LEAF vs Prius Energy Operating Costs or EOC
Lets say you have $35,000 to spend on a new car, SUV or automobile & you happen to be into energy efficiency or value fuel efficiency or are armchair environmentalist, or technophile like me, then you might wonder which has lower TCO or total cost of ownership, lower OC or operating cost, what the cost in terms of CPM or CPK cost per mile or cost per kilometer, these fuel or energy costs will vary depending on local electrical utility rates for the EV & gasoline prices for the hybrid.
Say that each cost $33,000 out the door, not including insurance, tires, oil changes, electrical energy, fuel, or other soft costs & operating costs, especially the nasty depreciation losses over time. We can know that the Prius will depreciate slightly slower than the LEAF because the early state smaller battery in the LEAF and because of the high reliability & proven durability of Prius models. We can assume they have similar insurance costs.
We can also assume they have similar capacities, aside from range per charge or fill-up respectively. Vehicle registration cheaper for the Prius because EV have to pay surcharges for their lack of contributing to gasoline taxes, here in Washington State, USA. This means $300 a year for the new Prius and $700 per year for the new LEAF for tabs or license plate stickers that verify the vehicle is actively registered in King County where I live.
Using local west coast USA $4/gal gasoline price
Using electrical cost of $0.14/kWh the US national average, though slightly cheaper $0.10/kWh locally
2023 Toyota Prius Eco LE gets about 55 MPG US or 4.4 L/100km
2023 Nissan Leaf 40kWh Battery gets 111 MPGe or uses 30kWh of electricity every 100 miles or 160km
To make the maths easier we will use a block example of my 40 mi daily commute or 200 miles per week or 800 miles per month, going to & from work & home now respectively. Lets examine monthly fuel vs electrical fuel costs for 800 miles
55 MPG for 800 miles means ~15 gallons of gasoline, rounding up slightly or $60 of fuel per month
30kWh per 100 miles means 240kWh @ $0.14/kWh or $33 per month or $24-30 locally
So LEAF electricity for 800 miles cost about 1/2 as much as fuel for a Prius for the same miles
This reminds me of by $0.04 per mile vs $0.09 per mile calculations back in 2013 for LEAF vs Prius meaning electricity cheaper than gasoline, so long as gasoline prices are higher and electricity costs are low, both subject to change and local market conditions that vary considerably worldwide. You can use my method with your numbers to find your personal relative comparison value of operating cost comparisons, all else being equal.
IRL or in real life or in reality, I buy about $80 of gasoline per month or spend about $20 per week to fuel my 05 Prius and Meg spends slightly less to fuel her slightly more efficient newer Prius since it gets closer to 50 MPG and I see more like 44 MPG. Fuelly.com has an interactive search function to let you examine the real world fuel economy averages of many vehicles from most automakers if you want to see for yourself how they perform relatively to each other. Given the scope of decarbonization & banning the sale of new gasoline only fueled cars in 2035, its government regulations, laws & measures against the automakers to force innovation that are driving EV sales & EV development & battery development.
Over the next 10 years EV battery technology will improve a lot, making 55-100 kWh EV batteries, rare-earth free EV IPM motors & SiC power electronics motor controllers more cost effective or cheaper, meaning Tesla slated to launch a sub-compact EV for $20,000 with a 45 kWh battery and 200 HP performance, that can be optioned up to over $30,000 fully loaded. Just as the $35,000 base price Model 3 can be optioned up to over $58,000 fully loaded Plaid edition etc respectively.
Is the Early Days for electric automobiles. Significantly there will be rapid improvements in range per charge such that many emerging EV will have 200, 300, 400, 500, 700, 1000 miles of range per charge as time marches on & electric vehicles continue to improve, specifically the batteries used to store & discharge electrical current in battery electric automobiles. This includes hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles like Toyota Mirai & Honda Clarity. Sodium-ion, Na-Al batteries, Metal Air batteries. New types of fuel cells that can work with propane & DME & other 2nd & 3rd gen biofuels like Green Hydrogen & much cheaper fuels like green natural gas or green CNG.
How do you charge an EV when there is a grid power outage ? With a portable electric generator with a socket neutral ground hot 1/2 watt resistor mod that you can find instructions for online, so you can use the supplied EV-SE charger to charge L1 at 1.6kW so as to pick up 2-5 miles of charge per hour of running your little gasoline generator.
I used a Honda EU2000i to charge our 2015 Nissan Leaf with the aforementioned plug-resistor mod to fake out the GFCI circuit in the EVSE so the generator without a proper ground can accomplish EV charging L1 speeds at 1600 watts of output.
