Did a day trip yesterday, it was a good chance to compare our EV (2023 Tesla Model Y) vs. our ICE (2013 Toyota Highlander).

The EV’s job was to pick up my in laws and drive to a family get together and then back. 490 km round trip.

ICE’s job was to take the kids and spouse there and back. 304km round trip.

EV did its job for an energy cost 16.39 CAD and the ICE 46.24 CAD.

We were fortunate enough to end up in Quebec where DC fast chargers are plentiful. Our event was held at one of the many restaurants in Quebec with onsite DCFC. We used the onsite 50 kW charger to recharge the EV for 49 minutes to gain 51% of the battery. We did this during the event and had no problem getting enough charge as we had several hours to kill. This charge ran us 13.48 CAD for 37.5 kWh. (Plan B if there was no charger at the event was to use one of the other DCFC’s within a 10 minute drive that are rated for 150kW or higher including Tesla and non-Tesla options)

The EV did its job for 91.3 kWh (329 MJ of energy primarily derived from hydro and wind) and the ICE did 38% less work with 30.7 L of gasoline (983 MJ of energy).

The EV ran 3.34 CAD/100km at 2.1 Le/100km (112 MPGe), and the ICE 15.21 CAD/100km at 10.1 L/100km (23.3 MPG). Using the EV was economically like driving a 2.2 L/100 km (106 MPG) ICE vehicle. Locally gas prices were 1.506 CAD/L.

Overall, we have had our EV for the 15 months and are quite happy with it capabilities. 

(I will mention the Ontario and Quebec governments maintain significant subsidies towards electricity prices and the Canadian gov't on purchasing EV's. Ontario on the order of 16 c/kWh for residential consumers, and the Quebec "Circuit Electric" DCFC was 36 c/kWh, an equivalent Tesla DCFC in Ontario would have been 67 c/kWh, the closest Tesla Supercharger to our destination was 47 c/kWh, so the EV energy costs may have been subsidized by approximately 20$, unfortunately most likely using borrowed money. I disagree quite significantly with these subsidies while I directly benefit from these subsidies, they were not the driving reason for purchasing an an EV and I would rather pay the unsubsidized cost of this technology vs burdening my children's children with these costs)