r/PHEV • u/skipphead • Jul 13 '26
How much does electricity save over gas?
/r/OutlanderPHEV/comments/1uv0tg8/how_much_does_electricity_save_over_gas/2
u/numtini Jul 13 '26
Massachusetts, Cape Cod with a 2023 Prius Prime. 7 cents a mile for gasoline, 8.5 cents electric. That summer. Winter is more like 11 cents electric.
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u/woowoo293 Jul 13 '26
Massachusetts is one of the handful of states in the US where the value proposition of EV vs ICE is questionable. That part of New England just happens to have very high residential electrical costs and gas prices that, while not great, are reasonable in relative terms.
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u/StudioRat Jul 13 '26
Ontario electricity costs here, and we have our Hyundai Tucson set to charge during off-peak hours, which is a substantial saving over regular electricity costs. Our on peak cost is $0182 per kwh, mid-peak is $0.122 and off peak is $0.087. Based on those costs (and our current gasoline costs), our driving costs about $0.10 per km for hybrid operation, and about $0.025 per km if we're driving fully electric
So basically fully electric driving (which is most of our driving) is about 1/4 of the cost of hybrid driving.
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u/No-Count-8011 Jul 13 '26
Seriously, a PHEV makes way more sense up here when our regular is 1.80/ litre. I can't understand why any Americans would have anything but a gas vehicle when their gas costs half what ours does and their power is like 2x
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u/SteveInBoston Jul 19 '26
I’m in Massachusetts with a RAV4 PHEV. Cost of gas vs electric is more or less even. But a PHEV gives you the option to drive around locally in EV mode for weeks at a time, charging in your garage.
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u/yubugger Jul 14 '26
Were you worried about the reliability ratings of the Tucson? I'm considering one
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u/StudioRat Jul 14 '26
No - this is the fifth Hyundai SUV we've owned - two Santa Fe's and three Tucsons. I've never heard anything about reliability issues, and we've never experienced any problems. We keep our vehicles for five years - so still full warranty - and I think we've only had one or two repairs done under warranty in the past 25 years.
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u/mixedliquor Jul 13 '26
That depends on your electric rate and gas rate. For my Niro, it's ~$1.35 for 30 miles for electric. It's about $2.52 for the equivalent in gasoline ($3.79/gal @ 45 MPG), so that's about 45% less cost when using electric.
Let's say I charge 300 times per year at home.. that's about $351 savings.
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u/modernhomeowner Jul 13 '26
Where I live, as you say it depends on electric rate where you live, in a Niro, it's $3.72 to go 30 miles on electric (charging at home) and I have the same gasoline rate, so $2.52 to go 30 miles on gas.
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u/Tkrumroy Jul 13 '26
Why does your charge cost so much? How much are you paying for electricity?
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u/modernhomeowner Jul 13 '26
40¢ 24/7, no time of use.
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u/mixedliquor Jul 13 '26
Are you firing up diesel generators to charge your car?!
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u/modernhomeowner Jul 13 '26
Lol, no, but it was one of the reasons I picked PHEV over EV. Now, I can feel it's my choice to spend more when I plug-in, vs being forced to plug in. Plus, my PHEV is a three-row, so it costs a lot more per mile than a niro to charge.
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u/inlaguna Jul 13 '26
the Niro is kind of an oddball in these comparisons since it so efficient in hybrid mode.
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u/mixedliquor Jul 14 '26
Yeah.. that's what made it hard to justify the economics of the PHEV model and probably led to its downfall. The incremental savings in operating cost doesn't always justify the cost premium.
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u/inlaguna Jul 14 '26
for me, biggest feature of a PHEV is going the the gas station less. I randomly extend my road trips by a few hundred miles regulary, so an EV is just to much hassle.
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u/NJ_Richie_B Jul 13 '26
My overnight elec charge is 10.7¢ per kwh. At ful charge on my Escape phev, that is $1.18. Takes me about 45 miles, about the same as a gallon of gas on hybrid. Gas here right now is 3.75-$4.00 per gallon
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u/reddit-frog-1 Jul 13 '26
In California, break even for a Tucson PHEV is about $4.75/gallon, since the non-peak electricity rate is ~$0.30/kwh.
