EVs Unplugged: Charging, Costs and the Realities of Everyday Ownership

[Nick] (0:00 - 0:10)
The average cost per hundred kilometres of an electric vehicle, if you're charging it at home or off a slow charger, is probably three to six dollars per hundred kilometres.

[Sarah] (0:11 - 1:12)
So more than three times more expensive to run a petrol car. 

Welcome to The Good Energy Guide. No jargon, no guesswork, just better energy choices.
Brought to you by Ausgrid, electricity distributor for Sydney, the Central Coast and Hunter region. 

I'm your host, Sarah Aubrey. Today, we're diving into one of the biggest questions people have about electric vehicles.

What do they really cost to own? Forget the hype, this episode is all about the numbers, the running costs and what day-to-day EV ownership actually looks like. To help us unpack it, we're joined by Nick Black from Ausgrid, who leads the teams behind fleet, logistics and EV charging infrastructure.

He spends every day looking at how EVs behave in the real world, so he's the perfect person to break this down. Welcome, Nick. 

[Nick]
Thanks.

[Sarah]
How many cars are actually in the fleet with Ausgrid, electric cars?

[Nick] (1:12 - 1:22)
Electric cars, we've got 164 electric vehicles and we're growing that every day and we've also rolled out charging at all our depots so that the vehicles can, you know, obviously come back and charge every day.

[Sarah] (1:22 - 1:44)
Yes, I've driven, I've been, not driven, but I've been in your electric tipper truck, which I thought was very cool. So that's a lot of cars, a lot of data, a lot of information over a period of time, I would assume. So, from your perspective, your knowledge, there's a lot of noise around EVs being either really cheap or really expensive.

The truth sits somewhere in the middle, right?

[Nick] (1:45 - 1:59)
I think it does sit somewhere in the middle. I think when people look at EVs, they might get a bit of sticker shock to begin with the capital cost of it, but it's really about the total cost of ownership. And you've got to look at the running costs, the maintenance is much lower and the cost per kilometre is much cheaper.

[Sarah] (1:59 - 2:04)
And actually, when people think electric cars are expensive, we've got cars coming on the market now, you just mentioned.

[Nick] (2:04 - 2:20)
Well, they are, yeah. There's a BYD ATTO 1, I believe it's coming out, the cheapest one is coming on the market for about $24,000. 

[Sarah]
That is insane.

[Nick]
It is insane. And in addition to that, you can also get a tax saving. So, you can get it paid for if you lease it through pre-tax dollars.

[Sarah] (2:20 - 2:22)
Yeah, the fringe benefits tax exemption.

[Nick] (2:23 - 2:35)
Exactly. And then as the manufacturers start to progress with Vehicle-to-Grid, you'll be able to turn these vehicles into revenue generation as well. And you'll be able to pump the power back into the grid and be paid for that energy.

[Sarah] (2:35 - 2:39)
Hang on. So, you don't have this giant depreciating asset. You can actually make money off your car.

[Nick] (2:39 - 2:40)
Yes.

[Sarah] (2:40 - 2:48)
Actually, can we quickly cover Vehicle-to-Load, Vehicle-to-Home, Vehicle-to-Grid and Vehicle-to-X? Can you just quickly explain those things?

[Nick] (2:48 - 3:08)
Yeah, definitely. So, Vehicle-to-Load is basically your car putting the power back out. So, it's basically a power point in your car.

That's 3.3 kilowatts. So, you could plug, for tradies, they could plug power tools in, or if you're unfortunate to have a blackout, you can plug your fridge in 

[Sarah]
And fridge and lights, just the basics.

[Nick]
You can keep the basics running.

[Sarah] (3:08 - 3:09)
Right. Vehicle-to-Home?

[Nick] (3:10 - 3:45)
Vehicle-to-Home is similar, but you'd have a switch on your home. So, you could disconnect your house from the grid and you could run it off your car. And there's a few sort of technical aspects around that.

The load of your house might be really large, so you might have to switch a lot of things off, but you'd be able to keep your home running. And then Vehicle-to-Grid is where your car is synchronised with the grid and synchronised with your solar. So, if you're fortunate enough to have solar, you can have the solar pumping into your car, charging it.

