Electric Car Running Costs Calculator

D Dastardly

Last year i made my own Electric Car Running Costs Calculator in excel, i did this because i wanted to know the true full costs so i could see the benefits of switching to an EV.

I recently joined this forum and thought that many ppl that are thinking of switching could make use of it.

I have left my own usage scenerio of 18k miles a year in, these are in the green boxes you will alter to get your own figures.

The calculator factors in Taxes, Standing Charges and the PSO levy to represent the true full costs, these are represented Daily, Weekly, Monthly & Annually in this calculator.

Night meter benefits are represented too plus you can't have figures withought a nice graph

Feel free to do with and use the calculator as you wish, i have spent too much time on it already

Here's some maths

average Kwh consumed, say 18 Kwh/100 Km , diving 18 into 100 = 5.55 Kwh/Km times the amount of Kms per year on average.

So for me 30,000 Kms divide by 5.55 = 5,405 average Kwh needed @ 7.6 Cent per Kwh night rate = 410 Euro's if all charging is done at night which some will be day rate.


Diesel

55 Mpg imp , 30,000 Kms @ current 1.26 Per liter.

55 imp mpg = 19.47 Km/L divide 19.47 into 30,000 = 1,540 litres of diesel ( average )

1,540 x 1.26 = €1,940

KCross

That looks comprehensive. Fair play!

I havent played with it yet but just one clarification, you mention standing charge and PSO levy above.... you pay those regardless of whether you have an EV or not. Are you counting them against the EV in your "savings" figures or are you just showing them for completeness?

D Dastardly

€1,940 - €410 = €1530 still in your lucy locket,
Happy days ;-D

D Dastardly

Hi KCross, all taxes and charges are counted in everywhere, the only place they are not is in the DAY AND NIGHT CHARGING COSTS FOR WORK PER ANNUM BOX, this is because this raw data is needed in other calculations where the taxes are then added.

Click on the red results boxes to see the "sum" then you can see whats going on under the hood.

KCross

D Dastardly wrote: »

Hi KCross, all taxes and charges are counted in everywhere, the only place they are not is in the DAY AND NIGHT CHARGING COSTS FOR WORK PER ANNUM BOX, this is because this raw data is needed in other calculations where the taxes are then added.

Click on the red results boxes to see the "sum" then you can see whats going on under the hood.

I think that would be a mistake then if I understand you correctly.

The PSO levy for instance is a set fee everyone with an ESB bill pays, regardless of having an EV or not.

Likewise with the standing charge.

These should not be included in EV running costs.

D Dastardly

I included them in the EV running cost because you will be charged all these fee's regardless of what you are using the electricity for, if you do not want these fee's included then you can simply set them to 0 in the relevant boxes, every other calculation referencing these fees are taken from here , or do I misunderstand your question?

Let's enjoy the glut while it lasts because you know the government will start taxing electricity usage over a certain kilowatt for houses that have EV's in about 5 years or so time if not sooner depending on the uptake of EV's! Surely they can't afford to loose all that tax they are getting from petrol and diesel!

KCross

D Dastardly wrote: »

I included them in the EV running cost because you will be charged all these fee's regardless of what you are using the electricity for, if you do not want these fee's included then you can simply set them to 0 in the relevant boxes, every other calculation referencing these fees are taken from here , or do I miss understand your question?

Thanks, I guess it depends on what you want the spreadsheet to represent. If its to show the true running cost of the EV then you shouldnt include PSO and standing charge as they are set charges that have nothing to do with the EV or how much electricity you use. If you use 1000 units or 10,000 units the levy and standing charge are the same. If you have an EV or dont have an EV the levy and standing charge are the same. Do you get me?

D Dastardly wrote: »

Let's enjoy the glut while it lasts because you know the government will start taxing electricity usage over a certain kilowatt for houses that have EV's in about 5 years or so time if not sooner depending on the uptake of EV's! Surely they can't afford to loose all that tax they are getting from petrol and diesel!

Cant see that happening. How would they even implement it? Another meter? I'd just stop using that supply and plug into a 3 pin socket on the other meter!

Of course the government need to get the tax back from somewhere but it wont be by increasing electricity prices.... there would be uproar as it would put vulnerable people in an even worse position as electricity is a basic need.


The lost tax will have to be made up, of course, but with other taxes....

- motor tax increases
- VRT increases
- road pricing
- general taxation
- other stuff we havent even thought of!

