Electric Vehicle Mileage Matters
Electric vehicle consumers are naturally curious about cost, range, and charging speed, but few seem all that concerned about mileage. Automakers rarely highlight the MPGE figures of their EVS as selling points. To find out how far a particular EV can travel on the electrical energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline, the best place to go is fueleconomy.gov, a helpful website maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency. Many people assume that a vehicle that can travel a long distance on a single charge probably gets good mileage, but this often isn’t the case. The batteries that power EVS are very heavy, and bigger ones provide more range at the expense of fuel economy. If you care about the upstream emissions from the source of electricity fueling your new EV, you need to take a close look at MPGE.
When you visit the EPA’S website, you’ll see that the most efficient EVS have MPGE figures that are almost twice as high as the worst electron guzzlers. The 2021 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range All Wheel Drive has an excellent combined MPGE rating of 134. The 2020 Hyundai Ioniq is right below it at 133, and gets a remarkable 145 in the city. Bringing up the rear on electric fuel economy is the 2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S, with a combined MPGE rating of just 68. The 2020 Audi e-tron Sportback is a little more efficient at 77, and the Volvo XC40 All Wheel Drive earns a similar combined rating of 79. Moderately efficient EVS include the new Volkswagen Id.4 Pro S at 97, the Ford Mach-e at 100, and various Nissan Leaf models ranging from 104 to 111.
Another way to compare the fuel economy of different EVS is to look at how much electricity they consume to travel 100 miles, a specification that is also available on the EPA’S website. A 2020 Tesla Model S is roughly the same size as a 2021 Audi e-tron. The frugal Tesla requires just 29 kilowatt-hours of electricity to go 100 miles. The Audi guzzles 43 to travel the same distance. The difference in electricity consumption is the equivalent of running seventy 200-watt incandescent light bulbs for one hour. If you’re the type of person who turns off the lights whenever you leave a room, you might want to go with the Tesla.
We tend to think that, as long as we’re driving on electricity, we’re doing our part for the environment, but it’s not quite that simple. Twenty years down the road, we will be generating most of our electricity without producing greenhouse gases, but right now upstream EV emissions are significant. And as we gradually replace internal combustion engines with electric motors, we will need to increase the supply of electricity to make up for the automotive force currently supplied by gasoline. Luckily, electric motors are extremely efficient, so we won’t have to replace all of that dirty energy. But we will have to steadily generate more electricity at a time when we are building out our renewable energy infrastructure, already a daunting task. If you care enough about the planet to purchase an electric vehicle, it only makes sense to buy an efficient one.
You’ll also save some money on your electricity bill.