Gas vs Electric Car on a ROADTRIP (Which is cheaper and faster?)

It seems like gas isn't as expensive as I thought on roadtrips! Elon needs to lower supercharging costs!

I love the RX. Super comfortable, smooth, and the intelligent cruise is pretty impressive. Slap a comma ai device and you get basic levels of autopilot for about 2k.

I think the time it took to go to the gas station before the trip should have been added to the trip time, since that's time you didn't have to spend with the Tesla, since it charges at home overnight

Should've charged and filled both cars back to 100% at the end for a fair comparison. That would've brought the prices to same levels.

Wow that much to charge at home? I live in West Covina, not that far from Orange County and last time I check I was charged 11 or 14 cent per kilowatt but that was years ago and I have paperless billing. Did you guys change to TOU(time of use) from Edison? And charge from 9pm-6am? Anyways another great video. You should have shown more of your interaction with your mom. She was surprised and happy.

Wow this is crazy! Time is money, this video really proves that Electric Cars ain't it yet. Maybe someday if they can charge up in 3 minutes like a gas car. Until then, it's just not worth waiting around for that. Life is short. That extra 50 minutes adds up over days/months/years.
Thank you for the effort you put into testing this. Definitely helped sway my decision back to reality -- gas cars.

I was hoping for a comparison of LPG vs EV, and I got Petrol vs EV. How is petrol a gas?
Fix your stupid words, Americans.

This guy is sandbag ginger this test. I get better mileage on my F150.

Unexpectedly given an EV by the rental company when visiting the UK. A nightmare - didn't know where to charge, how to effectively charge, etc. This video is a great help for how to plan a roadtrip - probably would've been great in Wales.

To combat fatigue it is recommended that you take a 20 minute break for every 2 hours of driving. So you really should have taken 2 breaks during your trip, regardless of which car you drove.

Assume we all have dogs in the car?

No one messes with Tesla, no disrespect. 😂

I know nothing about tesla so your explanations were great but there was so much Math my head hurt. I have an old Toyota gas car . I'm trying to guesstimate how much I would save in gas per year and how many years to recoup vs keeping my 20 mpg reliable Toyota forever. I usually drive 10,000 miles per year.

Bullshit

I mean a privileged Chinese guy tells Lexus is uncomfortable.

The lexus will last 20 years!
I'd take it over a tesla until 2030. Electric is the future though

I've done multiple cross country road trips in my Tesla 3 LR. 40k miles in 2 years of ownership. The car nav has you charge longer and stop less, but I found more stops with less charge per stop ends up overall faster. Maximize the power draw at lower SOC and aim for a closer SC for your next stop so you can leave before the power tapers too much. I'm seeing 10-15 min charge times instead of the 20+ min you recorded. Often the car has enough SOC to reach the next SC before I'm ready to go. My observed time vs trips in my previous gas car has been comparable. More frequent stops also lets me better manage my fatigue. I can comfortably drive 12 h/d in my EV, vs being exhausted after 8 h in my gas car.

The fuel savings might be closer than you expected, but this was only one trip. Consider your lifetime cost savings. Road trips tend to be outliers, with local drives being a more common use case. The savings charging at home should more than offset the few road trips over the ownership duration. EVs also have much lower maintenance costs, which further tips the savings balance.

I have no home charger and only charge at public stations. L2 for local drives and SC only for distance. Even paying retail for my energy, I'm saving 60% vs my previous gas car (27 mpg lifetime). This includes all the local drives and road trip charging.

Some of us can't afford to own two cars (gas and EV) and must choose a car that can cover the most use cases. My EV has served me really well for my driving mix, local and distance.

Keep in mind this is also in California exclusively which has far better ev charging infrastructure. Some states are borderline dead zones making cross country trips far more intensive.

Love the projected head up display on the RX

This guy is biased.

Ev’s are great for daily commuting and road trips of less than 200 miles, and much cheaper to fuel if you are able to charge at home. However for a 4000 mile road trip through northern US and Canadian national parks, like we are planning, nothing beats the convenience of a mid size ICE SUV

Electric vs Hybrid

ICE for win

Thank you for letting us know ev cars are a mistake and danger of catching fire

The cost of filling up gas vs charging at home should’ve been considered at the beginning. Also the time it took filling up gas before the trip.

