Spent a year logging every charge, finally sat down and did the math

I keep a similar log for my Bolt, about 9,000 miles a year of mostly stop-and-go suburb driving. Mine sits around 4.6 miles per kWh, and the city miles help a lot there. My old truck got maybe 18 mpg, so I was burning through close to 500 gallons a year, right around 1,800 bucks at my area's gas prices. Now my charging bill is under 300 for the year, and honestly the biggest single thing I did was sign up for my utility's time-of-use plan. Charging after midnight instead of on the flat rate nearly cut my per-kWh cost in half. Anyone buying an EV should check whether their utility offers that before they even take delivery. Your winter numbers match mine almost exactly. I lose about a quarter of my range in January and February here in Minnesota. The preheating trick is real, and I'd add that using the seat and wheel heaters instead of blasting hot air at the whole cabin shaves even more off the drain. They sip power compared to the blower. One caution on the public charging side. My few fast-charging road trip stops cost me more per mile than my old truck did on gas, near the highway some of those stations price like premium fuel. Home charging on cheap overnight power is where the math sings, so budget road trips separately in your head and the savings story still holds.

My numbers look nothing like that because I rent a place with no garage, so everything I've learned about EV running costs comes the hard way. I park on the street and do almost all my charging at the paid DC fast stations near my office. Public rates around here run close to 40 cents a kWh, and once I sat down with my charge receipts the savings picture flipped on me. My hatchback does about 3.5 miles per kWh, so 10,000 miles a year eats roughly 2,900 kWh, which is over a thousand dollars at those rates. My old gas hatchback got near 28 mpg, and at around $3.60 a gallon that's only about $150 more for the year. The 'fuel is cheap' story only works if you can charge at home on a cheap overnight rate. What actually saved me money was hunting down the slower Level 2 chargers at the library and the grocery store that charge per hour instead of per kWh, plus my employer putting in a couple of plugs last spring. Plugging in at work most weekdays cut my public fast charging by more than half.

Also, that preheating trick from the original post assumes you're plugged in overnight. On street parking there's no cord, so I just eat the winter range loss. The car is still great to drive and I'd never go back, but I tell everyone in an apartment to price out their public rates before buying, because that's the whole ballgame.

One cost the spreadsheet folks always miss is tires. I mount tires at a shop for a living, and we pull maybe six or seven sets of worn rubber off EVs every week. All that torque and weight chews thru tread faster than a gas car, and the replacement sizes aren't cheap. Factor in a set every 25 to 30 thousand miles and the running cost math still works, just not by quite as much as people brag about.

Reading all these posts makes me realize I don't even know the basics yet. Like when people talk about plugging in every night, does the car just stop taking power once the battery is full, or do I need some fancy timer thing? My garage outlet is the regular kind, the same one my drill charger uses, and I've heard that's slow but fine for overnight. Also curious if charging every single day wears the battery out faster than letting it run down low first. Sorry if that's a dumb question, I come from gas cars where you just fill it up and go.