Used zero gasoline for the entire week.

[MoneyCat]

I managed not to use a single drop of gasoline for the entire last week. It was actually pretty easy to do. I simply rode my bicycle to both my jobs all week and used my wife's Ford C-Max Energi Plug-in Hybrid in EV mode for all necessary shopping trips. The car is rated at 21 miles of EV range, but I squeezed up to 29 miles out of it each day. Then, I mowed the lawn with my electric lawnmower. Since we have solar panels, last month's electric bill was $2.45 in mandatory fees. Not too bad, right?

[GuitarStv]

Nice job!  It's really cool when you start to see how much control you can take over your life and the actions/impact that your life has.

[patrat]

You squeezed 29 miles of EV use from the car *every* day, and did not have a power bill? How many kw of solar panels do you have? That is a huge amount of power (8kwh battery pack, assume fully used each day) that would take about 9 kwh of generation each day. South jersey averages 4.2 solar hours (a solar power term) per day. So you would need over 2000w of solar panels just to charge that car every day from empty; let alone household power demand.

[MoneyCat]

You squeezed 29 miles of EV use from the car *every* day, and did not have a power bill? How many kw of solar panels do you have? That is a huge amount of power (8kwh battery pack, assume fully used each day) that would take about 9 kwh of generation each day. South jersey averages 4.2 solar hours (a solar power term) per day. So you would need over 2000w of solar panels just to charge that car every day from empty; let alone household power demand.

We have a 3.75 kW solar system on our house, and although winter production is low around 8-9 kWh per day, we generate up to 25 kWh per day during the summer. Thanks to net metering, we have free electricity all year long. It helps that we both work long hours, so we rarely use much power at home. :-)

[jdh]

have yo considered a service to rent out your car when you're not using it? Here in Australia we have carnextdoor.com.au. Quite a good concept.

[Fudge102]

You squeezed 29 miles of EV use from the car *every* day, and did not have a power bill? How many kw of solar panels do you have? That is a huge amount of power (8kwh battery pack, assume fully used each day) that would take about 9 kwh of generation each day. South jersey averages 4.2 solar hours (a solar power term) per day. So you would need over 2000w of solar panels just to charge that car every day from empty; let alone household power demand.

Power is relatively cheap.  Even at its priciest, 1 KwH typically costs about 15 cents.  My Volt gets 44 mi per 11 KwH.  So assuming his 21 is half that, you're looking at roughly 6 KwH each day, aka 90 cents a day.  Even if you drive 30 days a month, that's only $27 dollars for 630 miles driven (870 if you go the full 29).  Considering the average car is 30 mi/gal with a cost of $2.50/gal that car would pay $52.5 in a month ($72.5 for the greater range).  Electric cars are totally worth the price, compared to gas and general power at least.  Don't want to dive into other car costs and make this more complicated.