Cost and carbon footprint compared vs flying, gas car
St John’s to T.O. and back by the numbers
New carbon and fuel savings calculators from TakeCharge NL made my calculations a lot easier!
Total distance: 7735km (mostly highway)
Fuel cost
compared to a 2022 Hyundai Tucson (closest ICE model)
Some big caveats
If the difference in costs seems low there are a bunch of good reasons. The gas mileage is based on the average for a Tucson but nearly all my travel was highway (and the electric consumption is accurate). The charging cost while approximate is based on what it would cost to charge 100% on Chargepoint fast chargers — based on my February numbers is $.34/kWh or nearly three times what it would have cost me to charge at home. And for reasons I will fully explore later the cost/km in winter will always be much worse. Essentially this is close to the worst case.
“Typical” annual cost difference (at today’s pump prices)
(I would expect the EV cost to be a little higher because the latter figure doesn’t reflect some of the winter and highway driving penalties above).
Carbon footprint
(if I had flown on a Westjet 737–700)
(That could have been as low as 634g for an Air Canada A320)
Carbon emissions if I had driven a Tucson:
Actual carbon emissions (from EV)
Less than 100kg. would have been 1,468kg in Alberta though.
Early observations
I hadn’t realized how much of a difference in emissions you can make by preferring low emissions flights, or just how much worse for the climate a single driver in a gas car trip would be than flying. Also, of course, I have not yet factored in the “cost” of the time spent charging. I have not calculated the total time spent yet, but how you value that depends on how much you value your time and the extent you are able to use that charging time enjoyably!
Also see this post from earlier in the series. If you have come directly to this post it is just a small part of an ongoing mix of practical EV driving tips and policy recommendations drawing on my two years of EV driving experience and this trip. I encourage you to go to the homepage and/or hit follow or subscribe on the right of this page (for free!) to keep up to date…
