We’ve just completed our third month of using the Blink Level 2 chargers. During the month of January 2013, I returned to normal commuting with no trips of extraordinary length.
In December 2012, I had pretty much decided that unless the Blink chargers were free (they were), then the payback time for the incremental increase in electric driving I would get, over using the 110V charger that came with the car, was just too long to justify. But to keep you apprised of how my electric driving percentage has progressed, I present the following update:
Here are the givens, based on my actual mileage (from my spreadsheet) from October 8th until today:
- My miles per kilowatt hour have been averaging 4.12 (was 4.18 the previous month, but it’s been getting cold!… Well, cold for Texas)
- My miles per gallon have been averaging 37.4 (was 38.1 the previous month, but that included two long trips where MPG was boosted by long, cruise control drives)
- Currently, premium gasoline is $3.30 per gallon and regular is $3.00
- My electricity cost is locked in for a year at $0.10725 per kilowatt hour.
In January, I drove 1,423 miles. Of those, 1,277 were powered by electricity and only 146 were gasoline-powered. Since the Level 2 chargers were installed (three months ago), I have driven 3,571 miles on electricity and 785 on gasoline. The chargers make it easy to see what the total cost of electricity was for the previous month and, you know me, I have been keeping track of that:
- November 2012: $35.68,
- December 2012: $39.33
- January 2013: $44.03 (see how the cold is affecting the cost of driving?)
That’s $119.04 for 3,571 miles of electric driving. The 785 miles powered by gasoline cost $69.26. The total cost of driving 4,356 miles has been $188.30. My Lexus ES300 got 22 MPG, on regular gas, so the same number of miles would have cost $594.00 (4,356 / 22 X $3.00). That’s a savings of $405.70, spread over 3 months! Let’s apply that savings to my monthly lease payment on the Volt ($330.07), in order to understand my total cost of ownership, compared to my previous car. The average saved per month is $135.23 ($594.00 / 3).
$330.07 – $135.23 = $194.84. In other words, compared to driving my Lexus (which was paid off) and buying gasoline, versus driving my Volt, using 79% electricity and 21% gasoline, results in an additional expenditure of $194.84 per month for my family. It’s as if my Volt’s monthly lease payment is only $194.84! That’s amazing for a car of this quality. When I was making payments on my Lexus, they were $452.23. It’s true I was buying the Lexus (over a 5-1/2 year period) versus leasing my Volt (over a 3 year period), but I think the comparison is valid. Believe it or not, people still tell me they’ll consider purchasing an EV, “when the prices come down.”
At the end of October (before Blinks were installed), my Volt had the following mileage stats:
- 3532 Electric Miles
- 4641 Total Miles
- For all the miles driven, at that point, 76% of the miles were powered by electricity, instead of gas.
At the end of December, my Volt had the following mileage stats:
- 5826 Electric Miles
- 7574 Total Miles
At the end of January, my Volt had the following mileage stats:
- 7103 Electric Miles
- 8997 Total Miles
That’s 90% electric driving for the month of January! That’s what I was expecting to see, when we installed the Blink chargers. The advantage of the Level 2 chargers is that, when I end my commute and the battery is depleted, with just one hour of charging, I can have 10 more miles of electric range available for errands. Those errands, before the Blink chargers we installed, were run on gasoline.
For all the miles driven so far, 79% of the miles were powered by electricity, instead of gas. (before the Blink units, my average was 76%, so the Blinks have helped, especially if you consider the two long gas-powered drives back in December.
This month, I am driving from the Dallas/Fort Worth area to Chicago for the Chicago Auto Show, a trip of over 2,000 miles. Obviously, most of this will be powered by gasoline and my electric percentage will drop precipitously. I’ll have detailed stats, of course, once I return.
