Six Months and 5000 Miles

I'm quite sure that there are some of you out there in the audience who are scoffing at my low mileage.  I've only driven 5000 miles in six months.  That's only about 833 miles per month or roughly 27 miles per day. I haven't taken too many long trips in the last six months, deliberately. And even so, I can't very easily take the Smart out of town too far.

Correction:  I can take the Smart ED anywhere I please, but since the recharge time is quite slow (5 hours from empty). So it's impractical to go further without a great deal of time to compensate.

The most impressive aspect (and I doubt that it will stop being so until there are many more EVs on the road) is that in these last 6 months and 5000 miles I've only spent $147 on fuel. I get on average 3.4 miles / kWh. That's enough money to fill the tank in my truck once by current gas prices ($4.5 / gallon).  The truck gets about 14 MPG and was costing me about $0.294 / mile.. The car cost me exactly 1/10th as much to fuel.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the cost to drive the Smart ForTwo ED 25 miles is $0.96.  Estimating that the average citizen of the United States drivers 15,000 miles annually, that equates to about $575.  I've driven 5000 miles which in six months which is a third of that total and spend only $147.  So if I drive the average number in a year, I will only have spent $440.

By contrast, had I been driving my truck (and I had for the prior 18 months), I would have spent ten times as much.  And by my own calculation while tracking costs and miles driven, I did tend to spend between $3300 and $3800 per year on fuel alone.  Over the course of several years that costs of driving the same distances back and forth, to and from the office, I could have purchased another vehicle and actually saved myself money.  Which brings be back to the Smart ForTwo ED.

I'm quite grateful to have the electric car with all its apparent shortcomings.  I get about the city to and from work, to and from church, to and from everywhere locally, quickly, quietly, and in all honesty quite happily.

So if you live in the South San Francisco Bay Area and want to find out more about electric cars, the Smart ForTwo ED, or any electric car, please contact me at wes@eaasv.org