Trying to Electrify, One Year Later, Part II: Electric Car

My last post covered our experience with heat pumps over the past year, and in the wake of a particularly cold snap. In general, the verdict was a strong “recommend”. For this post, I’ll take a look at the other big electrification investment we made last year – our electric car. As a reminder, we downsized from two hybrid cars to one electric car, made possible because I work remotely and only have to go into the office once per month. So what’s the verdict?

tl;dr The Verdict

Overall, our EV is more expensive than if we had just right-sized from two hybrid vehicles to one, or bought a new hybrid vehicle, even taking into account the state and federal incentives. It also has more limitations despite its relatively long range and fast-charging capabilities compared to a hybrid vehicle. I have no regrets about getting our EV because of the environmental benefits and because it reduces the exposure to fluctuations in gas prices. However, given the price point and operating realities of our EV, it may not make sense for many – or perhaps most – households.

Despite my recommendation having some caveats, from a policy perspective, EVs are a huge win. The air quality benefits alone are substantial; the ability to have a mix of energy sources that feed our grid reduces dependence on any one fuel; and widespread adoption of EVs is critical if we have any hope of hitting environmental targets. If anything, our experience with the EV has demonstrated the need to continue innovating, experimenting, and investing in this technology.

How We’ve Used It

First, a little refresher on the car we chose. We went with a Hyundai Ioniq 5 as our EV. It’s gotten a number of awards like “Car of the Year” from Auto Express and “EV of the Year” from Car and Driver. Do those awards actually mean anything? I have no idea.

Ioniq 5 (sort of looks like a space ship) Source: Hyundaiusa.com

One of the main advantages the Ioniq 5 has over some other EVs like a Chevy Bolt is the Ultra Fast Charging capability. On 350 kW chargers (also called Level 3 chargers, generally only available from Electrify America), we can take the Ioniq 5 from 20% to 80% in about 15 minutes. For reference, it would take five or six hours to charge that much using our at-home Level 2 charger.

The estimated range on an Ioniq 5 is roughly 300 miles for a full charge, though that depends heavily on the weather and driving style. Given this fast-charging capability and long range, we’ve been able to use it for 99% of our trips. My wife uses it daily to get to Westfield for her job, and I use it once per month to get to Medford (~100 miles one way). I can make it back an forth on one charge, comfortably.

We’ve also taken several short road trips with the car, going to New York City, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. We have to do a little bit of planning to figure out where to stop and charge it, but we typically find a location with a fast charger and time it to when we would want lunch – not a problem at all.

I did take one longer road trip between Holyoke and Kentucky, which wouldn’t have been practical in the EV. It’s about 850 miles, which means stopping at least three times to charge. Assuming I could find a fast charger at appropriate intervals (every 250 miles or so), that’s about 90 minutes of charge time. Tack that onto about 14 hours of driving, and it pushes a one-day trip into a two-day affair. So, I rented a car one-way (again, not a big deal and much cheaper than having a second car).

So, what’s the verdict? In terms of how we’ve used the car, I would give it a solid “recommend” rating. It has met all of our typical travel needs, with minimal inconvenience related to being an EV. Bonus points that we can recharge at home, saving trips to the gas station. However, for a person who uses a car regularly for very long trips, an EV probably isn’t a good option.

Comparing Cost

Cost is more complicated. We purchased the car for just under $50,000, which is important because the Massachusetts EV rebate only applies to cars under that mark. However, we got a $2,500 state rebate and will receive a $7,500 federal tax credit once we file our 2022 taxes, bringing the cost down to around $39,000.

So from a capital investment perspective, it is more expensive than the kind of hybrid car we would otherwise have bought, even taking state and federal incentives into account. But what about the cost to operate?

According to the app for the ChargePoint charger that we have (and got for free from Holyoke Gas & Electric!), it costs about $10 to get 250 miles of range at current electric rates. At $3.50/gallon, the Prius that I used to own cost about $17.50 for 250 miles of driving, and my wife’s Rav 4 hybrid cost about $20. Below is a rough breakdown of the upfront and annual operating costs, assuming 10,000 miles of driving per year.