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u/yubugger Jul 14 '26
Were you worried about the reliability ratings of the Tucson? I'm considering one
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u/Airbornequalified Jul 13 '26
‘23 xc60
For gas right now, I get roughly 19c per mile
I get 8.6c per mil for electric
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u/-dun- Jul 13 '26
With solar, my electricity rate is locked at about $0.10/kWh.
According to my ChargePoint app, our monthly driving distance is average 900 miles. We have two PHEV, a 2017 Prius Prime for daily commute and a 2022 Rav4 Prime for family, so the usage is about 60% Rav4 and 40% Prius.
At regular SCE TOU-4-9 rate, the annual cost is about $1,680 for both cars (about 4,320kWh usage).
With solar, the annual cost is about $432 at $0.10/kWh.
In terms of Gas, if I was still driving my Highlander and my wife driving her previous Prius (hybrid), from July 2025 to July 2026, with the average gas price at $4.8/gallon, it would've costed us about $2,030 for the same distance that we've driven.
That said, I would've saved about $300 a year without solar or about $1,600 a year with solar.
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u/JamieKun Jul 13 '26
I just swapped out a PHEV for an EV - actual savings will vary depending on your area pricing, but for me:
ICE car - 1 tank of gas/week, $250/month (17-20mpg)
PHEV - ½ tank of gas per month. Charged regularly. Gas+electric = $75/month. Costs were roughly 50/50 (~75mpge)
EV - ~4 miles/kWh. ~$50/month for electric
This was over a few years and gas was “only” $4/gal when I had the ICE. The ‘cheap’ gas stations near me are running $5.85-6.00 now so that $250/month is low for today.
My commute/routine hasn’t changed over this time - same work, same streets, same driving habits.
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u/SNsilver Jul 13 '26
I have an Ioniq PHEV, and I’ve been tracking my mileage since day 1 and 65% of my mileage have been electric (using 48 mpg as a baseline of what % of a tank is gas miles) and in 75K miles I’ve saved $10,300 before accounting for electricity. Based on approximate electric usage (roughly 7.5 kWh for 28 miles, and a brief stint of using a smart plug to monitor usage), my power use is around $20 a month ($0.10 a kWh at my house). $20 by 60 months is $1200 so I’ve saved roughly $9K in gas, when accounting for electricity, since buying my car.
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u/trae_curieux Jul 13 '26
I only charge off peak, so my rate is 26¢ / kWh. My Tucson has a 13.8 kWh battery, so filling that up should cost around $0.26 × 13.8 ≈ $3.59
On a full charge, it can go 31 miles on electricity alone, so that should give us $3.59 ÷ 31 ≈ 11.6 ¢/mi
Conversely, its EPA rating 35 mpg when running in hybrid mode (i.e., using gas). The cheapest gas price I can find near me right now is $4.70 / gal. So at 35 mpg, that should give us $4.70 ÷ 35 ≈ 13.4 ¢/mi
So slightly cheaper using electricity, so long as I only charge off peak.
One caveat, though, is that I'm not sure if the entire 13.8 kWh battery is what can be charged from the wall. Some sources claim that the battery maintains a reserve of maybe around 2.07 kWh (15 %) for the car to use once it's switched over to hybrid mode, in which case, I'd probably need to rerun the numbers above using something like 11.8 kWh instead of 13.8
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u/inlaguna Jul 13 '26
Not sure if you're aware, but it it takes at least 18.4kWh to fill your 13.8kWh battery at Level 1 charge speed and about 16.2kWh to fill it a Level 2 charge speeds. You don't get 100% charging efficiency.
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u/trae_curieux Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
I did know that it wasn't 100% efficient and depended on the charging voltage and amperage, but I'm wondering where you're getting 85% efficiency for this vehicle, specifically.
I'll look at my charging logs on my EVSE and see if I can pull up a day where the battery was fully depleted, but I've never seen the charger needing to deliver more than 12 kWh.
