Fueling electric vehicles costs roughly the equivalent of $17 a gallon: Study

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A new study found that fueling electric vehicles costs roughly $17 per gallon.

In its paper "Overcharged Expectations: Unmasking the True Costs of Electric Vehicles," the Texas Public Policy Foundation stipulated that the hidden costs of fueling EVs drastically outweigh its low upfront fueling costs. The hidden costs come from an increased burden on the energy grid exerted by charging stations, and an enormous amount of federal subsidies.

Electric vehicles


In this image released on Friday, October, 20, 2023, LONGi-modules on NEC Gigahub. (LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd/News Aktuell via AP Images) LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd/News Aktuell via AP Images/AP

"EV advocates claim that the cost of electricity for EV owners is equal to $1.21 per gallon of gasoline (Edison Electric Institute, 2021), but the cost of charging equipment and charging losses, averaged out over 10 years and 120,000 miles, is $1.38 per gallon equivalent on top of that. Adding the costs of the subsidies to the true cost of fueling an EV would equate to an EV owner paying $17.33 per gallon of gasoline," study authors Brent Bennett and Jason Isaac write.

"And these estimates do not include the hundreds of billions more in subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (2022) for various aspects of the EV supply chain, particularly for battery manufacturing," they add. "It is not an overstatement to say that the federal government is subsidizing EVs to a greater degree than even wind and solar electricity generation and embarking on an unprecedented endeavor to remake the entire American auto industry."

Regulatory mandates were found to make up the highest chunk of the hidden costs.

The study also argues that hybrids are far more efficient than full EVs, but are ignored by the government.