DonTom
Well-known member
Yeah, you cannot win this here in CA, unless one gets a lot of use at the still available many free to use AC charge stations on the road. Such as I often do in Truckee & Colfax when I want to take a break between here and Reno on my electric motorcycles.If I did the math right, this means California EVs no longer cost less per mile than a conventional car. According to Google the Model 3 uses 0.24 kWh per mile. That's 12 cents a mile with "fuel" costing 50 cents per kWh. At $5 gallon and 20 MPG a conventional car will match that. A 30 MPG car will go 50% further per dollar of fuel.
And a fast charge here in Auburn is around 65 cents per KWH, so an ICE car can be a lot cheaper in this area.
But I have no reason to use a fast charger in this area. Unlike gas stations, close to home fast chargers are usually useless. For my two EV cars, any DCFC within a couple of hundred miles is useless to me. It's only 99.0 miles between here and my Reno home, driveway to driveway. So I usually have no need to charge on the road and still can get free charging at a couple of places on the way, if I want to take a break for a while.
BTW, I really like to take a break at the Tahoe/Truckee Airport when I am hungry. Last time I was there I had a very delicious lamb curry burrito at the airport restaurant there as I was getting my free charge. Possible to get 30KWH for free there in two hours, but not with my motorcycle's 6.6 KW AC charger. First two hours is a free charge regardless of how many KWHs used. $3.00 per hour after two hours, again regardless of how many KWHs are used.
-Don- Auburn, CA