And then when electricity prices go back out, you can send it back out to the grid or you can consume it yourself.

[Sarah] (3:46 - 3:49)
So, you're using your big battery on wheels like a house battery?

[Nick] (3:49 - 3:50)
That's correct. Yeah.

[Sarah] (3:50 - 3:51)
You're making money from your car.

[Nick] (3:52 - 3:53)
Yeah, it's pretty cool.

[Sarah] (3:53 - 3:54)
And people are trialling that right now, aren't they?

[Nick] (3:54 - 4:00)
People are trying it right now. There's three retailers that I've heard of. There might be more and they're out there trialling it.

[Sarah] (4:00 - 4:01)
So, we're at the beginning of this, right?

[Nick] (4:01 - 4:15)
Yeah, exactly. And we've been trialling it as well to make sure, from a safety perspective, that if vehicle to grid, if the power did go out, it will disconnect that power coming out of your car onto the grid so our workers can safely work on it.

[Sarah] (4:15 - 4:16)
And what's Vehicle-to-X?

[Nick] (4:16 - 4:25)
Vehicle-to-X is a combination of all of those. So, it's... 

[Sarah]
Vehicle to everything.

[Nick]
Vehicle to everything. So, it's really talking about Vehicle-to-Load, Vehicle-to-Home, Vehicle-to-Grid.

[Sarah] (4:25 - 4:27)
Right. So, it's just including all that stuff under an umbrella.

[Nick] (4:28 - 4:34)
And it's really the car exporting power. And there's different applications in which it can export power.

[Sarah] (4:34 - 4:51)
Amazing. Just amazing. So, let's go right to the beginning then, in terms of cost.

I feel like cost is one of the biggest barriers to people, but we were talking about the fact that electric cars are getting cheaper and cheaper. Running costs, what could you expect to pay when you're charging an electric car?

[Nick] (4:52 - 5:13)
I think probably a good example of that is the average cost per 100 kilometres of an electric vehicle, if you're charging it at home or off a slow charger, is probably $3 to $6 per 100 kilometres. 

[Sarah]
Per 100 Ks?

[Nick]
Per 100 Ks. And if you are fortunate enough to have solar, then it can be free. So, you're getting free travel from your vehicle.

[Sarah] (5:13 - 5:25)
And plug it in after 9pm, so you're using off-peak, or if you're plugging in on the weekend, you'd be using shoulder or solar, and much cheaper. Yeah. Can you compare that to a petrol car then?

[Nick] (5:25 - 5:30)
Petrol car is around $10 to $15 per 100 kilometres, and it goes up from there.

[Sarah] (5:32 - 5:34)
That is such a huge saving.

[Nick] (5:34 - 5:48)
Massive saving. And not only that, as we've just touched on with vehicle to grid, you can then also turn that into revenue generation. So, you could potentially charge your car for free, and then it can also support your home when electricity prices are high, saving you even more money.

[Sarah] (5:48 - 6:07)
I don't think people think about that much. I don't think they realise they would save that much money on petrol. And actually, I remember there was an article I read in the ABC saying that the highest uptake of electric vehicles, it's not in the inner cities, it's in the outer suburbs of cities, because they're doing the most driving.

They've got off-street parking, they've often got solar.

[Nick] (6:07 - 6:17)
And it's probably also more restricted with your living. You might be in an apartment if you're closer to the city. Whereas if you're out, you've got that house, you've got that big space, and you've also got that place in which you can charge your car.

[Sarah] (6:17 - 6:17)
They've just done the numbers.

[Nick] (6:18 - 6:28)
I think another one of the really good savings is around maintenance. So, cars actually, when they're slowing down, the electric vehicle, it's using that force to recharge the battery in the car.

[Sarah] (6:28 - 6:28)
Yes.

[Nick] (6:28 - 6:36)
So, it'll regenerate battery in the car, which means you're no longer wearing out brake pads as fast, because you're putting that power back in.

[Sarah] (6:36 - 6:44)
OK, so let's talk about myths, because that's a common myth. What myths have you come across from people? Let's talk about brake pad wear, for starters. That's a common one.

