DaveinOlyWA said:
electrical rates will be a huge determining factor in how much you save in transportation costs but what is true is you will either save a decent amount of money or you will save a lot of money. you really cant lose.
Disagree here, you can certainly lose financially with a Leaf.
As cwerdna pointed out, a gasoline Prius will cost about the same in fuel costs as electric costs in a PG&E area once you are in tier 3 or above. I calculated $85 for electricity based on 12000 miles a year, 3 miles per kWh, and a rate of 26 cents/kWh that the extra 4000 annual kWh would average to, vs my $88 for my Prius based on 12000 miles a year, 45 MPG on the Prius, and $4/gallon for gas.
And if you think I am exaggerating with the 26 cents kWh, the current top rate $0.33561 cents/kWh with E-1 summer, and $0.48653 for summer peak with E-6 TOU . I am on E-6 because of solar but right now mostly in tiers 1 to 3. But adding the EV would put me to the highest tier.
Oh, and PG&E changes its rates 4 times per year, and the top rate has been as high as 49 cents/kWh for non-TOU and 59 cents for TOU, as recently as 2 years ago.
Here is the PG&E electric rate history :
http://www.pge.com/nots/rates/tariffs/electric.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Sadly, I'm not exaggerating at all, there have been 8 new non-TOU schedules in the last 2 years, and another 8 new TOU schedules.
And each time PG&E creates new rates for both winter and summer. Half the rates these bureaucrats designed have never even taken effect before they were superceded !
Here is the non-TOU schedule for 2 years ago with 49 cents/kWh top rate. http://www.pge.com/nots/rates/tariffs/Res_100301-100531.xls" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
And the TOU schedule for 2 years ago. I was wrong, the top rate didn't go to 59 cents, but to 67.9 cents/kWh
http://www.pge.com/nots/rates/tariffs/ResTOU_100301-100531.xls" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
And with the 5 decimals PG&E uses everywhere, it takes them E no less than 16 pages of computations to figure out the total of my electric bill every month.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1eSSO_7gwqeZVdHRER2bEtqcGs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Of course, anyone who is consistently hitting high tiers will figure out pretty quickly they need to get solar.
I got solar within 2 months of moving into my large home 2 years ago. But it was sized properly to reduce me to the low tiers, but not 0. But adding the EV charging now would put me back into the high tiers... So EV charging means adding more solar again. Hopefully by monday I will have my 12 additional PV panels up in addition to the existing 28. But they are not free.
Fueling/charging costs not necessarily the main issue, though.
Even if your electricity cost is less than your fueling cost, there are other factors that might be more important.
The monthly payment will be in favor of a new Leaf vs a new gasoline Prius, either if you lease the Leaf, or if you buy it and are able to take advantage of the federal tax credit yourself. But I doubt the $10k of incentives will last forever.
At this time, used Leafs are not really an option, since right now they cost the same or more than you can get them for new in California which is about $23k if you buy a new one with the full $10k of incentives - certainly doable for a new SV and possibly on a new SL too. But you can purchase a used gasoline Prius for much less than a new one. Things will change as the Leafs get older and the used ones drop in value.
Your insurance will also be less on a used Prius than on a used Leaf, since the Leafs have only been made for a couple years, Prius have been sold in the US since 2001.
