Since buying a Tesla Y, I have often wondered how it compares from a carbon and dollar cost perspective. I know there have been much more thorough analysis of this, but I wanted to use my local electric costs to run my own numbers.

Dollars

Prius gets 56 miles per gallon (58 city / 53 highway) and gas is $4 per gallon So it costs 7.1 cents per mile to drive.

Tesla Y gets .27 kWh/mile (Other efficient electric cars are similar) Off peak electricity in Fort Collins costs 7.16 cents per kWh. So it costs 1.9 cents per mile to drive.

Caveats:

  • Gas is relatively expensive right now.
  • Prius and Tesla Y are efficient cars. Tesla model 3 gets .24 kWh/mile which would be 1.7 cents per mile.
  • On peak electricity would be 3x the cost but still less than gas.
  • These are variable costs. For fixed costs, Prius is much cheaper than Teslas but maybe not all electric cars with subsidies.

Carbon

19.64 pounds of co21 is emitted by burning a gallon of gas, so Prius will emit this for 56 miles.

2.23 lbs of co22 is emitted per kwh of coal generated electricity.
One third of Fort Collins’ energy is from coal3 right now. Tesla Y will cause Rawhide (our local power plant) to emit 10.41 pounds for 56 miles. When more coal is burned it will raise this. When less is burned it will lower it. For comparison, natural gas emits .91 lbs of carbon per kwh.

Caveats:

  • These are variable costs. I don’t know the fixed carbon costs of manufacturing a Prius vs. Tesla.

  1. http://www.patagoniaalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/How-much-carbon-dioxide-is-produced-by-burning-gasoline-and-diesel-fuel-FAQ-U.S.-Energy-Information-Administration-EIA.pdf ↩

  2. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 ↩

  3. https://www.prpa.org/energy-production/ ↩