[Nick] (6:44 - 7:05)
Yeah, I think maintenance is a big one. It's a lot cheaper to run.

You don't have spark plugs, you're not changing oil all the time. You don't have this, I guess, combustion engine that really, at the heart of it, has a fire going on inside it. So, you're not trying to protect all these aspects.

And at the same time, you've got brakes that are regenerating the power, so you're not using as much brake.

[Sarah] (7:05 - 7:05)
Can you explain what that is to people?

[Nick] (7:06 - 7:11)
Yeah. So, the way that works is it's one pedal driving. So basically, you just take your foot off the accelerator.

[Sarah] (7:11 - 7:12)
There are two pedals in the car. Don't panic. There is a brake and there's an accelerator.

[Nick] (7:13 - 7:21)
And then you can push the brake and it puts even more power on, and that just uses the wheels, the car's momentum to put power back into the battery.

[Sarah] (7:22 - 7:31)
Yeah. So, as you ease off the accelerator, the car will slow down. You don't even have to use the brakes.

So hence, you're not using the brake pads, so there's not brake dust. Brake dust is a common one, right?

[Nick] (7:31 - 7:49)
It is. And also, you don't have brake dust. Your wheels, you don't have to clean them, I guess, as often.

That's something I've thought of. And internal combustion engines, you always get black soot around your wheels. There's less of that on electric vehicles because you're not making as much brake dust because you're using that force to recharge the battery and slow you down that way.

[Sarah] (7:50 - 7:54)
That's why electric cars as well are so efficient around the city in particular, isn't it?

[Nick] (7:54 - 7:55)
It is.

[Sarah] (7:55 - 7:57)
Because you stop starting all the time, putting energy back into the battery.

[Nick] (7:58 - 8:23)
Yeah. And it's also, the motor is a lot more efficient in the way it converts the battery power to the wheels as opposed to an internal combustion engine. So, around the city, it's a lot more efficient because you've got less wind resistance on the car.

But when you do it on the expressway, it can become slightly less efficient. So, you use more of the battery power on the expressway than you do driving around the city.

[Sarah] (8:24 - 8:28)
So how should people think about a purchase price of an EV compared to a petrol car today?

[Nick] (8:28 - 8:49)
I think you really need to look at the total cost of ownership. So, it's not just the upfront price, which can be slightly more expensive. It's really that total cost of ownership.

You're a lot cheaper on your maintenance. You're not replacing brake pads as often. Maintenance to run is cheaper.

And you're a lot, lot cheaper on your using electricity to run it as opposed to petrol or diesel.

[Sarah] (8:49 - 8:51)
So, you save long-term.

[Nick] (8:51 - 8:55)
You save long-term. And not only that, the cost of vehicles is coming down substantially as well.

[Sarah] (8:55 - 8:58)
Well, actually, we are reaching almost price parity, aren't we?

[Nick] (8:58 - 9:01)
We are. I mean, you can buy an ATTO 1 now for sort of $24,000.

[Sarah] (9:01 - 9:15)
I've got a car on review right now. It's less than $37,000. It's a mid-size family SUV.

It's the JQJ5. I got in and went, it's got heated seats, ventilated seats, heated steering wheel, sunroof. I was like, are you kidding me?

[Nick] (9:15 - 9:16)
It's got everything.

[Sarah] (9:16 - 9:25)
Are you kidding me? And it looks like a Range Rover. I was like, what the hell?

I think we are entering into very interesting territory.

[Nick] (9:25 - 9:31)
I think we are. They're going to continue to come down. And not only that, you can purchase them pre-tax, fringe benefits tax exemption.

[Sarah] (9:31 - 9:36)
Can you explain just quick, that's basically that you can claim everything on the car, right?

[Nick] (9:36 - 9:47)
Correct. So, you can pay for, if you lease the vehicle, novated lease, you can pay for all of that pre-tax. So, everything you're paying for the car is pre-tax, which means you're not paying tax on any of those expenses.

[Sarah] (9:47 - 9:49)
And if you're a business as well, you can purchase one.

[Nick] (9:49 - 9:50)
Exactly.

