I am a CA resident as well. My current and previous cars were both EVs. My in-depth analysis shows, that IT DEPENDS.
In my case, its absolutely more expensive to have an EV. But thats my use-case. You can make a simple spreadsheet if you really want to , and it will come down to parameters and assumptions you make. I won’t share mine because Im too lazy to find right now but in general it came down to this:
- Mile per mile, the cost of charging at PGE at home is marginally cheaper than driving a car car. I would say about 20% cheaper (and I absolutely had over 18 months of data to back this up).
- Higher MSRP = Higher registration costs.
- For a comparable ICE car, EV costs anywhere between $100-300 more per month to lease / rent/ own ( I only believe in leasing EVs, and leasing in CA, I don’t believe buying in CA since I frequently change cars).
If you look at first and third point, they cancel out. How much its entirely upto you. In both my cases, the higher cost to lease was not offsetted by cheaper charging costs. I still drive on but thats due to other factors not related to price
The problem is CA. Gas is expensive in CA (about 1.5x the national average) but electric is VERY expensive in CA (about 3x the national average). This makes charging at home very unpleasant.