Tesla takes about 1 hour more than lexus. From Orange County to las vegas

I dont get this. Why not leave on a full charge on the tesla and a full tank on the gas????

Hi Chris, thanks for the video, wondering why you seek a meaningful comparison between an old uncomfortable gas guzzler and a modern equipped EV. Fill up the car the night before (at a cheaper station), like your EV was. Your route has lots of charging stations, try rural route where there are few. I thought you had a rule of arriving with 20% power left. If you want to arrive relaxed, you can take breaks with the gas car as well. One seems to drive with constant range worry in an EV. Thank you for doing these comparisons, the media just ignores any discussion. Did your parents keep or sell the car?

Here is one main point that skews your test results, there is a mechanical or electrical issue with the Lexus RX350, you should on average be getting 23 mpg not 17 mpg even if you drive like a whacky Fumanchu, so in reality the RX350 was cheaper and faster to drive. Second you still had a half a tank of fuel left over in the RX350 where the Tesla needed a recharge to get it to 50%

A 2 week comparison of daily work & life routine would be dope to see the real savings of electric vs gas

Love to see another San Josan

Gas, you mean petroleum, gas is for heating/ cooking etc

Being relaxed when arriving is the most important part as EVs are no cheaper if you charge the extra hour of your life you wasted at the average hourly working rate EVs are more expensive. EV driving is more relaxing though .

Essentially there is almost no difference between ICE vehicles and EV's on a long trip - except the EV is slower overall and is more restricted by the charging infrastructure. The big cost difference is the cost difference between the two vehicles. EV's cost around €10,000 more than an equivalent ICE vehicle - and don't let anyone tell you maintenance costs are essentially zero on an EV. Best of luck with that one. There is no cost justification whatsoever for an EV - except when operating in an urban evironment and home charging, and even then, it will take you 10 to 15 years to break even. EV's are a con!

For roqdtrip we used our regular car but for daily drive husband used our tesla.

5 hour trip my back was hurting my legs were hurting my butt was hurt ........Try 34 hours no sleep Stright shot .....5 hours plz lol

Heureusement qu'il y a des précurseurs comme Elon la question n'est pas de savoir quelle est la solution plus intéressante en terme de performance bien évidemment mais de ne plus dépendre ni du gaz ni de toutes sources carbonees...

Fun video Chris! Interesting results. Do you think your costs in Ca for charging are higher than other parts of the country? Wondering if results wouldn't have been better somewhere with lower energy costs... granted gas costs would be cheaper too. And to your point that most charging will be done at home and much cheaper. We will be driving from Tucson AZ to SW ME and back spring/fall but our local trips will all be charged from home in both places with rates from .13-.17 per kwh. As others mentioned the safety factor as well as fatigue definitely deserve mention.

Let us think about it. Gas Cars has been around for many years. Which means gas cars had time to evolve. Electric cars is just getting started. More people are driving gas cars than electric cars at this time of writing this post. So yes, electric cars will cost more. As time goes by, electric cars will become cheaper, and you will spend less time charging the electric car. With a gas car, you will have to find a gas station ⛽️ but with an electric car, you can find a charging station 🚉 anywhere. As time goes by, you will see more charging stations 🚉. I have seen some charging stations 🚉 at some Walmart stores and some restaurants. So there is some upside to both. As time goes by, electric cars will become more in demand, which will save time.

And that’s just a 500 mile drive. Electric cars are terrible. Holding out of hydrogen. Don’t know why they didn’t do hot swappable battery

Thanks for the comparison. However, you could've filled up at the cheaper Valero ($4.29) adjacent to the Chevron ($5.19) and saved $7. And with a 1/2 tank remaining the Lexus net fuel costs were half vs. the Tesla? And difficult to monetize the 1/2 hour time differential.