[Sarah] (9:50 - 10:01)
Yeah. It's very exciting. So, in terms of refuelling, let's compare it to an electric car compared to a petrol car.

What does it cost to refuel an electric car versus petrol?

[Nick] (10:01 - 10:18)
An electric car can vary from $0 if you have solar, you can recharge it for free, probably all the way up to maybe $20 or $30 if you're on a fast charger. Whereas a petrol vehicle, you're probably looking at $70 to $100 plus every time.

[Sarah] (10:18 - 10:23)
Does that mean it's still cheaper to use public DC chargers than to buy petrol?

[Nick] (10:23 - 10:24)
It is. Yes. Yeah.

[Sarah] (10:26 - 10:48)
I don't think many people know that. Actually, let's talk about charging because there's different ways you can charge an EV. And I don't think people sort of understand that there are lots of different ways.

If I was going to plug into just a regular power point, let's make sure I get this right, it will add about 10 kilometres of range per hour. And the average Australian drives around 30...

[Nick] (10:48 - 10:49)
36, 38 kilometres per week.

[Sarah] (10:49 - 10:54)
So, you could plug in, if you're just into a regular power point, you'll plug in once a week or something?

[Nick] (10:54 - 10:59)
Yeah. You can plug in once a week and you'll be recharged. You might need to plug in for two nights, once a week.

[Sarah] (10:59 - 10:59)
Maybe a couple of nights.

[Nick] (10:59 - 11:04)
Yeah. But that's all. That's a regular power point.

But obviously go to a fast charger, you can recharge.

[Sarah] (11:04 - 11:24)
So, a little tweak, a little upgrade, a cheaper upgrade is a 15-amp power point. So, you could come and just get that swapped over. That would give you about 20 kilometres in an hour.

So, it's a nice sort of reasonably affordable upgrade and a bit quicker. Then you can get a dedicated level 2, 7-kilowatt AC charger.

[Nick] (11:24 - 11:26)
Which will give you 50 kilometres in an hour.

[Sarah] (11:26 - 11:35)
Ooh, now we're talking. And then if you've got three phase and you put in a 22-kilowatt dedicated charger, what would that add?

About 120?

[Nick] (11:35 - 11:38)
Probably 110, 120 kilometres per hour.

[Sarah] (11:39 - 11:42)
Imagine that, 120 kilometres at home in one hour.

[Nick] (11:42 - 11:42)
I know.

[Sarah] (11:42 - 11:43)
Get out.

[Nick] (11:44 - 11:53)
And you could be charging from solar. And you don't need to be doing anything. You plug it in and you walk away.

You can go and do your work. You can watch a movie. You can look at Netflix.

[Sarah]
You could be sleeping. 

[Nick]
You're not sitting there. It's not like the petrol station where you've got to hold the bowser.

[Sarah] (11:53 - 12:01)
The only reason you should go to a service station really is to fill your tyres with air. I mean, let's face it. Unless you need to use an EV charger there, of course.

[Nick] (12:01 - 12:01)
Yeah, of course.

[Sarah] (12:01 - 12:23)
But that sort of gives an idea of AC charging. And just quickly, DC charging is then the much faster charging. It's got its own big cable.

Imagine it like a petrol bowser for electric cars. So, they started about maybe around 50-kilowatts, and you could, what, 45, 50 minutes. You could fill your battery up from 20 to 80 percent.

[Nick] (12:23 - 12:23)
Yeah.

[Sarah] (12:23 - 12:27)
And then as they get faster and faster, even less time then.

[Nick] (12:27 - 12:32)
That's exactly right. And they are getting faster and faster. And the cars are taking that charge at a faster rate.

[Sarah] (12:32 - 12:36)
Yeah, I think there's 300, 350-kilowatt DC chargers in Australia now.

[Nick] (12:36 - 12:36)
There are.

[Sarah] (12:36 - 12:43)
And you can have 800 volt, very fast charging cars. You could be done in, what, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. And you're like walking away.

[Nick] (12:43 - 12:54)
And they have one megawatt, 1000-kilowatt chargers that they've been trialling where, you know, it could recharge as quick as you're holding onto that fuel bowser for. But you still don't need to hold onto it.