D Dastardly

I think I understanding you now, if you were not to factor in taxes into you ev usage then you would not get a true figure it would be a little short, so what I did here is divided the Taxes into the amount based on what you actually used for your EV so you would get the true cost and not the costs minus taxes, I hope this helps.

slave1

...and in time we'll have reduced Health costs associated with the cleaner street environment.
EV's are an investment in our future moreso a new technology to be seen as reducing costs for the buyer and a cause of less income for the Gov

KCross

D Dastardly wrote: »

I think I understanding you now, if you were not to factor in taxes into you ev usage then you would not get a true figure it would be a little short, so what I did here is divided the Taxes into the amount based on what you actually used for your EV so you would get the true cost and not the costs minus taxes, I hope this helps.

The only tax from your ESB bill that you should include is the VAT for the kWh's that are attributable to your EV.

Standing charge and PSO levy should not be included. They have nothing to do with the EV. As I said, if you had no EV and drive a diesel you would still pay the EXACT same amount of standing charge and PSO levy. Those taxes dont go up or down based on electricity usage or EV ownership. They are negatively skewing your figures.

Its like saying that when I boil my kettle I'm increasing my electricity costs for the EV. It doesnt make sense. On the flip side, now that you have an EV does that mean that your cost to boil the kettle has reduced!?

Splitting it out pro-rata isnt right either as the standing charge and PSO levy are set figures not linked to usage.

Lets say, for argument, the government decided to add the local property tax to your ESB bill.... would you then say that that also increases your EV fuel costs.... its the same thing really.

Dont get me wrong, your spreadsheet is very good. Those two taxes should not be in there though. As you said, people can move them to zero but you have added a "warning" note in the tab so it will make people think they should have it included.

Jimmy Garlic

slave1 wrote: »

...and in time we'll have reduced Health costs associated with the cleaner street environment.
EV's are an investment in our future moreso a new technology to be seen as reducing costs for the buyer and a cause of less income for the Gov

Until they Jack up taxes on evs in every which way. They are not going to take a drop in petrol and diesel tax take without sticking the knife in

slave1

Jimmy Garlic wrote: »

Until they Jack up taxes on evs in every which way. They are not going to take a drop in petrol and diesel tax take without sticking the knife in

Substantiate that statement, credible evidence from any country will do.
Else the post is just a rant and meaningless

KCross

Jimmy Garlic wrote: »

Until they Jack up taxes on evs in every which way. They are not going to take a drop in petrol and diesel tax take without sticking the knife in

Somewhat true.... but petrol/diesel taxes will go up first and any additional taxes will be unlikely to be EV specific so the petrol/diesel driver will likely be hit with double taxes.

e.g.
Carbon tax added to petrol/diesel (hits petrol/diesel only)
Then a road pricing tax on all cars. (hits all cars so a double hit for petrol/diesel)

No government will bring in a tax that hits EV's only, considering the fines we are about to be hit with and they will want to keep EV's incentivised.

D Dastardly

I understand what you mean, but if your electricity cost go up in any way it will affect the cost of your EV electricity as well and that will go up as a knock on result, the standing charge and PSO Levy do not go up the more you use electricity in this calculator, no skewing allowed ! they are just subdivided into your EV electricity to represent the full costs for any given time frame, I know the calculator is not perfect it doesn't include things like charger inefficiencies but it is as far as I wanted to take it.

KCross

D Dastardly wrote: »

I understand what you mean, but if your electricity cost go up in any way it will affect the cost of your EV electricity as well and that will go up as a knock on result,

You have accounted for increases in electricity costs by having a cell to take the kWh unit costs. So thats covered.

D Dastardly wrote: »

the standing charge and PSO Levy do not go up the more you use electricity in this calculator, no skewing allowed ! they are just subdivided into your EV electricity to represent the full costs for any given time frame,

Its just my opinion but I think thats bad logic!
Lets say you paid €300 between those 2 taxes before you bought the EV. You then add the EV... you still pay €300 so why would you allocate some of it to the EV in that case? Its not a running cost of the EV. Its a running cost of having electricity in your house which you had anyway the day you built it. If I now start growing some plants in my attic under heated lights thus driving up my electricity bill.... do my EV running costs go down?... No, they dont.

It just doesnt make sense to add it to EV running costs.
Each to their own.

D Dastardly wrote: »

I know the calculator is not perfect it doesn't include things like charger inefficiencies but it is as far as I wanted to take it.

Its very useful. Clearly you put alot of work into it. The end result, whether the levy etc is included or not, is much the same... EV's are really cheap to run!

green123

D Dastardly, you are wrong.
KCross is right.

The standing charge and pso levy should not be included.

You were already paying these before you had an electric car and will still pay them even if you sell the electric car.

Everybody no matter whether they have a diesel or petrol or an electric vehicle pays the same standing charge and the same pso levy.

