With a couple of months in the books since replacing Diana's Hyundai Elantra with a Nissan Leaf, we have better data about the energy costs. We're driving each car about 1,000 miles per month. That struck me as insane, but it went up after school started since Diana has to do two round trips. Additionally, I'm generally going to Tampa twice a month for work. Next year, Simon will presumably take the bus both ways with no mid-day break, but Diana is also ramping up on part-time work. I go into the office downtown twice a week, but do lunch out some days as well.
The Hyundai was reasonably fuel efficient (around 30 mpg), but compared to the Prius V (generally 46 mpg) used more gas. The last few months, the spend was averaging $100 vs. $62. I never realized that we were spending that much on gas! Obviously the $100 expense has gone away and has been replaced with electricity.
How much juice? Most of our charging happens at the parking garage at work, or at GKTW where Diana volunteers. The charge station at GKTW is free. After two months we have averaged $16 each month, and the prices are .13/kWh. Or a crazy .35 and minimum $1.50 at Epcot, but we only used that once. Charging at home is a little more tricky to calculate, especially with overall consumption going down with the temperatures. That said, I kind of kept track in my head, and guestimate about 40 kWh at home, and that's at .135/kWh or $5.40.
In other words, our energy cost went from $100 per month to just $21. That works out to almost a grand over the course of the year. Not too shabby.
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