Rivian now charging $.68 per kwh

[BeanEW]

There goes my R2 and R3X... time to go back to hybrids.

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[ads75]

It's kind of crazy charging for an hour and paying ICE vehicle prices. They really need to lower the price of electricity. And I know 95% of charging is done at home, but if you have PGE it's also very expensive to charge at home (at least in California).

Someone also has to pay for the chargers and transformers and location, in addition to the electricity. Those aren't cheap.

 

[Zorg]

Got surprised by this at Truckee RAN yesterday. Total scam!

I doubt it. Demand charges are $11k per month, plus site rent, plus maintenance, plus depreciation, plus KWh charges (about 15c).

 

[jeffguitardavis]

So, at least for me, when I have this "cost of ICE vs EV" conversation with friends, I put it in terms of: "how much money do you have to spend to propel a given vehicle 100 miles?"

I assume ~20 mpg for the ICE vehicle since I am comparing a 7 seat SUV ICE vehicle to my quad motor R1S Launch Edition with 20" wheels and stock Pirelli AT tires. And I am in the San Francisco Bay Area which doesn't have cheap gas prices.


G = gasoline cost = $ per gallon

E = electricity cost = $ per kWh


ICE cost = [(G) * (100 miles)] / (20 mpg) -> ICE cost = 5 * G

EV cost = [(E) * (100 miles)] / (~2.0 miles / kWh) = 50 * E


Set them equal to find the crossover point and solve for E:

E = G / 10

Thus, very roughly, once the charging cost (per kWh) is greater than the cost of gas divided by 10, then the "propulsion" cost for my QM R1S is greater than a roughly equivalent large 7 seater SUV ICE vehicle.

This is pretty conservative since I get a little better than 2.0 miles / kWh but it is a trivial calculation to simply divide the price of gas by 10 to see if the cost of charging is better or worse than the price of gas for an ICE SUV.

Since in my area, the cost of gas is ~$5.50 and my home charging is ~$0.36, I am still doing better than ICE.

 

[Chewy734]

I paid $0 at the Buttonwillow, CA RAN the other day. I was surprised it was free!

 

[TexasBob]

I hate to say it, but if America cannot get its act together on DCFC pricing, it may be time to go back to PHEVs. (My old Volt worked well except for its short 38 mile EV range.) The Scout platform with 150 miles of EV range will take care of 90% of my miles and avoid the DCFC tax on road trips.

 

[Glembi2]

I was wondering whether setting up a charger and allowing the public to use it could be profitable. I didn’t get much farther than this article.

https://www.mckinsey.com/features/m...g-stations-be-profitable-in-the-united-states

 

[CrazyOne]

That's bad.

Also, your math is wrong. Just remove it or correct it.

 

[postcromag]

I may not be the norm, but I use chargers away from home very rarely. I only take two or three longer trips a year when I'm not flying somewhere. I charge at home the bulk of the time, have solar panels with power wall and what I do get from the grid is pretty inexpensive. With my previous gasoline powered truck (Ridgeline) I was getting 16-20 mpg. Gasoline bill was roughly $250 per month. I've had the R1T for 32 months. When I consider some road trip charging (about a $30-$40 fill up, not much different than my gas version for a road trip) and some grid charging... I have saved $6,600 in gasoline since going electric, and in a much more exciting ride (the most important thing for me), and no freaking fumes, other than what collectively is coming from the power station.

 

[Gen(R3)Xer]

That's how much many other DC fast charging stations cost already, from Tesla to EV Go. That's not news. Meanwhile I'm charging at home for a fraction of this price if I'm not on a road trip.

So why the breathless reaction here?

Some people only use public chargers, but It’s a trap, just like fluctuating gas prices at a gas station.

I understand that people living in apartments usually don’t have a choice, but since my wife and I moved into a condo with our own parking spot in the back I’ve got a plan.

It's kind of crazy charging for an hour and paying ICE vehicle prices. They really need to lower the price of electricity. And I know 95% of charging is done at home, but if you have PGE it's also very expensive to charge at home (at least in California).

Do you guys have off-peak rates?

 

[Gen(R3)Xer]

I was wondering whether setting up a charger and allowing the public to use it could be profitable. I didn’t get much farther than this article.

https://www.mckinsey.com/features/m...g-stations-be-profitable-in-the-united-states

People who run gas stations don’t make any money on gasoline either. All of their profits are in the often overpriced goods they sell inside of the attached shop.

Charging stations should adopt the same model if they hope to make any money. Also you have a captive audience for much longer than someone filling up an ICE vehicle (15+ minutes vs 5+ minutes).

 

[Glembi2]

People who run gas stations don’t make any money on gasoline either. All of their profits are in the often overpriced goods they sell inside of the attached shop.

Charging stations should adopt the same model if they hope to make any money. Also you have a captive audience for much longer than someone filling up an ICE vehicle (15+ minutes vs 5+ minutes).

Oooohhhhh, like time for TWO DWDs! (dirty water dogs, for the uninitiated)

 

[hayduke]

did rivian switch to TOU pricing? i swear I checked last night and prices were $0.36. today i see $0.64 (5pm). will check later tonight and tomorrow.

it would make sense to have TOU pricing but i see no way to access a schedule in the rivian app. pretty sure tesla has TOU prices and i don’t see that anywhere in the rivian app either.

 

[Zorg]

Rivian jacked up all the rates. At this point, it may be cheaper to use an ICE vehicle on road trips. I suspect that demand charges are the main culprit.

Local RAN has 6 stalls and incurs $11,000 in demand charges. Assuming 30 charges per day over 30 days at an average of 75 KWh per charge, that's $11,000 / (30 x 75 x 30) = $0.163 per KWh. I suspect that they get way less charges on average, so the actual demand charge per KWh may be closer to $.20-0.25. Tack on another $0.167 per KWh, and that's a utility cost of about $0.40 per KWh minimum. All that before rent, maintenance and depreciation. A station probably costs $250k

Ionna may be onto something with its charger/convenience store concept.

I charge from home so it works out for us. That being said, between the high upfront cost, higher insurance rates and high DCFC costs, one can't buy an EV to save money at this point, at least when it comes to large vehicles.

 

[babock]

That's $22 per gallon of gas equivalent now. No way this makes sense any more. Good luck EVs.

Your math is WAY off. Assuming my R1t would get 20MPG with a gas engine and I get 2.5mi/Kwh, it would take 8 KWH to go 20 miles. Even at $0.68/Kwh, that's $5.44. I agree that's not great but far from $22. How did you even arrive at that?

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