The study by Sivak and Schoettle of the university’s Transportation Research Institute was designed to examine the variation across individual US states in the relative fuel cost of driving battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and gasoline vehicles. It also assessed the state-by-state variation in the fuel economy that gasoline vehicles would have to exceed to make driving them less expensive than driving BEVs.
Sivak and Schoettle found that the current average annual cost of driving a typical new gasoline vehicle in the US is $1,117, with a maximum of $1,509 in Hawaii and a minimum of $993 in Alabama. In comparison, the current average annual cost of driving a typical new BEC in the US is $485, $1,106 in Hawaii and a minimum of $367 in Louisiana.
The required fuel economy that gasoline vehicles would need to exceed for driving them to be less expensive than driving BEVs is 57.6 mpg in the United States, with a maximum of 90.0 mpg in Washington and a minimum of 34.1 mpg in Hawaii.
The study is particularly interesting in the light of a statement made by entrepreneur Tony Seba to the Nomura Investment Forum in 2016, to the effect that EVs will be cheaper to run than gasoline vehicles with regard to maintenance costs. Seba published a best selling book on the disruption of energy and transportation by clean energy by 2030 which was published in 2014.
Image: Nissan LEAF
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