In my last post I talked about concerns regarding our adoption of the Integrated Community Sustainability Plan, and the potential spending that might be included in that. Since then I’ve also received a few emails expressing concerns specifically about the cost of transitioning to Electric Vehicles (EVs) in our municipal fleet. There’s a common misconception that EVs are expensive compared to internal combustion engines, and that’s understandable given that they have a higher sticker price. But the truth is that EVs could be a significant cost savings for us, and it’s worth walking through those costs together to make it clearer how that would work.
The (not so) hidden cost of ICE
Internal Combustion Engines (or ICE for short) are a lot more expensive than we give them credit for. I think that’s because we accept driving and its related expenses as a natural part of life, so essential and normal that we rarely think about it. I even see this when I’m selling houses: homebuyers regularly downplay or outright brush aside a very long commute as a cost to them in terms of both time and money, as they look at homes further from their workplace in order to get a lower house price. But with today’s high gas prices, they might even end up spending more for that home further away if they calculate their fuel costs.
As I type this I’m sitting at a car dealership while they change my oil, something I do 4x/year at between $150 and $400, depending on what servicing is needed. I just filled the tank of my Corolla Hybrid (a small and very fuel efficient vehicle) at $1.799/litre, spending $55 to fill it up; thankfully I don’t drive much, or that would get expensive quickly even in this fuel efficient car. Diesel at the same station was around $2.60/litre. We all complain about the cost of gas, but not many people I know actually track fuel consumption and add that and their servicing costs onto their monthly car payments to get a total cost of use for their vehicles. When we do that kind of analysis, it quickly becomes clear that EVs are cheaper overall.
Looking at our municipal fleet, I honestly don’t know every vehicle, so I can’t give exact numbers related to our situation in Brighton. But let’s pick some vehicles that we can use for comparison’s sake, and then look at what an electric alternative would cost. The federal government has a fuel consumption ratings search tool that I’ll use to estimate fuel consumption.
Estimating Operational Costs
Since the detour route began directing traffic down my street, every morning I find myself waving to a small parade of municipal vehicles as I wait at the bus stop with my kids. Not all of our vehicles are the same, but let’s pick some common models to use as stand-ins for our fleet: a common pickup, and a car. The calculator estimates 20,000km/year, and $1.50/litre for gasoline prices.
For a pickup, let’s choose a 2024 Ford F-150, possibly the most common vehicle in Canada. The v8 engine has a combined (city/highway) fuel efficiency rating of 12.8 litres per 100km, and an estimated annual fuel cost of $3,840 (if it used the $1.79 I paid today it would be more like $4,582!). Let’s estimate an oil change every 5,000km, at an average of $150, or $600/year. (Realistically, municipal vehicles get more and harder use than the average vehicle, and therefore have much higher maintenance costs, but let’s stick with simple estimates.) All in, then, the estimated fuel and maintenance costs of this pickup is ~$4,440, or $370/month. A web search estimates that a 2024 F-150 averages ~$55,000, or about $1,000/month financed. So total cost of operating (without insurance) sits around $1,370/month.
For a car, let’s pick a small SUV. I know that our fleet had an ICE version of the Hyundai Kona, so let’s start there. A 4 cylinder engine gets about 8.6 L/100km combined (city/highway) fuel efficiency rating, for estimated annual fuel costs of $2,580, and that same maintenance estimate of $600/year, for a total of ~$3,180 or $265/month. A plain trim level 2024 Kona is about $25,000, or $450/month financed, putting total cost at $715/month.
EV Comparables
EVs have higher purchase prices, for sure. But they don’t get oil changes, and maintenance on them is low to nil.
A 2024 F-150 Lightning (standard range) pickup gets on average 386km to a charge, and has estimated electricity costs of $1,102 per year, or ~$92/month. The sticker price in the web search I just performed is around $60,000, just $5,000 more than the gasoline equivalent, financed to a similar ~$1,000/month. That puts the total monthly cost at around $1,100/month, saving $270/month. Over just 18 months of use, the EV version of the pickup has saved enough in operating expenses to make it better value for the municipality overall.
Similarly, a 2024 Kona EV gets about 420km of range on a charge, and has an annual estimated electricity cost of $652, or ~$55/month. A 2024 Kona EV costs around $30k, again about $5,000 more than the ICE equivalent, financed to ~$500/month, for a total cost of ~$555/month. That’s immediately 23% cheaper than the ICE equivalent.
Savings that Grow, and Stabilize
The kicker here is that because the savings are found in the operation of the vehicle rather than the sticker price, the more we use the vehicle the more we save. That’s good, because I keep my car in the driveway as much as possible to keep my expenses down, while the municipal fleet needs to be out and about or it isn’t providing any value to residents. At any given time in the day, a municipal truck is running; an EV keeps the cost of running low, which gives us better bang for buck.
EVs also insulate us from the ever-changing gas prices. Remember above when I said that the estimation tool uses $1.50/litre for gas, and that if the F-150’s fuel were estimated at today’s cost it would be $4,582/year? That means that at today’s prices, the F-150 Lightning EV is already cheaper on a monthly basis…but those prices could change, one way or another, at any time. It’s not a guarantee that they’ll get lower. Remember when the feds cut the carbon tax, and people rejoiced at saving $.15/litre, and then those savings disappeared almost overnight due to global oil prices and international instability? And then the feds cancelled a large portion of the gas tax to help us all save money on fuel, and we’re still at record highs? EVs are a way of getting off that roller coaster, allowing us to have more predictable operating expenses because electricity costs are not only lower, they’re more stable.
Conclusion
So on the whole, moving the fleet to EVs as vehicles need replacement anyway is not only not expensive, it provides us with modest savings, particularly over the long term, even as it reduces our carbon footprint as a municipality. However you feel about climate change (and I’ve been getting a lot of emails lately from people who tell me that it’s all a scam), the math of EVs makes sense. And other changes to greener technologies, like electric heat pumps, provide similar value. Fossil fuels are less efficient and more expensive than electric alternatives now, so if we refuse to switch we’re burning more than just carbon, we’re burning cash.