You plug it in once.

[Sarah] (12:54 - 12:54)
No.

[Nick] (12:54 - 12:59)
You walk away and come back. You go to the bathroom, do whatever you want. Your car's charged.

[Sarah] (12:59 - 13:11)
Well, some of these fast chargers are so quick that people are like, I didn't have time to go and get a coffee. It's done. I need to run back to the car.

So that's, I mean, that's where we're at. And of course, they're the chargers that you would use on journeys mostly, unless you don't have a driveway.

[Nick] (13:12 - 13:12)
That's exactly right.

[Sarah] (13:13 - 13:13)
Yeah.

[Nick] (13:13 - 13:26)
And then if you don't have a driveway, one of the things at Ausgrid we're looking at is to put charging on the power poles at scale and really create a, I guess, a competitive option for you on the kerb where you could choose who you purchase your charge from.

[Sarah] (13:27 - 13:39)
I used one of those chargers recently. So, there are 22-kilowatt chargers. So, imagine you had three phase at home.

It's that kind of charger. And I was using the Zeekr 7X, which has 22-kilowatt AC charging.

[Nick] (13:39 - 13:39)
I'm going to buy one of them.

[Sarah] (13:40 - 13:59)
It's a very nice car. And I plugged it in. I went off and got a coffee.

An hour and 10 minutes, it added 180 kilometers of range. 

[Nick]
Wow. 

[Sarah]
Isn't that amazing?

[Nick]
Yeah. 

[Sarah]
And that was really competitively priced, much cheaper than a DC charger. Quite similar to really, to even less than peak rate.

I was really, really stoked actually.

[Nick] (14:00 - 14:14)
So, you think about that if you're, I mean, that sounds like maybe it's used as a bit of a destination charger, an hour and 10 minutes, that's still quick. But if you're, if you don't have a driveway where you have parking and off-street charging, yeah. And you have that out the front of your place, you plug it in overnight and your car's full.

[Sarah] (14:14 - 14:32)
And I think actually in areas like say the inner west of Sydney, the eastern suburbs, where in the inner west, for example, 67% of households can't charge at home. They don't have off-street parking. These are all houses built for the horse and cart, essentially, before the invention of the car.

We're going to have to have solutions like that.

[Nick] (14:33 - 14:41)
We will, we will. And we need to, we want to develop these solutions where it has price parity. So, you could charge on the street for the same price as those charging at home.

[Sarah] (14:41 - 14:52)
Well, actually, that's something I'm quite passionate about is the inequity between those that have a driveway charging free or very cheaply at home versus those who don't. We're all equal at the petrol bowser.

[Nick] (14:52 - 14:53)
That's exactly right.

[Sarah] (14:53 - 14:59)
But that's not the case with electric vehicle charging. But that pricing on that pole charger, I thought was actually really fair.

[Nick] (14:59 - 15:11)
It is fair. It is fair. But we want to do more with that to create even more competition.

So right now, you were, I guess, locked into the provider that was there. We want to open up that access so there's competition to lower that price further.

[Sarah] (15:12 - 15:12)
I love that. 

[Nick] (15:12 - 15:16)
Yeah. And then you can charge on the street for the same as people can charge at home.

[Sarah] (15:16 - 15:18)
Then you'll have mass adoption in those areas.

[Nick] (15:18 - 15:45)
That's what, yeah, that's what we believe. Because I think one of the challenges as well is around range anxiety, which is an anxiety. It's the uncertainty of when you're in a petrol vehicle, you know exactly that there's going to be a petrol station around the corner so you can drop it to the bottom.

But it's a different behaviour in an electric vehicle. And you need to purchase one and get behind the wheel to realise it's not a real concern because you can charge. But the more proliferation of chargers, the more we believe that'll change that behaviour.

[Sarah] (15:45 - 15:53)
I actually feel like every EV owner I've met, that was their number one concern, range anxiety. As soon as they bought their car.

[Nick] (15:53 - 15:54)
Gone. Exactly.

[Sarah] (15:54 - 15:58)
Immediately. I don't know why I was worried. I should have done it years ago.