A 13 fluid ounce oil change required every 25 hours of operation for that little generator & it only holds 1 gallon of gasoline, enough for EV charging for about 4 hours. So in 4 hours of charging the LEAF S 30kWh picked up about 15 miles of range from 1 gallon of gasoline, so that's a fuel economy net of 15 MPG // only really feasible in emergencies, noting that the EU2000 generator only converts about 19% of the 1 gallon of fuels 33.7 kWh of chemical energy into useful electrical energy output, that is then transferred at 95% electrical efficiency for Level 1 charging through the EV-SE charging cable that then achieves about 88% efficiency charging the laminate lithium manganese passive air cooled LEAF battery. At every stage the efficiency declines, explaining the 15 MPG result of this solution.
My 2005 Prius II has 158,000 miles and gets 43-48 miles per US gallon of regular gasoline, depending on driving style. When I leased a 2013 Nissan LEAF S $2,000 down & $200/mo with 24 kWh battery I was getting 5.3 miles per kWh. When I purchased $12,000 in 2018 a lightly used low mileage 2015 Nissan Leaf 30kWh I was getting 4.8 miles per kWh. Sadly both LEAF's are gone now. The first was leased and given back at the end of the lease, the later was traded in for my wife's 2010 Prius III. I really want a newer 60kWh LEAF SV Plus, but that would cost close to $40,000 and I do not want a $700 car payment. My 2005 Prius has depreciated to $2,000 trade in value or $3,000 fair market value. I would be perfectly happy with base model 40kWh LEAF, and thankfully those are closer to $30,000 grand, but would still result in a huge cash outlay, and $450 car payment every month. To have nice things you have to pay for them. In physics, nothing is free! They both go A to B so why do I want a new EV? I am crazy! I must be crazy to want a lower powered Nissan LEAF when a Tesla Model 3 would be even better, but I am not about owning a Tesla anything yet!
Meg said keep it under $20K for a used Nissan LEAF 40kWh battery lower mileage in good condition. We have the other hybrid for longer trips & only ever use 1 car when traveling together, so its ok & at any future point we can trade in the LEAF for another better EV or Plug-in Hybrid or ultra high efficiency automobile that is superlative like the Tesla Model 2 or whatever they are calling the cost optimized sedan that launches in by 2027 made in California or Nevada by Tesla Motors that will be the best value in the EV space by huge margins with new battery technology that's cheaper & better that the NCA NMC LFP lithium batteries in current Tesla EV's. The Nissan LEAF has an iconoclastic association in my mind with the emergent EV revolution & I have been a fan or liked it like the NISMO GTR, since 2009. She said, its to like you want some kind of stupid sports car or other wasteful fuel gobbling high powered high performance sports car or SUV, you asking to buy a cream puff lightly used Nissan LEAF, after using your Prius II for 17 years, its not that bad so don't judge yourself for wanting one & you have my blessing to get one as long as you keep the price under $20,000 out the door.
I dream of putting a roof rack on the LEAF & installing a folding set of all black mono-crystalline solar PV modular that can unfold to make a 2KW solar PV array while its parked, sent to charge the LEAF battery pack for a couple hours per day, perhaps adding 1-8 kWh of captured solar PV energy, enough to drive 3-25 miles on stored sunlight. I think such a setup will cost about $6500 if I aggressively DIY all aspects of it.
It will cost a little more because it has to be a strong mount if I am every going to drive with it folded up at 70+ miles per hour or over 100km/h. It also has to be theft resistant with strong brackets that are very hard to undo without special tools, resistant to a battery powered angle grinder, with a HV electrical shock security system, 4G LTE notification system that sends messages to my Apple Watch or iPhone if someone is messing with it, so I can arm the HV coil inverter system to deliver a less than lethal but painful shock to some bad actor attempting to steal the wires or PV modules.
I will try to make it aerodynamic & low profile & completely water sealed. The Electrical interface the complex part, since the LEAF battery needs 400+ VDC to charge, or I can use micro-inverters on the PV panels & send AC to a modified charging cable setup to pump L1 charging at 1.6KW directly into the charger, like extension cord charging out of a standard electrical outlet at 2-5 miles of charge added per hour of charging. I also like the idea of getting the 60kWh LEAF since that would cover more than 10 days of my commuting too & from work on a single charge. Thankfully, sine 2018 the last time I had a LEAF S, the public L2 charging infrastructure has improved. They even added a bunch of EV charger parking spaces with pedestal dual L2 cable connectors to our Apartment parking lots.
The official plan now to buy a light used newer 40kWh Nissan LEAF outright, pay for it all cash & have no car payment. The Prius II going to Alan so he has a fuel efficient road-trip vehicle to use & that keeps Astro the Prius in the family :) Song & Dance discount for Alan too :)
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