Saving thousands on your EV purchase — Part 2
This week three more choices that saved me at least $12,000 (see also Part 1)
Last week I discussed ways you can assess how much range you need to help you avoid paying for capacity you don’t end up using and briefly outlined why the overall cost of owning an EV may already be cheaper than a comparable new gas-powered car. This week I look at all-wheel drive, dealer extras and home charging. How to get a home charger and how much it should cost in particular I will be looking at further in future. Not only is this a cost that varies widely for a very similar service, not being able to charge at home can also make some feel they can’t choose an EV at all.
Do you need a home charger?
Not necessarily — at least in my own experience. The cost of installation of an EV charger can vary dramatically — when I asked members of Drive Electric NL prices quoted varied between $1,500 and $1,800 for parts and labour if no significant extra work (like upgrading your electrical panel) was required. If you are renting (as I do) and/or in an apartment building it may be difficult to access one at all. Ask a dealer or many current EV owners and they will give you the impression that you will naturally want to get one fairly soon, and that may make you nervous about owning an EV at all.
I have been happily using an ordinary 120V socket connected to the charger supplied with my EVs for more than two years as my main source of power (as shown above). It adds about 7km of range per hour charged, which may not seem like a lot, but like most cars mine spends most of its time sat in front of the house, and the average Canadian driver drives 60km a day (probably less most days because this includes the occasional long journey) so you can see I seldom find in practice I am not able to be at the charge I need.
When I unexpectedly find I do need a little extra charge for a longer trip, I drive to my nearest fast charger and I can get to 80% charge in a few minutes (paying $15/hr). Taking a close look at your actual driving patterns (see last week’s discussion about range for tips on how) would help you decide whether you actually need one.
If you are in an apartment building or you commute to an office with a parking lot, it’s definitely worth asking the building owners what their plans are to install “Level 2” chargers — there are generous government subsidies available for this. Even a 120V outlet that you would be allowed to use in a parking lot might be a help (these are sometimes available for block heaters for example). And you can use Plugshare to see if there are public chargers already available in locations near home or work.
The number of public chargers in Canada is rising very rapidly — 39% in 2021 alone. Some level 2 chargers are free of charge to use, and you will probably find that even if you have to rely on a combination of level 2 and level 3 charging your costs to “fill up” are still lower than they would be with a gas car. As this skeptical article points out (and as I discovered on my road trip this winter) there can certainly be some practical inconveniences at the moment but many are to do with the fact EVs are just starting to become mainstream in Canada.
Are you over-paying for a home charger?
If you do decide you want or need home charging, you might also be able to put together a “bargain basement” solution if you already have a 240V drier or oven plug that is not too far from where your car is or will be parked. The most extreme version I have seen is this claim that you can double the charging speed of an Ioniq 5 using a simple adapter connected to your drier plug at one end and the portable charger supplied at the other (which is labelled as 120V only but the author suggests is actually dual voltage inside). I am not an electrician and by connecting 240V to an appliance rated at 120V is clearly breaking the rules so I can’t recommend this approach, and I don’t know whether this approach would work in a similar way with the chargers provided with other EVs but it does make you think…
If your drier were close enough not to need an extension cord, you could get a simple $150 plug splitter (making sure you don’t use your drier and charge your car at the same time) and buy a portable EV charger for as little as $400 (note: many sold online inc the linked one are not CSA approved) — that way you can take your setup with you when you move house. Note: if you do need to run a longer cable, make sure it is the right specification of wire — conventional extension cords are designed for 120V. This setup would not be as fast as a dedicated, fitted charger, but it would still charge at about 20Km range per hour — three times faster than using an ordinary 120V socket to charge. Spending $550 instead of $1,600+ and getting a solution you can keep with you seems it might be worth a little investigating.
If you want an inexpensive charging option made in Canada and fully CSA approved, you can get one for $650 from Grizzl-e — it doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles like control via an app, but considering your EV will normally also offer some form of remote control over charging, spending more seems unnecessary.
I would recommend not purchasing a home fast charger until you have tried out the alternatives first, starting with just plugging into a conventional electric socket. And as the number of EVs increases and more electricians are familiar with installing them, I would expect the cost of chargers and installation to drop. In a future post I hope to dig deeper into why commercial level 2 chargers — including those supplied through Canadian government programs — cost upwards of $10,000 each!
Do you need all-wheel drive?
Aspirational car commercials notwithstanding, most of us don’t spend a lot of time off-roading with our cars. And while AWD can help cars to accelerate, several driving experts point out it does nothing to improve handling or braking in wintry conditions. Even EVs without AWD usually have independent braking systems on each wheel anyway and often have other safety technologies — the average value of the computer chips in EVs is twice that of gas cars. And there is some plausible suggestion that EVs handle better in difficult road conditions because they tend to be heavier and because the vehicle’s main weight is in the batteries not the engine, it is more evenly distributed and close to the road. Choosing to go with RWD on my car saved me $3,000, and (once I had winter tires on) I still found my car handled well in even in the snow (though I stuck to major highways). AWD also reduces your range a bit when you use it (though it can be switched off).
Are there dealer ‘extras’ you can do without?
This is a question that all car buyers face, not just EV owners so I won’t go into this in detail. I was offered a plethora of optional extras in the fine print of my license — extended warranties, insurance, paint sealant, fabric protection etc. If I had simply agreed to all of them, it would have added more than $7,000 to my car’s cost over five years. Some of those options might have been worth the money of course, but it’s worth checking to make sure insurance-related deals would not already be covered by your existing insurance, and keep in mind the value of maintenance-related offers might be lower because your EV should need less maintenance anyway compared to a gas-powered car.
Have I missed anything?
If you have tried or considered any of these money-saving approaches, I would love to hear your experiences. I’d also love to share any additional tips and tricks and would welcome suggestions for future posts. Leave a comment or send me an email.