[Nick] (15:58 - 16:10)
Everyone I know was the same. Actually, my wife, when we got one three years ago, when we first got some range anxiety, she plugged it in every time. It was always at 100%.

And now I came in, it was at 5%. I said, what's happening? She's like, oh yeah, we're fine.

[Sarah] (16:10 - 16:11)
She's dicing. 

[Nick] (16:12 - 16:13)
We can go to the shops. She gets used to it.

[Sarah] (16:13 - 16:23)
I love it. And by the way, it is possible, of course, to own an electric car and not have a driveway. I don't have a driveway.

It's absolutely possible. I think that's one that people don't.

[Nick] (16:23 - 16:25)
That is. Yeah, it is another. You definitely can.

Exactly.

[Sarah] (16:26 - 16:28)
But the vast majority of Australians can charge at home.

[Nick] (16:28 - 16:39)
Yeah, exactly. So, I think 70% has access to charging at home. And then the other 30%, at Ausgrid and the government, they're all working together to see what solutions we can come up with.

[Sarah] (16:40 - 16:45)
And people go, what about people in apartments? Well, they can do some dedicated, even slower charges, like a 15-amp.

[Nick] (16:46 - 16:52)
Or 10-amp power plug. As we discussed before, within two nights, you can be fully recharged for a week's worth of driving.

[Sarah] (16:53 - 17:22)
And people are like, oh, but what about the power? What about strata? There's lots of companies that actually will install a power point.

It's got a QR code. And then that money goes straight to strata. So, no one's going to complain in the building that you're using my power.

All that sort of stuff. And that's the voice they use. So, we've talked about servicing, that it's cheaper.

Obviously, thousands of moving parts in an ICE vehicle, internal combustion engine, versus an EV, which I think has 30 something. But let's talk about insurance. Is it more expensive to insure an electric car?

[Nick] (17:22 - 17:59)
At this point, it is slightly more expensive to insure an electric vehicle car. I think some of the reasons around that are getting the statistics on, I guess, the number of accidents and the cost to repair. And also, that some of the sensors in these electric vehicles can be slightly more expensive.

Having said that, internal combustion engines are now getting a lot of this sensor equipment as well. So, I think in the future, we will see more price parity. But right now they are slightly more expensive from an insurance perspective.

But obviously, you get that huge saving from your running costs. So, the fuel, the electricity is a lot cheaper, as well as the maintenance costs are a lot cheaper.

[Sarah] (17:59 - 18:07)
And I guess insurance is tricky because everyone's different. Like I just bought an electric car and my insurance was actually really affordable. Like it was cheaper than my old petrol car.

[Nick] (18:07 - 18:07)
Was it?

[Sarah] (18:08 - 18:12)
I'm just really old now and considered low risk or something. I was really shocked.

[Nick] (18:12 - 18:21)
Yeah, OK. I guess it's constantly changing. And the batteries do last.

A lot of the car manufacturers now are offering eight-year warranties on the batteries.

[Sarah] (18:21 - 18:23)
Well, actually, what can we expect from the life of a battery?

[Nick] (18:23 - 18:51)
I think we can expect a lot longer than that. You see examples out of the UK and the US where vehicles, I guess in the US, is the 300 miles, which is like 500,000 kilometers. 

[Sarah]
God.

[Nick]
It's massive. And then they're replacing batteries.

[Sarah]
That is huge.

[Nick]
And the degradation is, which is how much the battery loses its capacity over the time, is sort of one to two percent per year. They still, they can definitely have a second life in a multitude of things, whether it be the vehicle or whether it be battery energy storage.

[Sarah] (18:51 - 18:56)
Yeah, storage and powering homes. I frequently hear that the battery will outlive the car.

[Nick] (18:56 - 18:58)
Yeah, I think, I think so.

[Sarah] (18:58 - 19:00)
Yeah. I think they're lasting a lot longer than people realise.

[Nick] (19:01 - 19:08)
They are. I think there was maybe a lot of fear brought up around it to begin and that hasn't eventuated much as we're seeing with some of the other myths that are coming out.

[Sarah] (19:08 - 19:20)
Yeah. Oh, that's good because there are obviously, there's a lot of disinformation and myths around electric cars, so it's good to talk about that. And are there any other misconceptions or myths that you have heard with electric cars that you'd like to disseminate right now?

