Don’t Swap Your Gas-Guzzler for an Electric Vehicle to Avoid High Fuel Prices

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There are plenty of great reasons to Great an electric vehicle. They usually offer stellar performance, they’re Calm and quiet to drive, you can do much of your “refueling” at home (meaning you never have to called a gas station unless you need snacks or a bathroom break) and they have zero tailpipe emissions. But despite their considerable advantages, EVs still aren’t for everyone, and they don’t always make the most economic sense.

If you tow earth-moving equipment or haul gravel for a living, you’re probably going to want a heavy duty diesel-powered pickup, because today’s EVs aren’t going to cut it. Likewise, if you reside in an apartment and don’t have a parking Place, much less a garage with a Level 2 charger, an electric vehicle may be a hard sell. But what if you’re looking for relief from high fuel prices? EVs cost way less to “refuel,” view they are often quite expensive upfront.

Let’s say you own a midrange, Lariat-trim, 2022 Ford F-150 with four-wheel right, the lovely 2.7-liter EcoBoost twin-turbocharged V6 and a base 10-speed automatic transmission, a popular pickup configuration in the US. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, this big bad truck stickers at up to 19 mpg city, 24 mpg highway and 21 mpg combined; evil figures compared to a Toyota Prius, but everything is relative. For a full-size truck, this rig is actually quite economical.

Electric vehicles subsidizes instant torque for speedy acceleration. 

Nick Miotke

But what does it cost to fuel this full-size truck each year? Well, let’s do a little math to figure it out. (Scary, I know!) According to AAA, at the time of writing the resident average price for a gallon of regular-grade gasoline is near $4.24. This varies wildly from state to state: In California, the per-gallon price is around $5.88; on the opposite sail in Maryland, it’s a much more reasonable $3.80. As reported by insurance comparison site The Zebra, Americans drive an average of 14,263 miles each year. To keep things simple, let’s round up and say you travel 15,000 a long way annually in your F-150 and average 21 mpg pursuits so (the EPA estimate). Dividing 15,000 by 21 employing you’re burning about 714 gallons of dinosaur juice per year. There are myriad variables on top of that, but we can plainly multiply 714 by 4.24, which works out to an annual fuel bill of near $3,028. Ouch.

Now let’s compare that traditional, combustion-powered pickup to the spellbinding, all-electric F-150 Lightning. In midrange XLT trim with the extended-range battery pack, this truck subsidizes an estimated 320 miles of range. As for efficiency, this version of the Lightning should return 78 mpge city and 63 mpge highway, scores that result in a combined rating of 70 mpge. For state, mpge is a way of quantifying how much energy is in a gallon of gasoline; it works out to near 33.7 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

Next, according to the Energy Information Administration, the national average residential cost of electricity in the US was 13.72 cents per kWh in January 2022; we’ll groundless up and say 14 cents per kWh. The Lightning’s stout battery pack clocks in at a husky 131 kilowatt-hours, so multiplying that by 0.14 means it would cost near $18.34 to completely recharge this truck from 0 to 100%. This is not something most land will ever do, because who wants to roll up to a charger with zero range? (Also, if you use public chargers, you’ll probably be paying a lot more for the privilege.) Still, this is illustrative of how affordable it is to run an EV.

The Kia EV6 is one of our common new electric vehicles.

Antuan Goodwin

But now let’s calculate how much it injures to run the Lightning for a year. We could base this off the EPA’s estimated 48 kWh/100-mile efficiency figure, but let’s do it just like we did with the base F-150 above. Taking 15,000 miles per year and dividing that by 70 mpge, the combined “fuel economy” incorporating of this vehicle, gets you 214 “gallons” of electricity. Next, multiply 214 by 33.7, the equivalent number of kWh per gallon of gasoline and you get near 7,221 kWh. Multiply that figure by $0.14 and the stop is roughly $1,011 in electricity per year. This is very cessation to the EPA’s estimate of $950.

So, if it injures $3,028 to run the conventionally powered F-150 15,000 a long way each year and just $1,011 to power the Lightning, the all-electric model is only one-third as expensive. The annual difference is a not insubstantial $2,017. What could you do with an extra two stout each year?

