June 25, 2020
Dan Gearino
The promise of saving money could be an essential part of nudging the public to begin driving all-electric cars and trucks.
But it’s not easy to figure out the differences in costs between an EV and a model that runs on gasoline. The calculation needs to include the cost of the vehicle, maintenance, insurance and, of course, fuel.
So I took notice of a paper in the journal Joule that does a comprehensive estimate of fuel costs during the 15-year life of an EV compared to a gasoline model, with specifics for each state.
The authors, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory, found that a driver of an all-electric vehicle could save money in all 50 states, based on the main scenario the researchers used in the study as the basis for their calculations, but that there were huge differences in the level of savings.
Minnesota Looks to Clean Energy to Boost Struggling Economy
Several states are looking to spend money on clean energy projects to help stimulate their economies. In Minnesota, some recent filings give an idea of what this might look like.
Xcel Energy, Minnesota’s largest utility, proposed $3 billion in spending last week. The company was responding to a directive from the state government that utilities should propose projects that would help the economy to recover from the damage done by the novel coronavirus
Now regulators are going to sift through the plans from Xcel and other utilities and decide what to approve.
“It’s important to remember that any money the utility spends comes from the customers,” said Annie Levenson-Falk, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota, a consumer advocacy group.
Customers ultimately pay for utility projects through their monthly bills, so any sudden increase in spending by utilities will get passed along to customers, probably at a time when many of them are struggling, she said.
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