L.’s place by the shore–she insists I should say by the beach, but my patrician tendencies won’t allow that–is 50 km from town, meaning a round trip is a nice even 100 km.
Her gasoline-powered SUV has fuel economy of 9 litres per 100 km, meaning that, at today’s $2.18/litre price for gasoline, a roundtrip costs $19.62.
My electric-powered Kia Soul EV reports using 15 kWh per 100 km, meaning that, at today’s price of 15.32 cents/kWh, a roundtrip costs $2.29.
I had to do the math on that several times, and have a friend double-check it, as the difference was so stark.
Comments
A gasoline-powered Kia Soul might be somewhat more efficient than the SUV.
In terms of energy efficiency, 1 litre of gasoline is roughly 32 MJ which is around 8.9 kWh, so 9 litres is about 288 MJ = 80 kWh. The SUV is using 5 times more energy to make the same trip. The 20% to 35% real-world efficiency of gasoline engines seems likely to be playing a big role in this.
If the gasoline car had excellent fuel economy of around 4.5 L/100 km, it would still be using 2.5 times more energy to make the same trip.
I am 
You can subscribe to an