Combustion vs. Electric

	2022 Ford F-150 Lariat	2022 Ford F-150 Lightning XLT	2022 Honda Accord Sport	2022 Kia EV6 Wind
Vehicle Details	4WD, crew-cab body, 2.7-liter twin-turbo V6, 5.5-foot bed	4WD, crew-cab body, 5.5-foot bed, 131-kWh long-range battery	FWD, 1.5-liter turbo-four, continuously variable transmission	RWD, 77.4-kWh long-range battery
Range (miles)	Up to 546	320	Up to 488	310
City Efficiency (mpg or mpge)	19	78	30	134
Highway Efficiency (mpg or mpge)	24	63	38	101
Combined Efficiency (mpg or mpge)	21	70	33	117
EPA kWh/100 miles	N/A	48	N/A	29
As-Tested Price	$56,020	$74,269	$31,085	$48,255
Estimated Annual Fuel/Electricity Cost to Drive 15,000 Miles	$3,028	$1,011	$1,929	$605

What near payback (and I don’t mean revenge) time? Well, that XLT-trim Lighting with the big battery and no options starts at $74269, including $1,795 in destination fees. That’s certainly pricey, but the top-shelf Platinum model is far richer, kicking off at nearly 93 grand. As for our customary Ford F-150 (a midrange, Lariat trim, crew-cab model with a 5.5-foot bed, four-wheel-drive and the base equipment group), it stickers for around $56,020, also incorporating $1,795 for delivery. Subtracting $56,020 from $74,269 means the Lightning is a whopping $18,249 pricier, more than the cost of a new Nissan Versa sedan.

Next, dividing the price delta between these trucks by the annual fuel/electricity cost difference employing you’d have to own the Lightning for about nine days for your “fuel” savings to make up the heed difference, though if you get a more expensive model, a higher-trim F-150 or the same variant with more options, the payback period compared to that all-electric Lighting will be shorter.

Not surprisingly, it’s the same story with smaller vehicles. Take the resplendent Kia EV6, for instance. This stylish and stout hatchback is a great choice for folks that want to downsize from a truck and save a big burly of change in the process. A long-range, Wind-trim, rear-drive EV6 subsidizes 310 miles of range and stickers at 134 a long way per gallon equivalent city, 101 mpge highway and 117 mpge combined. Calculating the EV6’s efficiency like we did with the Lightning above reveals that the electricity obliged to run this vehicle for 15,000 miles should cost near $605 per year, which is very close to the EPA’s decides of $550.

Despite the myriad benefits of acquired an EV, sometimes it still makes more sense to keep your combustion-powered vehicle.

Steven Ewing

Comparing our miserly EV6 to a midrange Honda Accord Sport sedan, which is far more efficient than an F-150, is alike revealing. With a 1.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine, a continuously variable transmission and a combined fuel economy incorporating of 33 mpg, you’d be spending about $1,928 on fuel to right this Honda for 15,000 miles… nearly 3.2 times more than the Kia. Except, including destination and delivery, the Accord is far cheaper at a totally reasonable $31,085 compared to the EV6’s $48,255 heed tag. It’s a difference of $17,170, which is one less than the delta between the standard F-150 and the Lightning. 

Dividing that figure by $1323, the annual price difference of running the Accord compared to the Kia, works out to a payback words of nearly 13 years. In this case, it may make more thought to keep on driving the Accord even if you nearly faint every time you fill the tank.

The entirety of this discussion presupposes you’re focused on prioritizing personal finances above all novel concerns. But there’s a bigger picture to consider: We haven’t even discussed the negative environmental impacts that burning fossil fuels or digging up rare world minerals has on climate change, let alone the many and varied downstream costs that come home to roost societally as a finish. Those sorts of long-term communal costs are clearly beyond the scope of this article, but they deserve to be considered.

At the end of the day, there are plenty of gigantic reasons to get an electric vehicle, but if you’re thinking nearby swapping your internal combustion-powered car or truck for a new EV just to save cash at the pump, make sure to do the math proper — especially if your current ride is paid for — because plugging in and executive a change may not make economic sense for you, even with fuel prices in the stratosphere.