Assumptions: 1) Ioniq 5 cost after rebates 2) Gas cost of $3.50 3) 10,000 miles per year

I wish it weren’t so, but from a financial perspective, it would have made more sense to stick with the Prius or Rav 4 than switching to an EV. With the Rav 4 Hybrid, it’s nearly a wash – just a couple of grand difference over 10 years. With the Prius, it’s a clear loss, even after the rebate and tax credit.* Of course, the more you drive, the more the balance shifts in the EV’s favor, so this might pencil out better for other households.

Another thing I’ll note is that the cost of a 2023 Ioniq 5 has come down to $43,000 before incentives – though it’s not clear yet whether the 2023 federal tax credits will apply given American final assembly requirements under the Inflation Reduction Act.

So, what’s the verdict? From a cost perspective, sadly, I can’t recommend switching to an Ioniq 5 (maybe other, less expensive EVs would do better). I recently read a Politico “The Long Game” interview [here] with Toyota’s Sustainability Chief, Tom Stricker, who suggested that perhaps the best option is for people to get a plug-in hybrid that gets them to most of their destinations without the gas engine kicking on. That’s an intriguing argument, and one that I want to explore more.

*Without getting too math-y, I will note that I didn’t use a discount rate to account for the time value of money. If I had, the EV would have performed more poorly.

A Repair Postscript

In November, on the way down to Princeton, NJ, I got rear-ended on the highway in Yonkers. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and I was able to drive away. That said, the rear bumper of the Ioniq 5 was totally smashed.

Getting it repaired has been an Odyssey. It is scheduled to go into the body shop next week, nearly three months after the crash, due to parts availability (and further delayed by the holidays and COVID). Once in there, it is likely that the mechanic will find something new once he starts pulling things apart, meaning yet another parts order and potentially weeks or months of more waiting.

On the plus side, it’s been remarkable that the car continues to drive just fine for all of these weeks since the crash. On the downside, the newness of the car means that getting it repaired has been even more complicated than if we had something more standard (like a Prius or a Rav 4). So I don’t think this is anything related to the EV itself, but getting this car fixed has really been a ride. The verdict on repairability is a big thumb’s down (though I don’t know that any other car in the world gets a “thumb’s up” on that).

Trying to Electrify, One Year Later, Part I: Heat Pumps

As I’m writing this, its approximately 11 degrees below zero outside. It was so cold and windy yesterday that one of the hemlock trees in my backyard cracked in half, grabbing our power lines in a precarious tangle and falling into the branches of an adjacent oak tree giant that saved our garage.

Powerlines tangled up in the split hemlock

At the same time, far away from my quiet corner of New England, there is a new Russian offensive in Ukraine, deepening the conflict that – among other terrible consequences – continues to stretch fossil fuel availability and has sent prices skyrocketing.

It’s days like this when decisions around how we power our lives seem most important.

I’ve written some about our effort to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, ranging from installing ductless minisplits throughout the house to switching to a one-car, electric vehicle household. I realized that it’s been about one year since we did both, and I thought it might be interesting to revisit how it’s going.

First, a Great Blog Post Series on High-Efficiency Electric Heat Pumps

I wrote a while back about installing air-source heat pumps (ductless minisplits) throughout the house. As a reminder, these are electric units that use compressors to pull the heat out of the air outside and transfer it into your home, and conversely take the cold out of your home and transfer it to the outdoors. An added bonus is that on hot days they can cool your home (they do this by running in reverse).

My former State Senator Will Brownsberger has recently been posting about his own journey to eliminating natural gas from his home, which has been a great read. You can find it here. Below are the things I found most insightful (and surprising, and at times disappointing).

