[rwfromkansas]

It is kind of shocking. I would not have guessed the electrical bills would have shot up that much. I would have guessed $100 bucks, which would have been a huge savings over gas probably per month.

But needless to say, in your neighbor's experience, gas was cheaper.

[capt. norm]

He never mentioned how many miles he was putting on it per charge. That could make a big difference, or maybe he's doing something wrong, but I've seen where he plugs it in (one of those three-conductor 220-volt plugs) and he showed me his power bill.

By the way, there is no air-conditioning in it but there is a fan.

It would make a neat "stealth" vehicle as unless it's really quiet outside, you'll never hear it coming until it's within maybe 10 - 15 feet.

[eraser2005]

I'm still waiting to find out what kind of vehicle his neighbor has/had.

There were only 4 production plug-in vehicles available to my knowledge. The GM EV1, Toyota Rav4EV, Ford Ranger EV, and Ford Th!nk City. The EV1s and Th!nks were all removed from service and destroyed or shipped overseas. There are about 200-300 Rav4EVs and Ranger EVs left combined. Both had about 30 kWh battery packs good for 65-80 miles.

Lets assume you have a Rav4EVand you give it a full charge every day. The battery has a 27 kWh capacity, but required about 30 kWh to charge. I pay about $.10 per kWh (plus a flat customer fee) for electricity. That's $3 per day. Assume for the sake of argument you pay $.15, more like the nationwide average. Thats $4.50 per day, or $137 per month (average month length). Also assume a 40 mile drive per day, only half of the full range of a Rav4EV. That's $.1125 per mile.

Of course, the standard Rav4 got 26 mpg EPA combined. For the same 40 miles per day, you need 1.54 gallons of gas. At $3 per gallon, that's $4.62 per day, or $.1155 per mile. Even assuming extremely poor range, the Rav4EV was a virtual tie on cost per day as the standard Rav4. It also wouldn't have cost anywhere near $400 per month to charge.

Where the comparison really falls apart, though, is on battery cost. Hybrids charge/discharge batteries carefully to maximize life (typically never fully charging or fully discharging). These EVs didn't do that, so battery life was MUCH, MUCH, MUCH shorter. And they no longer make the batteries, so you have to buy one used at auction. They can run $25k, over 10 times the list price of a hybrid battery (Toyota claims 0 hybrid battery replacements to date).

The battery price is where an EV would have cost a fortune - not the recharging.