# How long will it take to pay back your Electric Car?



## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Ok, to go on with the breakdown:










From here you can see that leading on from my previous post, the 10.08kWh of usage from the battery needs 11.088kWh to charge it back up.

Then I have broken down how much that costs you per day to charge that On-Peak, Off-Peak, Changeover, and Solar. If you charge direct off Solar, you are essentially saving that money, so I made it green. It's not really a cost, it's a saving.

So now it takes the values to run your ICE, and works out yearly how much it costs to run your EV, and then works out the savings, like so:









And lastly, the dead final box to help you decide if this project is worth it *to you* and whether you see the timeframe as reasonable, as remember, you *won't start saving straight away, you are now in the hole with this conversion, so any real savings will be deferred until the cost of your conversion is paid off by your savings*










As you can see, in my case, at this point in time, with my plans, I am looking at around 4.73-5.38 *YEARS *to pay off this conversion. Worth it to me? Yeah.

Worth it to you? Maybe not.

But for example, without showing all the working out and stuff, if I decided that I didn't want bodywork, interior, and a paint job, I can take those away from my costs, as they are wants and not needs, and it changes my values like so:










So as you can see, if I am happy to drive around a car that looks like hot garbage (as my project does) then I can get away with 4.04-4.58 years, so I'll save myself 6 months on not doing those things.

Anyway, onto the links:

EV Conversion Calculator in ODS Format (Open Office)

EV Conversion Calculator in XLS (Microsoft Office)


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## MattsAwesomeStuff (Aug 10, 2017)

Neato. If the community had any ability to do anything custom to our community I'd pin this somewhere.


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## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

MattsAwesomeStuff said:


> Neato. If the community had any ability to do anything custom to our community I'd pin this somewhere.


No worries mate, the thought counts.


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## Tremelune (Dec 8, 2009)

I mean, all calculations aside...Buying an EV or converting a gas car is not a good strategy for saving money on gas. It's cheaper and more efficient to keep the car you have going than to buy a new one, almost always.

If you're going to buy a new car anyway, then it can make sense to buy an EV, but like...I dunno what to tell you, a 2017 Chevy Bolt is $15k in the US, and it was $30k 3 years ago, and it probably won't go down much more than $5k for the next five, given the fact that any running/driving car that's safe and legal tends to go for $5-10k, not matter the age. Your stats above are marginal in the face of depreciation curves like that.

I don't mean to dog the effort, but instead of converting, buy a well-depreciated factory EV and sit pretty. Factor in that it's a dicey calculation to value a converted car vs an original car in the same condition, and it's just dubious to view conversion as anything but a substantial cost.

I converted my Mini because I wanted to look cooler than I did in my electric Smart Fortwo (and because I like building things)...


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## Scotty274 (Jul 1, 2020)

Tremelune said:


> I mean, all calculations aside...Buying an EV or converting a gas car is not a good strategy for saving money on gas. It's cheaper and more efficient to keep the car you have going than to buy a new one, almost always.


Oh wxa6, there's better strategies, however in my case, it's what I'm doing and I was curious if it would actually pay off in the long run. That wasn't my original intent, but it's good to know that I will pay it off, which is nice to know.



Tremelune said:


> If you're going to buy a new car anyway, then it can make sense to buy an EV, but like...I dunno what to tell you, a 2017 Chevy Bolt is $15k in the US, and it was $30k 3 years ago, and it probably won't go down much more than $5k for the next five, given the fact that any running/driving car that's safe and legal tends to go for $5-10k, not matter the age. Your stats above are marginal in the face of depreciation curves like that.


AHH but see for that plan to work, you need to actually have a half reasonable second hand market of half reasonable EV's available.

Australia doesn't really have that, my wreck still cost $6,600



Tremelune said:


> I don't mean to dog the effort, but instead of converting, buy a well-depreciated factory EV and sit pretty. Factor in that it's a dicey calculation to value a converted car vs an original car in the same condition, and it's just dubious to view conversion as anything but a substantial cost.


See that's the thing, they aren't greatly abundant here on the second hand market, and I know if exactly zero utes available as well. That'd part of why I'm doing mine.



Tremelune said:


> I converted my Mini because I wanted to look cooler than I did in my electric Smart Fortwo (and because I like building things)...


Well there's no arguing a mini is cooler than a Merc...


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## LandsPB (Nov 17, 2020)

i love the calculations because we need to face the fact that, if we buy a $xx,xxx dollar economy electric car to drive (instead of say my 15mpg diesel truck), it will usually be years before savings are recognized. Sometimes upward of 10 years.
In my case, I think I got lucky. I found a 6000$ 2014 Fiat e500 with 47,000 miles on it. I offered to trade two motorcycles for it, maybe valued at 4200$. I had maybe 1400$ into the bikes, as both were either rebuilt by me or traded up by me. Then, the state of Oregon has a 2500$ cash rebate available. I have to keep the car for 2 years, is the main stipulation. After receiving that chunk of change, I’m now into the car negative money and can save $$$$ from the get go. I’m calculating I’m paying about 2 cents a mile with the 10 cents per kilowatt hour the electric company charges us for electricity. Vs. the 18-20 cents a mile the truck would use at 3.15$ per gallon for diesel...


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## ElectriCar (Jun 15, 2008)

Well after installing a Soliton 1 years ago and blowing up 2 ADC9 motors, I'm still $17000 in the hole. That's considering taxes and insurance over 13 years in addition to all the hardware expenses. And certainly doesn't include any labor! With diesel at about $2.70 here and my current electricity rate around 12.8 cents/kw, I'm not saving a ton. If it hits $3-3.50/gallon that will help immensely! Regardless, it's fun to drive an EV.


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## atienojones149 (Oct 20, 2021)

Great post. This is really good. Thanks for sharing this information.


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