Electric cars such as the Nissan Leaf may be kind to the environment and have low refuelling costs, but they're still more expensive than their fossil-fuelled counterparts in the long run, says a new study.
The total cost of ownership for a Nissan Leaf is a whopping £5,000 greater than an equivalent VW Golf BlueMotion 1.6 TDI over three years and 36,000 miles -- even when you take the government's plug-in car grant into consideration, according to the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association's Business Guide to Electric Vehicles (PDF link).
The figures, calculated to estimate running costs of the vehicles if used as company cars, claim the Leaf's total cost of ownership over three years is £23,848, taking into account depreciation, interest charged on the capital cost of the vehicle, insurance, maintenance and fuel cost.
The Golf's total cost of ownership, when taking the same factors into account, is calculated to be £18,770. Nissan often compares the Leaf to the BlueMotion, which is a similar size and has low carbon emissions.
The major contributor to the Leaf's total running costs are its high initial purchase price and its depreciation. It manages to claw back some ground based on its far lower refuelling costs -- 2 pence per mile versus the Golf's 11.9p per mile -- but most things considered, it's the diesel that wins out in the end.
Unsurprisingly, sales of the Leaf and electric cars in general are relatively low in this country. Just 812 buyers have taken the government's £5,000 plug-in-car grant so far in 2011, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
The previous government had expected to supply a "minimum of 46,000 grants" -- a figure that was slashed to 8,600 by those in power today.
"More than a dozen new electric and hybrid vehicles are set to hit the UK market over the next year, but most of them will be decorating showrooms unless manufacturers are more realistic on pricing," said BVRLA chief executive John Lewis.
"Ultra-low carbon transport is a necessity and electric vehicles have a big part to play in getting us there, but these vehicles are simply too expensive for most fleets at the moment."
- Don't forget to check out our Nissan Leaf diary to get an idea of what it's like living with an electric car.
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Comments 20
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anonymous 6 September, 2011 18:34
you are not comparing apples to apples. How about low maintenance costs? The premium you would pay for a quiet drive?
You also fail to consider environmental and political costs of using oil.
The average person drives only 40 miles a day and most families have a second car for long distance trips. The leaf has sold over 10,000 units and this is only the beginning.
anonymous 6 September, 2011 19:25
anonymous... go back to kissing trees,
Im sorry but this report is correct, electric cars are simply too expensive, if you are prepared to pay an extra £5000 for "quiet running" I think you as an environmentalist should give that money to people who need it like holmless kids, starving famalies or better yet... your wallet!
Car companies make huge profit on cars for a reason, people like you are stupid enough to pay a premium for the sake of looking like an idiot who went out and spent a few grand on a some badly designed car which you have to shed out an extra few grand to replace the battery in a few years time anyway, look at your car battery, now imagine that about 20 bigger and figure the cost when that goes wrong...
The future is Hydrogen with nuclear powered extraction used to obtain it for our vehicles and homes, a car powered by hydrogen is far more efficent than any electric car, infact more so than current petrol and deisel cars, go figure.
anonymous 6 September, 2011 20:13
Having no argument of your own, you've resorted to name calling and nonsense.
anonymous 6 September, 2011 21:48
I can't believe I'm having an argument with myself!
anonymous 6 September, 2011 22:07
Hahaha! Don't think you can hide behind your anonymity forever! I'm on to you anonymous. :-)
anonymous 6 September, 2011 23:53
"a car powered by hydrogen is far more efficent than any electric car"
Congrats! you must've disproved the law of conservation of energy. Tell me O Wise One, in your backyard shed experiments how is it that you introduce an extra step of using hydrogen to generate electricity (instead of getting it from a battery directly) and yet you are more efficient. Unless you mean to burn the hydrogen ala a trad combustion engine, in which case you will far, far, far less efficient still.
anonymous 7 September, 2011 07:49
These studies are incredible bull***t. They claim "all electric cars" to the price if Nissan Leaf.
There are cheaper alternatives if you know where to look for. For example Peugeot, Renault and Citroen built pretty nice electric cars for years, which are still available around the Europe, for prices less than 10k€. And you can still go like 80-100km with the original NiCd-batteries. Some are upgraded into lithium age, getting ranges up to 190km (proven already).
I can't believe who could fund these studies - other than oil & car industry. I'm personally soon about to get a 2001 VW Passat (a big car), converted into electric and 24kWh lithium batteries. Old frame, but new technology. It has a LOT more room than any of these overexpensive industrial cars that are just manucfacturer's "proofs that electric is expensive". It also has better range, top speed (200hp electric motor!) and costs 1/3 of the price of Nissan Leaf. And the builder gives me full warranty for the life of the car.
It really wouldn't be expensive to build proper electric cars, affordable for average people. But it's what car industry wants to prolong as long as possible, while gasoline cars still sell in big numbers. Just think what would happen to their economics and aftermarket infrastructure, if people found out there were cars that really don't need expensive maintenance and you wouldn't have to switch to a new car every couple of years. Not to mention all the losses for oil companies.
You keep on burning those dinosaurs. I've already switched to cheaper and economical electric power. And couldn't be happier.
Paul Scott 7 September, 2011 07:55
Nonsense. For total cost of ownership to be lower for the diesel, one would have to assign no value to human life. The pollution from internal combustion is responsible for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths every year. Anyone who burns oil contributes to that.
The environmental damage from this pollution, the spilling of tankers and blowing up of deep sea platforms is measured in the tens of billions every year.
My country has spent upwards of $1.5 trillion on the latest wars for oil.
