long road trips.

A real-world 300 miles range at motorway speeds would get me to 90% of the places I care to go to and back with enough buffer for the inevitable Smart Motorway closure and detour, without having to divert far out of my way to charge in some dodgy desolate charging station for an hour at 2 in the morning!

 

[kucyk]

It sucks but what we can do. It's still around 3 times cheaper to run this car on EV vs average SUV with ICE, so you would need 300% increase in electricity bill to make it even. And to be honest, even if the price was the same, I would still choose EV as it's fun to drive.

[Cyker]

Yeah it's more beneficial for the SUVs as they are far less efficient on petrol than cars, but when you get up to the 70-80mpg mark like the Yarisusueesises do it's a lot closer!

[Hayzee]

2 hours ago, philip42h said:

Electricity would need to rise to around 60p per kWh to achieve parity with petrol - and that assumes that petrol remains where it is - and if that were to happen folk would have quite a lot more to worry about rather than just the cost of motoring ...

 

 

Looks like the energy price cap may increase by as much as 70% by 1st Q 2023. Current UK average cost per Kwh is 28p. We don't know the disposition of that 70% so if we say same for gas and electricity the average cost per Kwh might be around 47p. Looking at any fixed 12 month deals available at the moment the cost is around 50p per Kwh. We can only hope it starts to come down next year, but we have no way of knowing. Will be interesting to see how the price of petrol tracks over the same timeline.

[Cyker]

Yeesh, and I used to complain it was expensive at ~17p/kWh vs my gas at 7p/kWh!!!  

Edit: Hmm I just worked out my Mk4 is about 9-10p/mile...

[philip42h]

2 hours ago, Cyker said:

Yeah it's more beneficial for the SUVs as they are far less efficient on petrol than cars, but when you get up to the 70-80mpg mark like the Yarisusueesises do it's a lot closer!

1 hour ago, Cyker said:

Hmm I just worked out my Mk4 is about 9-10p/mile...

You obviously get rather cheaper petrol than many of us ...

Using my £2 per litre figure with your 75 mpg figure would make the cost of running your Yaris hybrid to be 12p per mile. Which is 60% of the equivalent cost of running a RAV4 hybrid.

If we scale that up by engine size - 1.5 for the Yaris, 2.5 for the RAV4 - we get back to 20p per mile for the RAV4. So, 60% of the cost for 60% of the car - seems fair enough to me! 😉

[Composite Guru]

I do roughly 10k miles a year. 

Personally I will be worse off buying a brand new EV than a brand new hybrid. 
 

If I was doing 20k then the EV would probably be more cost effective. Looking at the way electric prices are rising and the potential for road pricing for EVs then I don’t think it would take much to tip the balance. 

[Cyker]

47 minutes ago, philip42h said:

You obviously get rather cheaper petrol than many of us ...

Using my £2 per litre figure with your 75 mpg figure would make the cost of running your Yaris hybrid to be 12p per mile. Which is 60% of the equivalent cost of running a RAV4 hybrid.

If we scale that up by engine size - 1.5 for the Yaris, 2.5 for the RAV4 - we get back to 20p per mile for the RAV4. So, 60% of the cost for 60% of the car - seems fair enough to me! 😉

Are you really paying £2/L for *petrol*??? Diesel yes, but petrol?? Ouch!

I've only seen those sorts of prices for petrol at motorway services, which is to be expected, but in normal towns and cities I've rarely seen it go north of 1.90 at even the most expensive fuel stations; I think my highest fill was 186.9p/L, but it's been falling (thank smeg!) and there are even a few stations which are sub 180p/L (e.g. the Texaco on the A406, which is 179.9p/L at time of typing!)

[philip42h]

49 minutes ago, Cyker said:

Are you really paying £2/L for *petrol*???

No, and yes ... I just picked the £2 figure for simple comparative purposes - it's the right sort of order for the times we live in.

And, yes, I've ended up paying over £2 a litre for E5 - for the garden tools. Around here E10 comes out at about £1.90 ...

[Cyker]

Well it was your comment about me having much cheaper petrol than 'many of us' - If you're going to pick an arbitrarily high figure then of course it's going to be more!!  It's like EV people saying how cheap their car is to run then you find out it's because they have 5 acres of solar panels and 4 Powerwalls... not really a fair scenario!

