Price difference fuelling - charging
Buying an e-car eliminates the concern about filling up with the wrong fuel. However, not all electricity is the same. You have to decide whether you want to charge your car quickly or slowly. This in turn influences the price at the charging station. But how big are these differences in reality and how do petrol and diesel cars compare to e-cars? Our current blog article is dedicated to these questions.
Result
The difference in refuelling costs between diesel and petrol vehicles is very small. The costs for diesel cars are only €0.18 higher than for petrol vehicles.
With regard to charging costs, it is somewhat surprising that charging at home is not the cheapest option, but that the public charging station with 150 kW offers the best deal. For the calculation, however, it was assumed that the charging power is consistently 150 kW. In practice, the charging curve sometimes fluctuates greatly during the charging process, which influences the charging time.
Overall, a large difference in charging costs can be observed. The costs vary between €5.20 at the 150 kW fast charging station and €10.80 at a public fast charging station with 50 kW charging power.
Comparison of refuelling and charging costs
The graph quickly shows that the costs for charging per 100 km are in some cases significantly lower than the refuelling costs. The cheapest charging option saves up to 63 % compared to refuelling. But even with the most expensive charging option, the saving is still around 22 %.
Annual savings
If we apply these results to the average distance driven, which is 11,200 km1, the diesel costs amount to 1,582.56 €. When charging, on the other hand, the cost is €582.40 - €1,209.60. Thus, the annual saving of an electric car is between € 372.96 and € 1,000.16.
Calculation basis
The calculation is made for a distance of 100 kilometres. Only the pure refuelling or charging costs are taken into account, no further wear and tear. The diesel and petrol prices as of 17.10.2022 were used for the calculation.2
Diesel 2.048 € / litre
Petrol (normal) 1.788 € / litre
The consumption data used are as follows.3
Diesel 6.9 litres / 100 km
Petrol 7.8 litres / 100 km
The average consumption of an e-car was assumed to be 18 kWh / 100 km. Experience has shown that it is quite realistic to drive an e-car in city traffic with a consumption of less than 15 kWh / 100 km. With increasing speed, consumption also rises to sometimes significantly more than 20 kWh / 100 km. In addition, a charging loss of 10 % was added. The total consumption is therefore as follows.4
Electricity consumption 19.8 kWh / 100 km
For the electricity costs, a distinction was made between private and public charging, whereby different charging capacities were also taken into account.
For home charging, the electricity tariff "Optima entspannt" from Wien Energie was used.
The prices for public charging stations were taken from the "Shell Recharge App". Charging is not based on kWh charged, but on charging time.
The electricity prices were as follows
Private charging 0.496407 € / kWh
Charging public, 11 kW 0.08 € / min (charging time for 100 km: 108 minutes)
Charging public, 50 kW 0,45 € / min (charging time for 100 km: 24 minutes)
Charging public, 150 kW 0,65 € / min (charging time for 100 km: 8 minutes)
[1] https://www.umweltbundesamt.at/fileadmin/site/themen/mobilitaet/daten/ekz_doku_verkehrsmittel.pdf
[2] https://www.bmk.gv.at/themen/energie/preise/aktuelle_preise.html
[3] https://www.umweltbundesamt.at/fileadmin/site/themen/mobilitaet/daten/ekz_doku_verkehrsmittel.pdf
[4] https://www.adac.de/rund-ums-fahrzeug/elektromobilitaet/laden/ladeverluste-elektroauto-studie/