brian said:
Yeah the MPGe thing is complete crap, and the EPA should be ashamed of themselves for that one, but I don't think the 67mpg is an MPGe number. I think that's a more real-world number based on their "average" driving of electric and then gas. Still, it's a totally fictional number since it will vary from person to person.
For me, I'll be lucky if I can make a round trip anywhere here in Austin just on electric alone. With the A/C blasting and my somewhat aggressive driving style I doubt I'll get even 30 miles on a charge, so I'll get 30 free miles and then whatever the remainder is at the ~26mpg when the generator kicks in. So, if I do 40 miles a day, 30 are free, and 10 are gas, so...
40 miles / 0.38 gallons = 105 mpg for me, weee!
-Brian[hr]
Oh, and the reason I say that "MPGe" is crap is not only because it's an entirely misleading number for the customer and that it means nothing since gas prices fluctuate so much, but it's also because it doesn't take into account that the battery itself is a consumable item. I've said this before, but if you really do the proper math, it costs much more per mile to drive an electric car than a petrol car. I used to use the Tesla as an example:
If you really do get 100k miles out of a Tesla battery which, let's just say costs $20,000 to replace when the time comes (it's currently much more and only has 50% charge capacity @ 100k miles but let's ignore that), then that actually comes out to 20 cents PER MILE in battery cost alone. Tack on, let's say 5 cents for the electricity and you're talking 25 cents per mile to operate a Tesla. Now compare that with my gas guzzling Aston Martin which gets 17.5mpg on Super Unleaded at $3.80/gallon. That's only 22 cents per mile.
So, as the saying goes... nobody buys an electric car to save money. We do it for environmental / political reasons and because it's cool.
-Brian
BTW, I don't think that $0.20/mile is fair either though. You are making the assumption that at mile 100,000, you buy yourself a brand new battery and then instantly trade the car in. That's not realistic. You'd likely do one of two things: a.) Drive it to 99,999 and trade it in, or b.) Replace the battery and drive it to 199,999. The math is obviously different under those two scenarios.
It also doesn't take into account that there are many things (like fuel filters, fuel injectors, etc.) that can go on a gas engine far before 100,000 miles and that inflates the cost of a gas powered engine. I don't think that electric engines are cheap for a second, but trying to even estimate any kind of cost/mile is tough.
I actually don't blame the EPA too much. I think they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. In the end, they are just trying to give the public some way of comparing apples to apples across multiple engine platforms. It's not an easy task by any imagination, and leaving the dealers and public to their own devices (i.e. not developing a standard) is just asking for trouble...