190.9 is about the average high-water mark as it were, but most places are cheaper - Don't worry I'm sure it'll start coming down for you too...??

[Composite Guru]

2 hours ago, Cyker said:

Are you really paying £2/L for *petrol*??? Diesel yes, but petrol?? Ouch!

I've only seen those sorts of prices for petrol at motorway services, which is to be expected, but in normal towns and cities I've rarely seen it go north of 1.90 at even the most expensive fuel stations; I think my highest fill was 186.9p/L, but it's been falling (thank smeg!) and there are even a few stations which are sub 180p/L (e.g. the Texaco on the A406, which is 179.9p/L at time of typing!)

I’m paying 1.96 for 99 octane in Milton Keynes at the mo. 
I refuse to buy E10. It’s useless. Get far more mpg out of higher octane fuel. It’s more cost effective. 

[Cyker]

A few people have that opinion; The 'super' fuels are generally of better quality and more additives, but almost all of them have less energy per litre than lower grades so the only way the engine could get more mpg out of it is if it is high compression, turbo-charged or otherwise tuned for high octane (Which none of the hybrid engines are) or your fuel system needed cleaning (One of the reasons they have less energy per litre is they have more cleaning additives per litre, as well as octane boosters etc.)

My trials of Shell V-Power petrol vs Sainsburys E10 showed no discernible difference in performance or economy, likely as the car is too new to have any significant buildup of deposits. I have been finding the car has done slightly better on the 1 and a half tanks of Texaco E10 in the current tank, but a lot of that was used to get us to RIAT and back so not representative of my normal journey - As that is still the cheapest fuel (amusingly) I'll spend a bit more time with it to see how well it does...!

 

[Rosgoe]

When I had the auris I used either v power or esso supreme as I was never a high mileage driver so never noticed the extra expense. However since I have had the corolla and the high cost of E5 I am now using E10 and I have to say as cyker has said I have not noticed any deterioration in performance or fuel economy.

The other thing is since I had the corolla from September 2020 I have struggled to get it do do 60 mpg average always was around 56 to 58 just lately it has leapt up to 65 mpg now is that due to this warmer weather or the fact that I dosed the last tank full with redex fuel system cleaner I doubt it is anything to do with the fuel cleaner I wonder is there something wrong with the average fuel read out. I will fill up when due and cross check it and I suspect it will be nearer to 55 to 60 mpg.

[Composite Guru]

45 minutes ago, Cyker said:

A few people have that opinion; The 'super' fuels are generally of better quality and more additives, but almost all of them have less energy per litre than lower grades so the only way the engine could get more mpg out of it is if it is high compression, turbo-charged or otherwise tuned for high octane (Which none of the hybrid engines are) or your fuel system needed cleaning (One of the reasons they have less energy per litre is they have more cleaning additives per litre, as well as octane boosters etc.)

My trials of Shell V-Power petrol vs Sainsburys E10 showed no discernible difference in performance or economy, likely as the car is too new to have any significant buildup of deposits. I have been finding the car has done slightly better on the 1 and a half tanks of Texaco E10 in the current tank, but a lot of that was used to get us to RIAT and back so not representative of my normal journey - As that is still the cheapest fuel (amusingly) I'll spend a bit more time with it to see how well it does...!

 

I’m the complete opposite. I’ve experimented with Tesco 99 and the E10. 
I do the same drive everyday through the week and clock the trip counter when I do it. I get at least 40 miles more out of 99 to the E10. 

[philip42h]

6 hours ago, Cyker said:

Yeah it's more beneficial for the SUVs as they are far less efficient on petrol than cars, but when you get up to the 70-80mpg mark like the Yarisusueesises do it's a lot closer!

6 hours ago, Cyker said:

Hmm I just worked out my Mk4 is about 9-10p/mile...

1 hour ago, Cyker said:

Well it was your comment about me having much cheaper petrol than 'many of us' 

So, on the basis of 75 mpg and 9.5p / mile (both averages of your figures) you'd be paying around £1.58 per litre - which I haven't seen for quite a while and is certainly much cheaper than many of us are paying ... 😉

[Cyker]

Hmm, that's embarrassing, I think I did the calculation using US gallons instead of imperial...!  

With imperial it comes to 11-12p/mile... I think??