The energy in a gallon of gas is 1.3x108 joules, which equals 36 Kwh. At a household cost of 12 cents/Kwh, that's $4.33 for an amount of electricity that would equal the energy of one gallon of gas.
Now, electric cars are much more energy efficient than the internal combustion engine, so the real cost will probably be closer to $1 - $2, but it's still not free.
“The energy in a gallon of gas is 1.3x108 joules, which equals 36 Kwh. At a household cost of 12 cents/Kwh, that’s $4.33 for an amount of electricity that would equal the energy of one gallon of gas.
Now, electric cars are much more energy efficient than the internal combustion engine, so the real cost will probably be closer to $1 - $2, but it’s still not free.”
Here are some real world watt hour per mile figures.
“impact 130 w-Hr/mile, truck 350 W-Hr/mile, prius 250 w-hr/mile, GMVolt 200 w-wh/mile, BugE 170 w-hr/mile, Tesla 177 w-hr/mile, GM EV1 115 w-hr/mile. “
An electric vehicle is 3 times more efficient than internal combustion. For the stoichiometric OTTO cycle less than 13% of your energy per gallon reaches the pavement. While electric motors are over 98% efficient in converting electricity to mechanical motion. The GMvolt uses 200 watt hours a mile so at 12 cents a kilowatt that’s .024 cents a mile in electricity costs. A similar sized Otto cycle car would get 30 mpg ruffy, or to equal .024 cents per mile gasoline would need to cost 75 cents per gallon. Giving that gas is selling for 1.55 a gallon locally a 30 mpg car costs .0511 cents per mile or twice as much as the GMvolt. At the summers peak of 3.89 a gallon the little 30 mpg car cost 12.93 cents per mile or 6 times as much. No electric cars are just waiting for battery tech to come online once the bat tech is there they kill combustion cars in economics.