[Nick] (19:20 - 19:45)
I think the other myth might be around fires. I think the prevalence, they get advertised a lot more than an internal combustion engine fire, but an internal combustion engine vehicle is 20 times more likely to have a fire than an electric vehicle. I will admit electric vehicle, they're, they're slightly more challenging to put out, but the fireys, New South Wales Fire are getting systems in place to be able to deal with them.

[Sarah] (19:45 - 19:53)
Did you know that New South Wales Fire and Rescue are called out to on average seven internal combustion engine fires every single day?

[Nick] (19:53 - 19:55)
Really? I did not know that.

[Sarah] (19:56 - 19:58)
And of course these fires never make the news.

[Nick] (19:58 - 19:59)
Wow.

[Sarah] (19:59 - 20:03)
Whenever you see a car on the highway on satellite and they're like, ah, it's a valet, no.

[Nick] (20:03 - 20:04)
Wow.

[Sarah] (20:04 - 20:10)
We've, we've had, I think it's about only about 10 EV fires in Australia in, in 12 to 14 years.

[Nick] (20:10 - 20:11)
Yeah, I believe so.

[Sarah] (20:11 - 20:41)
That's, and they were nearly all things that happened externally to the EVs, like the building caught fire, arson, um, they, you know, hit a tree. I think something, someone ran over a piece, something that dropped off a truck. There's only one that was the vehicle charging and it was that they were using some wrong adapter or something like that.

They were using like a travel adapter or something really dumb, but no vehicle has ever just like spontaneously combusted. And that's amazing over that period of time.

[Nick] (20:41 - 20:45)
That is, yeah, unbelievable. Myth busters. I mean, that's a myth that has just been busted.

[Sarah] (20:45 - 20:50)
Is there a simple way for people to estimate their own running costs without doing a math's degree? Please, for me.

[Nick] (20:51 - 21:03)
I think probably the simplest way is, uh, $3 per hundred kilometres, um, in an electric vehicle and $10 or $15 per hundred kilometres in an internal combustion engine.

[Sarah] (21:03 - 21:07)
So more than three times more expensive to run a petrol car.

[Nick] (21:08 - 21:08)
That's right.

[Sarah] (21:08 - 21:24)
Far out. One other thing I want to talk about is your electricity bills. So, people's bills are high.

I've electrified my house. So, eliminating my gas bill was one big, huge saving actually. If you own an electric car, will your electricity bill go through the roof?

[Nick] (21:24 - 21:45)
You've got to look at your total energy cost. So, your, uh, expense on petrol or diesel will decrease substantially. Um, you know, we're talking about $15 per hundred kilometres and there will be an additional cost on your electricity, probably $3 per hundred kilometres for your car.

But if you look at your total cost, you're getting a sort of three times saving on your transport side.

[Sarah] (21:45 - 21:52)
So, you're saving on the petrol side, so much more money. Tiny bump, but that'd be about it. 

[Nick]
Exactly.

[Sarah]
Wow.

[Nick] (21:52 - 21:52)
Yeah.

[Sarah] (21:52 - 21:54)
I don't think people think about that.

[Nick] (21:54 - 22:12)
No, they don't. And maybe there's a bit of psychology there. If it goes on your credit card, maybe it gets lost in all the noise of everything you're purchasing.

So, you don't, you don't actually feel and see the petrol and diesel cost. Whereas if the electricity is on your bill, it's just your electricity and it shows you what the last month was and you're like, oh, it's jumped. Oh no, I'm paying more.

[Sarah] (22:12 - 22:52)
Yeah. Well, that's brilliant, Nick. Thank you.

I learnt lots of stuff today. So, three things to remember that real running costs of an EV are often lower than people expect. Everyday ownership is simpler than most people think.

And you don't need a perfect setup to make an EV work. You just need to know what to expect. 

That's it for this episode of the Good Energy Guide brought to you by Ausgrid.
You can find more episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube, and head to our website at goodenergy.ausgrid.com.au for practical tools and resources to help you make smarter energy choices.