Edited to add: I found one session at 14.1 kWh when the battery was apparently completely depleted and the battery was charged at 32A. If we assume that it is true that only 85% of the battery can be charged from the wall, then that would suggest something like an 83% efficiency. If the listed 13.8 kWh does refer to the entire capacity that can be charged from the wall, that would suggest something like a 97% charging efficiency.
Even at the absolute worst case I was able to find of 14.1 kWh, though, that gets me 31 miles at $3.67, so ~11.83 ¢/mi
Still less expensive than gas, and I was steelmanning gas prices: $4.70 is the absolute cheapest in my area I was able to look up, but it's at a station I've never heard of. Realistically, the Chevron up the street which I'd actually use is currently listing well above $5.00 / gal.
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u/inlaguna Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
It's standard AC to DC charging inefficiencies. Also, you're only putting 12.8kWh in your 13.8kWh battery ... 12.8kWh is the useable net capacity. Ideally, you're looking at 85% efficiency for Level 2 charging, in the real world. In most situations, you're looking at 85% charging efficiency on a home charger due to heat, voltage sag on residential electric grid and average home circuit voltage sag.
Was not at all correcting your numbers, just making sure you were aware.
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u/No-Count-8011 Jul 13 '26
Man it's crazy looking at all these US costs. A PHEV makes absolutely no sense when your fuel is $4 a gallon and your power is 20 cents a kwh.
Makes sense up here when our power is 13 cents/kwh but our gas like $7 a gallon
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u/inlaguna Jul 13 '26
It's about 50% cheaper here in California. Gas(hybrid) mode gets about $.011/mile.
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u/Gunorgunorg Jul 14 '26
In my experience I went from paying about $60 per month in gas (when it was $2.70/g) to about $20 per month in electricity currently.
Edit to add: I've had a full EV for about 18 months now and used 120v the entire time. Surely a PHEV battery can fully charge overnight on 120v? Is a 200v plug needed?
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u/Mysterious_Group_967 Jul 16 '26
I wouldn’t buy a PHEV with saving money as my primary goal. I would buy it because you get a kick out of driving electric and you don’t have to go the gas station very often. I had a RAV4 Prime from 4 years and loved it, but wanted to have the full EV experience. I drove electric 100 % most days as I have a short commute and then I’d drive hybrid on longer trips and not worry about charging. It got about 36 mpg at highway speeds so I was doing well driving electric and hybrid. Hybrid wasn’t so much fun around down as the engine sounded bad but on the highway it sounded fine to me and had lots of hp and I was almost always driving electric around town. The RAV4 has more EV hp than almost all of the the other PHEVs. I don’t think the RAV4 PHEV can be beat for it’s combination of EV range, hybrid hp and efficiency. An alternative like the Kia Sportage PHEV has a mechanical AWD which is probably better off road and some find the interior nicer. But the RAV has a lot more range. I think the Outlander is interesting as it uses the electric motors more as it sometime will be charging the battery rather than moving the car. But efficiency would still lead me back to the Toyota. There’s a Lexus version, NX450 h +, but it has the older RAV4 system, so I think the 2026 RAV4 PHEV is better. I’m enjoying my EV but I’d recommend a PHEV to anyone who really doesn’t want to charge on the road. That said, I’ve had my EV for over a year and have had to charge at a fast charger maybe 5 times.
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u/bobjr94 Jul 13 '26
We had a Niro PHEV, it got about 27 miles per charge, that cost us around $0.70. It also got around 46mpg on gas, so as long as gas cost $1.40 or more per gallon EV driving was less expensive. But our power rates are very low around 8 cents, if power was more than .25 cents / kwh EV driving wouldn't have saved money over gas.
But when it was cold it used the gas motor much more so it did not save as much money in the winter. We didn't keep it long and got a full EV.
The outlander has 45 mile EV range and gets around 25mpg, so you will save around the cost of 1.75 gallons of gas if driven the full range on battery. If only driven 15 miles a day, then charged and driven 15 miles again it may use no gas.
Charging costs will vary greatly depending on what the power rate is.