45$ for a full tank of Gas? God damn thats like less than half the price of what we have to pay in Sweden. You cant even get half a tank for like 60$ here. You save insane amounts on electric cars if you live in Europe or especially Scandinavian countries. You guys dont benefit nearly as much from EVs, and are so impressed by the 12$ difference, but to us that is nothing to even mention or brag about.. Enjoy your ICEs while they last..

Few things to mention. You mention that an EV is fully charged in the morning which is nice. But if you are not in a habit to plug in every night and if you are low and need to go somewhere and did not plug in and don't have enough range then you will be stuck waiting.

Next thing is if you go on trips that are not on mainstream travel routes then you will also probably add time to drive to a charging station and hope it's not full whereas gas stations are pretty much everywhere right off of the highways.

Next is most gas cars these days get around 500 to even about 600 miles a tank. Most electric cars get around 250 300 miles on a full charge and like you mentioned on the road you only get around 80'ish percent. Also if you cheat and just charge to what percent needed to reach you destination instead of the 80'ish percent you will still need to spend time charging when you reach your destination. Also fast charging degrades the battery.

You had the extended range on your Tesla, so imagine how much longer it would take an EV with less range on a trip that would require 2 or more charges and changing stations are not as abundant as Tesla.

Otherwise one of the better comparisons out there. Wife looking to get another vehicle next and wants an EV or hybrid. But we want one that we can take road trips with and most of the EV's don't have the range we want. The few that do are way too costly and would negate the purpose of saving money. I mean if I wanted to only spend 50k on a gas vehicle that fit my wants and there was an EV that fit my criteria and costs the same then yes it makes sense. But if I only wanted to spend 50k and I had to pay 30k more for an EV then it makes no sense.

We have a hybrid Ioniq that has about 600 mile range on one tank and we can pull around 47-50 mpg on it which is not shabby. We want something bigger for off the beaten path and weather conditions capable but there is not much out there in that category in an EV or hybrid. Sigh. A Tesla is nice with the autopilot and other tech, but it's a costly add on.

In future, best I think to own both gas & electric cars.

i literally just took a road trip in my 2022 model y performance. We went from San Jose down to San Diego, Ca. Electric is definitely took much more time, and cost more compared to gas cars. Dont think i'll ever pull that stunt again. It was way too much charging and time spent at superchargers.

45$ to fully fuel a gas car to 18.50$ to fully charge an electric car, that's 2.43× cheaper to charge than to fuel! The savings is 26.50$, that's huge in my opinion because that translates to saving time! Here's why, how much does an average person take to make 26.50$? I would say about an hour! If it takes an hour to make 26.50$, then you're ultimately saving 40 minutes to charge. Gas cars takes 10 minutes to fuel, evs takes 30 minutes to charge= 20 minutes faster. 60 minutes (time it takes to make the difference in cost in fuel, 26.50$) minus 20 minutes= 40 minutes.

Gas is cheaper. I made a mistake renting a Tesla on my Vegas trip from San Francisco. You have to have your settings on chill mode and comfort steering to not waste the battery. I made the mistake charging over the 80% mark which ate up more time. If you're traveling from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, add an additional 2 hours to your destination.

How much gasoline did you use, initially you said that you only got about 17mpg, but then managed to get ~385 miles on $45 if you paid $4/gallon that would be (385/(45/4)) = 34.22mpg. Is the car way more fuel efficient than you first let on? When you first mentioned your fuel efficiency I expected the trip to cost you around $90

Thank you for this video. I always wonder how long it will take to go from Sacramento to Westminster in SoCal with a full EV vs combustion engine vehicle vs a hybrid and charging vs filling up the tank.

I think I made a right decision when I bought my 2023 Lexus NX350 hybrid last month. My trip took me 5 hours and 40 mins for the entire 420 miles drive. Did not have to pull over for gas, only for a few quick bio breaks. I do not like Elon Musk that much to support his products.

I'm glad I came across this video. I got a really good deal on a Model 3 LR rental for 7 days. It was like $350. I think I'm gonna just get a gas car rental instead. I'm going on a 1500 mile road trip. There are ample chargers but still. I'd be wasting 3 to 4 hours charging.

Lexus requires premium 91 octane gas , if you would of put the right gas, your mpg would actually be a bit better.