MPGe help & predictions

[exdxgxe4life]

Hey everyone,

I've probably read this article a zillion times: Cybertruck MPGe

I'm struggling however to fully understand MPGe. I currently drive a Prius and a Nissan Titan. The cybertruck will replace both. With all the math I'm doing, I'm struggling to see how I'll be saving money. If I go at face value, I will be gaining 20 MPGe over my Prius, which averages 50mpg and according to the Reddit article which states the CT Dual motor will get 69/70 mpge.

Sooooo....

My Prius has 160,000 miles and averages 50 MPG. That means over the course of the vehicle I've used 3,200 gallons of gas and if I average gas at $2.50 I would have spend $8,000 in gas.

The Cybertruck will get 70 MPGe. If I assume that I drive 160,000 miles on the CT and I use the 33.7 KW / gallon that means that I would have used 539,200 KWH of energy. at 13 cents per kwh, I would have spent $14,019.20 in energy cost.

That can't be right. Any help would be appreciated.

Sponsored

 

[MEDICALJMP]

Hey everyone,

I've probably read this article a zillion times: Cybertruck MPGe

I'm struggling however to fully understand MPGe. I currently drive a Prius and a Nissan Titan. The cybertruck will replace both. With all the math I'm doing, I'm struggling to see how I'll be saving money. If I go at face value, I will be gaining 20 MPGe over my Prius, which averages 50mpg and according to the Reddit article which states the CT Dual motor will get 69/70 mpge.

Sooooo....

My Prius has 160,000 miles and averages 50 MPG. That means over the course of the vehicle I've used 3,200 gallons of gas and if I average gas at $2.50 I would have spend $8,000 in gas.

The Cybertruck will get 70 MPGe. If I assume that I drive 160,000 miles on the CT and I use the 33.7 KW / gallon that means that I would have used 539,200 KWH of energy. at 13 cents per kwh, I would have spent $14,019.20 in energy cost.

That can't be right. Any help would be appreciated.

I will let someone with more knowledge in MPGe answer your main question. I just want to point out that you are replacing 2 vehicles, one being a hybrid and the other being an ICE truck. I am going to guess that you may have a 6+ year old truck. A quick search says

2015 Nissan Titan 4WD
MPG: 12 city, 17 hwy

What have you spent on fuel for that Titan? Miles driven? This is all part of the equation.

 

[exdxgxe4life]

I will let someone with more knowledge in MPGe answer your main question. I just want to point out that you are replacing 2 vehicles, one being a hybrid and the other being an ICE truck. I am going to guess that you may have a 6+ year old truck. A quick search says

2015 Nissan Titan 4WD
MPG: 12 city, 17 hwy

What have you spent on fuel for that Titan? Miles driven? This is all part of the equation.

Yeah, good point, I didn't mention that. It's a 2006 titan. I only drive it occasionally for errands and home projects. Not many miles put on. My prius is 95% of my driving.

 

[CyberT]

Hey everyone,

I've probably read this article a zillion times: Cybertruck MPGe

I'm struggling however to fully understand MPGe. I currently drive a Prius and a Nissan Titan. The cybertruck will replace both. With all the math I'm doing, I'm struggling to see how I'll be saving money. If I go at face value, I will be gaining 20 MPGe over my Prius, which averages 50mpg and according to the Reddit article which states the CT Dual motor will get 69/70 mpge.

Sooooo....

My Prius has 160,000 miles and averages 50 MPG. That means over the course of the vehicle I've used 3,200 gallons of gas and if I average gas at $2.50 I would have spend $8,000 in gas.

The Cybertruck will get 70 MPGe. If I assume that I drive 160,000 miles on the CT and I use the 33.7 KW / gallon that means that I would have used 539,200 KWH of energy. at 13 cents per kwh, I would have spent $14,019.20 in energy cost.

That can't be right. Any help would be appreciated.

The information in this Reddit post is over 1 year old and is highly speculative. By the time the CT comes out there will be a massive flood of posts and YouTube videos from the first few that are delivered. We will have all the information soon.

Elon said that the production version will be better than the prototype. I have a feeling that these range numbers are going to be blown away.

My advice is to keep saving and planning on having your CT delivered.

 

[qreese]

What will ICE fuel cost be in 2022/2023/2024? I would think prices would continue to rise. Significantly under this administration. Thoughts anyone?

 

[Crissa]

You 70mpge is also on the low end of what the Cybertruck will do given early estimates.

But comparing it to a Prius, well, you might as well compare it to a Model 3. Of course it will do worse.

An 85 mpge is more likely. That's 2.5mi/kWh, or $8320 under your electricity price.

And $2.5/gallon is pretty average, but it's 40% under the peak. So say we hit a more robust world economy and the gasoline price rises again, you're spending $11,200 in gas.

Also, mpge is really only useful to note how efficient it is compared to a gas car; it doesn't say anything about cost per mile or per cargo load.

-Crissa

 

[exdxgxe4life]

You 70mpge is also on the low end of what the Cybertruck will do given early estimates.

But comparing it to a Prius, well, you might as well compare it to a Model 3. Of course it will do worse.

An 85 mpge is more likely. That's 2.5mi/kWh, or $8320 under your electricity price.

And $2.5/gallon is pretty average, but it's 40% under the peak. So say we hit a more robust world economy and the gasoline price rises again, you're spending $11,200 in gas.

