{"id":9078,"date":"2021-10-27T08:17:29","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T12:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/auto\/?p=9078"},"modified":"2021-10-27T08:17:29","modified_gmt":"2021-10-27T12:17:29","slug":"detroit-daily-hypes-then-tempers-evs-cost-more-than-gas-cars-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=9078","title":{"rendered":"Detroit daily hypes then tempers ‘EVs cost more than gas cars’ report"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Free Press<\/em>\u00a0just may have been looking to stir the pot a bit over the weekend with its article on a study\u2019s contrarian finding that driving an electric vehicle (EV) costs more\u00a0<\/em>than a standard gas-burning car.\u00a0What the paper apparently got was a Wagnerian choir of \u201cWTF?\u201d because,\u00a0on Tuesday<\/a>,\u00a0it ran what reads like a back-away-slowly follow-up to the original piece it demurely says \u201cgenerated debate\u00a0and inspired reader questions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s safe to say the two articles contrasted notably in tone and thrust. Compare just the headlines of \u201cStudy compares electric vehicle charge costs vs. gas \u2014 and results were surprising,\u201d to the recent \u201cElectric car vs. gas cost: How charging, fuel prices affect comparison.\u201d In a starkly divided US society, it\u2019s safe to say each story and underlying thesis might find interested readers in opposite global warming trenches.<\/p>\n

To be fair, The\u00a0Detroit Free Press<\/em>\u00a0merely engaged in the entirely legitimate and oft-featured journalistic practice of examining a counter-intuitive\u00a0study released<\/a>\u00a0by an established voice in a given field \u2013 in this case, automotive consultancy Anderson Economic Group. Not all iconoclastic conclusions that arise are wrong, and even those that are can serve to contrast facts in a given debate.<\/p>\n

Where the paper arguably erred in its initial story Sunday, however, was shining a single, glaringly bright light \u2013 and for the space of 1,300+ words to boot \u00ad\u2013\u00a0on the Anderson report, bucking conclusions of virtually all other EV vs. Gas studies. Indeed, the story\u00a0leads\u00a0with the example of a clearly well-to-do executive finally going electric with an (inevitably?) \u201cPorsche Taycan EV in dark blue,\u201d only to quote the disappointed owner lamenting he\u2019s \u201cnot really saving much in terms of charging costs\u2026\u00a0you may be paying more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The name of the woebegone, stuck-with-a-cash-drain EV driver? Patrick Anderson, CEO of East Lansing-based economic consultancy Anderson Economic Group (old school journalists can pause and moan here). Before it\u2019s over, the article features Anderson in\u00a0two<\/em>\u00a0different thumbs-up photos, and features his words as its only quoted material. It all came away as, shall we say, a tad angled.<\/p>\n

The follow-up doesn\u2019t disavow the original story but does contain caveats (and redundancies) like Anderson\u2019s EVs-cost-more \u201cstudy is an outlier. Many\u00a0studies show the opposite to be true.\u201d It also supplies considerable third-party information substantiating why \u201cthe consensus\u00a0is an EV\u201d costs less to drive.<\/p>\n

So how did the Anderson report come away with the opposite (though not by much) conclusion?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Its introduction says researchers looked under a great many stones for electricity-related costs,\u00a0\u201cincluding several that are commonly omitted in other EV studies.\u201d\u00a0Most of those wind up driving the e-vehicles even deeper into owners\u2019 pockets\u00a0<\/p>\n

Added expenses the study focuses on range from outlays for buying and installing home chargers, to lost \u201cdeadhead miles\u201d driven by owners having to recharge at rare or remote commercial outlets. There\u2019s also the subjective appreciation of what the report describes as \u201cthe economic principle of opportunity cost, which recognizes that being required to do one thing means you cannot do others.\u201d For its purposes, that means an EV owner not being able to generate income he or she need their chained-to-the-charger car to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In its follow-up report, The\u00a0Detroit Free Press\u00a0<\/em>contains input from EV owners, most of whom echo the kinds of advantages and lower costs that tend to dominate discussions of the technology (as Electrek\u2019s own staffers<\/a>\u00a0have noted). As such, it provides a lot of good statistics, anecdotes, and independent sites that largely support prevailing data indicating EVs are cheaper than gas cars \u2013 in addition to the environmental benefits.<\/p>\n

Still, just as nobody should dismiss either Detroit Free Press<\/em>\u00a0story as hokum for failing to back their own established perceptions or preferences, readers of this story shouldn\u2019t take its rather snarky account as gospel either. Give\u00a0Anderson\u2019s study<\/a>\u00a0a good going-over and decide for yourself.<\/p>\n

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