These are real costs that are not internalized in the price at the pump.
Just because our weak and corrupt legislators see fit to keep those costs out of the price of petrol doesn't make them go away. People still suffer, soldiers still die, and our economies are still ruined by the use of oil.
If you choose to believe that these costs should be born not by you, the user of oil, but those who are innocently affected, then that speaks loudly to your character.
anonymous 7 September, 2011 08:00
Oh, and the batteries really don't need to be replaced often. A relatively cheap (about 7000-9000 euros) 25kWh LiFeYPo4-battery can easily last 8-10 years or around 300000km driving. Same amount of driving distance in gasoline would cost closer to 30000 euros.
And after that, a lithium battery is almost completely recycleable.
anonymous 7 September, 2011 09:06
you have all forgotten that most of the advantage to the diesel costing was the lower purchase price of the vehicle... electric cars were originally projected at much lower prices, but once the gov announced the £5,000 subsidy, prices jumped enormously. imho a combination of opportunism, need for time to develop better batteries, and, possibly, heavy lobbying (in one form or another) from the oil consortiums.
anonymous 7 September, 2011 11:53
I calculated that if you spent 5000 pounds on carbon offsets you could drive one million miles in a 2 litre petrol car.
anonymous 7 September, 2011 12:39
hey anonymous, you may be suffering from schizophrenia, you should see someone about that
anonymous 7 September, 2011 12:40
no i'm not, you are
anonymous 7 September, 2011 13:35
How about conducting the study over say 48 000 or maybe 100 000 miles, and include the servicing costs needed on the diesel vs the nissan
anonymous 7 September, 2011 13:37
because people dont usually keep their cars for 100,000 miles maybe?
anonymous 7 September, 2011 14:25
With electric cars, they might keep them that long. And even longer. If not, then resale value should be taken into account, as they have much, much longer life expectancy than a gasoline car of same age. With regular gas cars we usually get a "defect anxiety", instead of range anxiety. And their prices drop dramatically in just few years. (Leaf price might drop as well, as it's such an overexpensive example.) You start to worry about malfunctions after some tens of thousands of kilometers, not to mention after a distance like 100000km. With electric cars, you can drive without worries for much, much longer times.
I've kept my current gasoline car (which will be the last one I own) for 5 years and during this time I've driven 60000km, which costed about 6000 euros in gasoline alone and some 2000 euros into maintenance, while pumping some 9 tons of CO2 into atmosphere. These alone could buy me new full set of lithium batteries for an electric car. And they would last at least twice as long (10 years at the least). Same distance in electricity would have been just 1200 euros.
An electric car (without it's batteries) in theory should really be much cheaper than a gasoline powered car to manufacture, as it's electric motor and it's electronics are much more simple and cheaper than a gasoline engine and it's transmission. You can only wonder why the electric cars introduced are so expensive... I have my theories, which some people would call conspiracy theories.
But car companies and oil industry knows all these facts very well.
Paul Scott 7 September, 2011 22:34
I drove my Toyota RAV4 EV for 91,000 miles and sold it a couple months ago for $18,000. It was still running like new and there was virtually zero maintenance for the 8.5 years I owned it. I know several dozen people who still have their RAVs and are well over 100,000 miles. The leader had his pack replaced at 150,000 miles and is over 220,000 miles today.
EVs will last a long time, just replace the batteries when they need it.
anonymous 8 September, 2011 05:19
This study uses "interest charged on the capital cost of the vehicle" as a comparison... Is this a joke?
How do they know if customers bought the car with a loan or not? What about the people that bought the car without a loan?
anonymous 8 September, 2011 09:48
I hate the way i always see news like this , And never see news like the fact the Nissan leaf has actually been released ? I was waiting for ages for the Leaf and it got pushed back over and over , And more crap being put out like this is going to make it even harder for these cars to sell , Problem is people aren't stupid, before long they will catch on that electric cars are a lot cheaper and better for everyone, And the greedy fat cats selling 5.0 turbo fords will be out of business unless they change the way they think
anonymous 9 September, 2011 12:49
"Problem is people aren't stupid"
Exactly, which is why electric cars haven't taken off yet. They don't meet consumers current expectations of what they can expect from a car. If people are willing to compromise on what their car is capable of doing and how much that will cost then they may well be very happy with an electric car; but for the majority of people the compromises they have to make in some areas (range, performance, cost of battery replacement, high initial cost, battery recharge times), isn't worth the benefits in other areas (low maintenance, cheap recharging, eco-friendly).
The main area which causes most people problems is the batteries, they take too long to recharge and are too expensive (both in initial cost and should they need replacement). Better and cheaper battery technology would produce a much more viable EV. I'm personally quite excited about paper battery technology (paper impregnated with aligned carbon nanotubes).
The other main problem is that the majority of people buy cars second hand (in the UK at least), and the second hand market in electric cars isn't that big yet, and the good vehicles that everyone wants haven't had time to depreciate to an affordable level. Also while you can favourably compare the cost of replacing batteries to the maintenance cost of a combustion vehicle over a similar time period, I've never had to spend several thousand pounds on replacing a single item on my car all at once, and if I had to the car would have to get sold, because I couldn't afford to do that, and I suspect most people would be in a similar situation.
So in short EVs aren't ready for most people yet, they're too expensive and too impractical; it's not a global consipracy, and it's not because people don't know what they're missing, or because they get bad press. Like the previous poster said people aren't stupid, and if electric cars were as good as some people make out they would be selling a lot better than they are.
-Alimus