They are not part of the cost of using an electric vehicle.

Unless of course you had no electricity supply before you got the electric vehicle.
And unless you plan on cancelling your electricity supply after selling your electric vehicle.

D Dastardly

I allocate the taxes to the ev because the ev is using electricity which is taxed, why should the ev get away with not having any tax applied to the calculations when it's operating within a system that is being taxed, I consider it now to simply have become part of the electrical system just like any other appliance.

Our opinions do differ here yes but at least you can remove the charges altogether and I doubt that these charges would make much difference to the ev usage figures when it is divided between the house and the car over the year as it is in this calculator, this is the only way I could think of doing this to give the true figures.

Does anybody else have any opinions on this or am I totally missing something here?

And I thought I was just going to simply post up an EV versus gas car calculator, how wrong was I lol

At least I have been kept entertained on an otherwise boring day at work x-D

slave1

Hard crowd, as you said it's a spreadsheet that can be customised by others e.g. if you already have night rate then increased rental etc can be blanked.
You can't please the EV crowd, always some that are just impossible

KCross

D Dastardly wrote: »

I allocate the taxes to the ev because the ev is using electricity which is taxed, why should the ev get away with not having any tax applied to the calculations when it's operating within a system that is being taxed, I consider it now to simply have become part of the electrical system just like any other appliance.

VAT is the tax that the EV incurs and thats in your calculations so the EV is not getting away with no taxes being applied. Every kWh the car pulls from your supply is a running cost and needs to be accounted for and you have that already.

Standing charge and PSO levy are different as they dont relate to the car or how many miles you drive or even if you have an EV so cant be allocated to running costs. Thats the distinction.

I'll leave you alone now! :pac:

Steve

Nice work, fair play for posting this!

Anyone want to convert it to metric units? I haven't bought a gallon of fuel or driven a mile for many years!! My car reports l/100km not the old units used by our former occupiers

unkel

We are a hard crowd, apologies. That said, a spreadsheet with just the running cost of an EV vs ICE car is of very limited use. The whole point of replacing your second hand petrol / diesel car (perhaps even a banger worth nothing) with a brand new or nearly new EV, is that the fixed costs in the form of extra depreciation / interest costs of the new car could very well be more than compensated by the savings in running costs. You also need to take into account maintenance and other benefits of EVs like lower tolls, lower motor tax and lower insurance.

The only figure that matters is the total cost of ownership...

Lantus

D Dastardly wrote: »

€1,940 - €410 = €1530 still in your lucy locket,
Happy days ;-D

On the assumption that the car costs are equivalent. An owner that spends 12k on a car plus spends 1900 on diesel a year has spent 21.5k after 5 years.

Spending 30k on a new Leaf and saving 1500 a year on fuel means you spent 22.5k a year.

So +100 for calculating the costs but a lot of equivalent driving needs the bigger battery which needs a newer more expensive car.

If course 30k annual is higher than average mileage. As that figure drops the scale of saving decreases and the break even point goes up from 5 years to a higher number.

Steve

unkel wrote: »

.... lower tolls, .... lower insurance....

Can you expand on how these work?

D Dastardly

As unkel says the cost of ownership is the only cost that matters, this was only ever meant to be a fuel cost comprison and nothing more, have fun with it, mebe some1 can use it as a bare bones and do the full monty on it.

KCross

unkel wrote: »

We are a hard crowd, apologies. That said, a spreadsheet with just the running cost of an EV vs ICE car is of very limited use. The whole point of replacing your second hand petrol / diesel car (perhaps even a banger worth nothing) with a brand new or nearly new EV, is that the fixed costs in the form of extra depreciation / interest costs of the new car could very well be more than compensated by the savings in running costs. You also need to take into account maintenance and other benefits of EVs like lower tolls, lower motor tax and lower insurance.

The only figure that matters is the total cost of ownership...

You are right, I'd say a tiny tiny percentage of people look at that figure though.

Most decide with their heart, not their head.

The biggest saving for EV is usually the fuel so this spreadsheet is useful. The tolls, motor tax etc is only a few hundred so its not going to sway a decision one way or the other..... €2k in fuel might.

unkel

Steve wrote: »

Can you expand on how these work?

Insurance - you will have to DYOR. It's different for everybody. Most people who have reported about it here got a refund when changing their car for a brand new EV worth a lot more than the car they sold / scrapped / traded in

Tolls - 50% off all tolls and 75% off the M50 toll off peak. Maximum saving €500 per year. I do not commute through a toll, yet this M50 toll reduction alone saves me several hundred euro a year.