[imladyboy]

They do account for electricity costs in the "gas savings":

"The average person drives between 10,000 and 15,000 miles and spends between $1,000 and $1,500 on gasoline per year. In comparison, the cost of electricity to power Model 3 over the same distance is up to three times lower. Over the six year average length of car ownership, that's between $4,300 and $6,400 in gasoline savings.

We've assumed a fuel economy of 28 miles per gallon for a comparable gasoline powered sedan, for example, the 2017 BMW 3 series. We've also assumed the national average of $0.13 per kilowatt-hour for electricity and $2.85 per gallon for premium gasoline over the next six years."

[dragontamer]

But the cars I plan to buy also don't use gasoline. Ex: Chevy Volt, or the Prius Prime.

I dunno, I find it dishonest. Any electric vehicle shopper knows that gasoline is a major cost-driver and reason to buy electric instead.

The Chevy Volt is currently $33,520. Then gets a $7500 Federal Credit (and unlike Tesla, Chevy hasn't run out yet. If your Tesla 3 is delivered in January 2019, you only get $3750 in credits). AND it mostly won't use gasoline (50-mile all-electric range == good enough to not use gasoline in over 99% of my expected drives)

[refurb]

Agreed, it's smarmy.

It almost wants me to walk into a Tesla showroom and show them their press release and say "I'll take the $33,200 model. Here is my check."

The back pedaling and hand waving would be entertaining.

[koolba]

What are the ramifications of never changing the gas in a hybrid like the Volt? Does it “go bad” eventually?

[bkanber]

Yes, it would! Fuel lasts about 30 days before it starts to oxidize. That basically starts to leave a gunk behind as the gasoline both oxidizes and slowly evaporates from the not-quite airtight tank. The fuel in the injectors evaporate and leave grime behind, clogging them, and this happens in many other places in the engine as well. The process starts after about 30 days, and by a year you're almost guaranteed to have fuel so rotten/sticky that the car doesn't start, or just barely generates power.

The Volt, BMW i3, and basically any other car with a range extender periodically run the engine in "maintenance mode", because it's good to circulate fluids, burn off some gas, and take some load off the battery for a while.

If you need to store a car for more than a month, you should top off and add a bottle of fuel stabilizer before driving home.

[dragontamer]

https://www.plugincars.com/putting-thought-putting-gas-chevy...

It appears that the Volt will detect the gasoline going bad (or at least, puts it on a timer and then assumes), and forcibly burn it off roughly once a year. Before doing so, it encourages you to use a bit of gas.

To be honest: this is the first link from a search engine. So its not an issue I've looked into very strongly. Nonetheless, it seems like GM has already figured out a procedure for "stale gas" issues.

https://forum.quartertothree.com/t/volt-gas-goes-stale/69063

So it seems to be a timer of some sorts, roughly on the order of ~once a year or so.

EDIT: I found a video on youtube showing the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEe4Rkg4GfA

The author of the video notes that you can drive the Volt just fine. He just had a camera handy and stay'd in his garage in this case however.

[jmccaf]

That is a concern. I am a happy driver of a Chevy Volt, and in daily commuting only ever use battery. The practices I use to preserve gas in the tank for long-term storage are:

* Keep the tank full of gas: air space is prone to condensation

* Avoid ethanol-added gasoline, it's more hypro-philic

* Add a fuel stabilizer (like 1 fl oz per 5 gallon)

* live in California, it's really dry.

These are adapted from techniques for winter storage of cars.

[spindle]

I tried the steps you suggest, but on adding up the cost after a few weeks I found that, what with commuting from California to work, I was making a net loss.

[compsciphd]

Volt has 2 maintenance modes it automatically goes into

Engine Maintenance mode: haven't used the gas engine in some period (month?) so it uses the engine for a small period of time (less than my 12 mile commute) so get the engine oil moving.

Fuel maintenance mode: doesn't let average age of gas be over a year. i.e. I filled my tank August 30, 2017 from basically empty. On Aug 29, 2018 it went into fuel maintenance mode and even though I had a full battery, it would only use gas. I was probably around 1 gallon left, I filled it up, so expect around june 2019, it will go into fuel maintenance mode again unless I finish off the tank and fill it up again.

[cdkee]

The Volt has something called "maintenance mode", which starts the engine about every 4-6 weeks, and does a process a little more involved every few months or so to burn gas that would go bad.

[Someone1234]

While I dislike them using the gas saving in the headline figure, I cannot criticize the way they came up with the gas saving figure, that's an extremely fair way to calculate it (almost too conservative).

[imladyboy]

And while it may be a bit hidden (After incentives & gas savings -> Gasoline savings) they even allow you to customize it a bit based on Miles/Year and gasoline price.

[titanomachy]

Numbers are even better in Canada where we have cheap hydro power and tax the shit out of gasoline.

[seanmcdirmid]

Washington state has cheap hydro also, as to a lesser extent do many of the other states in the west coast (California has lots of hydro, but they also need lots of electricity and even import from Washington).

Is electricity in Canada generally cheaper than in the states?

[titanomachy]

It looks similar. 10¢/kWh in Canada vs 12¢ in US (US cents for both). https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/average-elect...

[justtopost]

I bet it depends on region, distance to station, maint, etc. I moved an hour outside a major metro and my electricity prices increased 60%, but gasoline only 2-5% in the USA. Plenty of trucking, but not much hard infrastructure. Most neighbors still burn wood or truck in propane for heat, yet the average home value is quite high. Its an odd situation, and points out how many of these solutions miss even the suburban populations, much less the rural.

[joezydeco]

What about the cost to have an electrician install the charging system in your garage?

And the Tesla wall unit also costs $500. Is that included in the price of the car?