Gas price equivalent for electricity? 75 cents.

Electric car owners today pay for electricity at equivalent of about 75 cents per gallon. 25 utilities in 14 states currently offer electricity rates tailored towards electric vehicle owners, according to a study by the Northeast Group.

|
Rick Bowmer/AP/File
A Nissan Leaf charges at a electric vehicle charging station in Portland, Ore. Electric car owners today pay for electricity at equivalent of about 75 cents per gallon.

The last time you could buy a gallon of gasoline in the US for 75 cents was around the late 1970s.

If you own an electric car today though, the price you're paying for electricity is equivalent to about 75 cents per gallon.

According to a study by the Northeast Group (via Charged EVs), 25 utilities in 14 states currently offer electricity rates tailored towards electric vehicle owners.

With discounts for off-peak charging, the cost of topping up your battery is very low indeed. By converting the energy you're storing into a gasoline-equivalent figure, the price works out at about $0.75 per "gallon".

For comparison, the current average for gas prices in the US is about $3.70 a gallon--almost five times as much.

Some states are even mandating EV-friendly rates from utilities – Minnesota recently became the first to require preferable rates for those charging off-peak. In addition, the state requires that customers have the option of a zero-emissions tariff, making charging even greener, as well as cheaper.

Ben Gardner, President of Northeast Group, explains that many utilities are seeking ways to better engage with their customers.

Electric vehicle owners are already fairly in-tune with the price they pay for electricity, so making life a little more pleasant for EV drivers is one way of improving customer relations. Since they typically consume more electricity than other homeowners, it also makes financial sense for utilities to have them on their side.

So if you want to drive around like the last thirty-five years or so of gas price increases haven't happened, the message is simple: buy an electric car.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Gas price equivalent for electricity? 75 cents.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2014/0727/Gas-price-equivalent-for-electricity-75-cents
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe