Modern cars can be powered not only by internal combustion engines. It is true that modern electric and hybrid vehicles are not yet extremely popular, but their sales are growing every year. Are you wondering if buying an electric car is worth it?
In this article, you'll find out:
Hybrid or electric car?
How much does it cost to charge an electric car?
Is an electric car worth it?
On the one hand, these vehicles save air quality because they emit less smoke and carbon dioxide (or none at all), and on the other hand, they reduce fuel costs. But is this really the case? Let's take a look at how much it costs to charge an electric car and other aspects related to ownership.
Hybrid and electric car
Let's start by explaining how hybrid cars differ from fully electric cars, shall we? Both types are designed primarily to meet increasingly stringent emissions and CO2 standards, but in practice this is achieved in two different ways.
Hybrid
There are two types of engines in hybrids: electric and internal combustion. Depending on the configuration, the latter can also be used to power the vehicle or just to charge the batteries powering the engine or electric motors. The cells are also charged during braking, and some hybrid models allow charging electricity from stationary installations (e.g. using wallboxes). As a result, the combustion engine does not run at all a large part of the time (even up to 60%).
Electric
On the other hand, fully electric cars do not have combustion engines, so their batteries need to be recharged from external sources.
How much does it cost to charge an electric car?
So you see, the key to answering the question of whether an electric car is worthwhile is to estimate the cost of charging its batteries. So far, there are three options:
- A commercial EV charging station, which has enormous capacity (typically well over 100 kW), making it a record time to recharge,
- the purchase of a home electric car charger. It uses alternating current, and the most powerful wallboxes have an output of 22 kW, allowing you to fully charge your BMW i3 in less than two hours,
- charging with a factory device connected to a regular power socket. This option is the cheapest, as we don't have to add the cost of a charger, but it is also the most time-consuming. Charging our BMW i3 in this way will take at least ... ten hours.
The question remains, however, what is the cost of charging an electric car? Using commercial charging stations for electric cars is still the most expensive. In this case, the price per kWh also depends on the current promotions or tariff plans of the operator, but practically never falls below 0.20 Euro. Meanwhile, for 1 kWh with household energy suppliers, you pay roughly 0.12 Euro and at night the tariff drops to 0.8 Euro. No wonder that fast home EV chargers, called Wallbox, are becoming increasingly popular.
So is an electric car worth it?
Hybrid and all-electric models are more expensive than similar vehicles with combustion engines. EVs, on the other hand, have a much less complicated structure and also save money on replacing, for example, oil or timing gear. So what are the running costs of an internal combustion car compared to an electric car?
As money.com has calculated, over an eight-year comparison period, the average driver of a typical internal combustion engine car will spend just over 8,000 euros on fuel alone. Meanwhile, a guy who has been charging an electric car at home for 8 years will pay €2,000 for electricity. The savings from operating and consuming the 'fuel' of an electric car are therefore measurable. And we're not even talking about free charging options in department store car parks or at your employer's premises.
Another important aspect is the savings in service costs. If we are talking about an electric vehicle and a conventional combustion vehicle, then another saving lies in service costs:
- oil changes, filter changes, etc., are completely eliminated with an electric vehicle
- brake discs and pads are replaced at an interval many times longer (the electric vehicle brakes by recovering energy in the batteries)
- other maintenance of components such as gearbox, differential, dpf filter, lambda probe is completely eliminated in electric cars
What about battery degradation?
The biggest bogeyman of the whole EV industry is the fear of battery degradation. Basically it's logical, batteries degrade over time.
On the other hand, here are the facts and figures from practice. For example, in TESLA vehicles, after 200,000km, the maximum degradation is below 10%. Of course, the way the vehicle is charged also has an influence on degradation. As a general rule, the more often you use extremely powerful charging at public charging stations, the higher the degradation. In contrast, overnight charging on a home wallbox comes out as the most environmentally friendly charging. Therefore, a proportion of such vehicle users achieve battery degradation of 5-7% after 200,000km.
Based on these facts, therefore, electric vehicle manufacturers provide an extended warranty of 8 years on the battery (and some on the motor) of the electric vehicle.
What about battery recycling?
This topic is closely related to the whole electromobility. The truth is that currently 100% of electric vehicle batteries are recycled. Their design makes it possible to recycle all the components of the battery and reuse them. As a rule, at the end of their useful life, each manufacturer of electric vehicles has its own programme for recycling the batteries from its vehicles.