Also, mpge is really only useful to note how efficient it is compared to a gas car; it doesn't say anything about cost per mile or per cargo load.

-Crissa

Thanks for the reply! Certainly comparing the prius and cybertruck are apples and oranges. Again, at face value with the Cybertruck MPGe at 70~80 (maybe more) I just assumed it would be an instant cost savings. It's well within the realm of possibility that I'm a total idiot but it seems like MPGe is a sudo science if 50 MPG is better than 70~80 MPGe~.

 

[Crissa]

... but it seems like MPGe is a sudo science if 50 MPG is better than 70~80 MPGe~.

No, you're not. The problem is your apples to oranges, like you said. Your mpge is costing you 4.38 a 'gallon'. That's going to complicate things.

It's no different than switching from gas to diesel for a higher 'miles per gallon' but then finding out your gallons cost more (well, they did where I grew up).

And it's no different than saying you need to carry a ton and a half of bricks ten miles. Well, it's going to take your Prius three trips at max laden whereas it would take the Cybertruck one trip.

You need to know your load and your fuel cost before we can begin to estimate.

And for all we know, you end up going up and down long hills. Well, a Cybertruck can absorb more regen than a Prius can. Or maybe you end up crawling alot at low speed and high acceleration, like bad freeway traffic. Well, the BEV will do better at that than the hybrid, too. Big battery means never having to idle the booster motor and no motor to spin up to accelerate.

It really depends on what you're doing.

-Crissa

 

[exdxgxe4life]

For anyone that stumbles across this thread, here's my answer.

http://mpgecost.com/index.html

Yes, it will be more expensive to drive the CT then compared to my Prius. Again, I know it's apples and oranges, but I just find it very misleading that MPGe DOES not really relate to MPG. In my case 50 mpg is better than 80 MPGe in terms of cost savings (yes I know a lot of factors could change this).

 

[Bill906]

I think the confusion lies in the 33.7 kWh of energy in a gallon of gas. Although technically true, the part I believe people are overlooking is ICE engines are typically 30% efficient at best. So an ICE vehicle only uses about 10 kWh of that energy to move the car and dumps the other 23 kWh of energy out the radiator.

I haven't gone through the entire calculations to verify this, but that is my knee jerk response.

 

[Crissa]

I haven't gone through the entire calculations to verify this, but that is my knee jerk response.

Yes. But even an EV loses some energy to heat.

The big difference comes in the cost of that gallon: A gallon of gas might cost you $2.5 and an electric 'gallon' $4. A diesel gets from 15-30% more mpg, but it might cost only 10% more at $2.75 so there's a slip where it might be even cheaper per dollar...

.But of course it's not better for whoever is standing next to it. Or downwind. Or climate change.

-Crissa

 

[ajdelange]

If the CT turns in 70 MPGe (where did that number come from) it implies 33700/70 = 481 Wh/mi. That's not an unreasonable estimate. 160,000 miles driven at that rate would use 160000*.481 = 76960 kWh which, at 13¢ a kWh is $10005. That's 6¢/mile. That's if you do all your charging at home. Charging at SC is going to cost a bit more. The way to get the cost per mile down is to install solar.

 

[Stuck4ger]

....The way to get the cost per mile down is to install solar.

That's why I installed Tesla Solar with 4 PowerWalls. Whatever the cost per mile equivalent is of an ICE or hybrid, I drive over 100 miles per day for my commute and it will be nice to use the solar-powered gas station at night. In the meantime, I'm enjoying $7/mo electric bills in my desert home with dual A/C for the house, a minisplit cooling the insulated garage, electric on-demand water heater, and a pool. Sure, if I wanted to I could figure out the total cost of the solar and powerwalls and add that to the equation but it's more than just money -- it's similar to insurance, it gives me peace of mind to gas wars, rising electric prices, and power outages.

 

[John K]

Neighbor’s external power receptacle, extension cord and run the sprinklers to keep the cord cool.

 

[CyberMoose]

The Cybertruck probably won't be much of a savings vehicle compared to a prius, but as mentioned in this thread already, it'll depend on charging location as well.
I see the apples and oranges scenario being used so lets look at it a bit more like apples to electric apples.

The model 3 is basically double the MPGe that was used in the first post, which would bring the cost for charging to around $7000 after 160000 miles. Giving a cost saving of about $1000 over a prius, it's not much but it's also switching from one of the most fuel efficient vehicles to an electric vehicles. The estimated cost savings for switching is probably based more on average MPG in passenger vehicles.

Now if we look at oranges and electric oranges. Trucks are about a third as efficient as a Prius, which would cost about $24000 in gas after 160000 miles (based on figures in first post). Giving a cost savings of about $10000 if you switch to a cybertruck, and it seems people in this thread believe the Cybertruck will be even more efficient.

If your daily driver is your prius and you switch to the Cybertruck. You won't really get those gas savings. There is still the option of keeping the Prius and just replacing the truck, but if you are like me and probably very many other people on this forum, you probably want the Cybertruck to be your daily driver. It might cost a little more but sometimes the comfort and just enjoying what you drive is more than worth it. I grew up in a small town and my truck was my first vehicle, even when I moved to the big city, it was years before I bought myself a car. I was happy to pay a little more in gas to drive it around.

Sponsored