“Cost reductions and price volatility reductions are not among the reasons to electrify. Even when converting from dirty oil furnaces, the economics are uncertain; a furnace upgrade may be cheaper on a total return basis. ”

This post

This finding from his extensive research and efforts was painful to read, especially since every activist, scientist, policy wonk, and tree hugger agrees that we need to move away from fossil fuels heating our homes. To be clear, I don’t doubt his findings. It’s just hard to square the alarm bells sounding off that we need to ditch fossil fuels with the reality that not only is it expensive, inconvenient, and invasive (as are all home improvement projects) to install heat pumps, but that they also probably won’t save you any money in the near-to mid-term. Here’s the table he used to show typical cost increases:

Source: Will Brownsberger’s blog (this post)

“In the many municipalities with their own light department or a municipal aggregation program, the probability of operating savings is high . . .”

This post

This was good news to hear, since Holyoke has its own gas and electric utility and is well-known for low rates. Using the Belmont Light electric rates (Brownsberger’s home town), he calculated that he saved $348 on costs annually by electrifying versus using heating oil. Holyoke’s electric rates are lower than Belmont’s ($0.14/kWh versus $0.185/kWh, respectively), so I can assume savings are even better for me.

(As an aside, I didn’t realize that one advantage municipal utilities have over corporate utilities is the ability to enter into long-term contracts. This stabilizes overall costs, which has been a huge advantage this winter as National Grid customers have seen prices soar while municipal utility impacts have been much more muted.)

“[Climate planners] note the cost advantages of partial conversions over whole-home conversions . . . They see partial conversions as the most promising approach to increase adoption rates.”

This post

Brownsberger notes that – like me – most people aren’t going to make the investment to plunge head-first into whole-home conversions to air-source heat pumps, for a variety of reasons. In my case, it was the high capital cost of removing the gas boiler, steam pipes, and radiators from every room in the house, as well as the uncertainty that heat pumps would be able to sufficiently heat our home on the coldest days (like today).

The downside to this approach of partial conversions is that whole-home conversions are critical to achieving climate goals. The race to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius can’t be won using half measures. The best-case scenario is that partial home conversions are a gateway to eliminating fossil fuels in homes, though who knows if they actually will be.

“Insulate first.”

This post)

I’ve read this over and over again, and it makes sense to me – replace those windows, add attic insulation, seal cracks, and blow insulation into walls before you make other heating efficiency investments.

The Heat Pump Verdict, One Year Later

Even though installing the minisplits was – like all home improvement projects – expensive and somewhat stressful, my wife and I love our minisplits. The main advantage, which Brownsberger notes repeatedly, is that we now have whole-home air conditioning in addition to heating.

Previously, we had to go through the seasonal process of installing and then removing our window AC units, which was not only annoying, it also looked unsightly to have them sticking out of our windows. One of the window units was so big that I had to tempt, beg, and/or trick whatever friend I could find to help out. I’m glad to be done with that.

In terms of cost, I think it’s been a modest success. Our combined gas and electric bill from mid-November through mid-December 2021 was $260, while the same period for 2022 was $230. Here is the breakdown:

Mid-November through Mid-December	2021	2022	% Change
Natural Gas (CCF) per day	4.65	1.00	-78.5%
Electricity (kWh) per day	29.44	52.31	+77.7%

I expect our natural gas usage to go down even more once we replace our natural gas water heater, which is getting toward the end of its useful life, with a high-efficiency electric one. It’s worth noting that we also now power our EV car through mostly at-home electric charging, which I’ll write about next time.

So what’s the verdict? From an environmental perspective, I fully endorse. It has significantly reduced our use of natural gas, except on the really cold days (like today).

From a cost perspective, I endorse with caveats. Like Brownsberger, I can’t deny that there are large up-front costs that don’t necessarily pencil out in the short- to mid-term, even for those served by a municipal utility. For us, my best guess is that it will take 5 to 10 years to hit the breakeven point from the initial capital investment.

Would I do it again? Absolutely, and in fact am planning in the next year or two to have at least one more minisplit installed to better heat our first floor, which only has one unit for the entire area. If that works out, in the longer term, I am hoping to – like Brownsberger – fully remove our gas-powered heating system and segue into the whole-home conversion our climate plans encourage.