EV vs ICE 2000 mile road trip cost comparison 

as former Testarossa owner I can tell you, you do not get anywhere near 17mpg. not in your wildest dreams. at very best 13, maybe 14. as mentioned here, real world is 9 or 10mpg. so that number should be around £1300, not £718. I'm an EV fan, and these numbers show why they make so much sense.

Oil refineries use an extreme amount of electricity - about 1.5 kwh per litre of petrol. In most cases, the same grid that you charge your EV on, is also used to refine crude oil. To be accurate, emissions comparisons must include all emissions used to drill, dig, pump, refine, transport, pump again, burn in an ICE and finally released from the tailpipe. Along the way, there are leaks of methane in addition to the enormous CO2 emissions.

A petrol Testarossa would have had much lower numbers than presented because it would have made half the trip on a flatbed truck.

I live in Taiwan, Driving e-scooters here (ones that can go up to 80 mph) you can swap your batteries at battery charging kiosks machines that are much easier to find than gas stations. You drop in depleted batteries and it gives you fully charged ones so there's zero charging time. A charged battery in my e-scooter lasts just as long as a tank of gasoline in a regular scooter. Since I'm buying a new e-scooter to replace my five year old one I have the option to sign up for a three year battery plan where for just $16 a month I can drive up to 1,500 km (932 miles) before it starts charging more. That's insanely affordable, cheaper than gasoline for the same distance. Also much cheaper than your trip, pretty good for a scooter that's legal to carry up to two adults and two children. There's even a competitor brand where if you buy their e-scooters you can use their battery swap kiosks for free for life, but it's much harder to find one of those kiosks. For me the $16 a month is well worth the convenience of having access to a battery charging network with unmanned kiosks that are absolutely everywhere. My now five year old e-scooter still drives like it's brand new, the performance shows zero signs of age, and it never once broke down. I never took it in for maintenance. All I ever did was replace the sprockets, chain and tires since it's such a torque monster. My new e-scooter has a hub motor so no more need to replace sprockets or a chain, only required maintenance should be changing the tires when they need changing.

I actually think the testarossa is fairly aero-dynamic, I also think its 12 cylinder engine wasn't designed with fuel efficiency in mind which is why the difference is so big. But even if you compared your EV testarossas to the most fuel efficient gasoline car, there would still be a huge difference

big factor here is you made it there and back, i have my doubts if you had take a Testarossa for exact comparison it would have behaved itself for the whole trip!!

Here in Australia, it really pays to shop around. I use Jolt, and I get 10Kw per day for AUS $10 per month, which is about 17% of my Model 3. If you use Tesla, we get a range of 30c to 79c depending on peak times and location. Other providers charge from 50c to 80c per KW. So, people need to use the best priced charges if they want to save money on their drive.

Great videos guys. 👍 We did a similar trip in a friend's Testa and Mondial with other super cars our friends owned (much more wealthy than me). We went to San Remo via Monaco and back from Liverpool. It was early naughties. Both cars needed premium petrol (more expensive but not as expensive as now) Both cars had to be serviced before and afterwards. we got an average 11.5 mpg. ~3000 mile round trip. The Mondial speedo went and we got fined €90 for doing 20kph over kph limit on payage. Which we avoided due to my pidgin french and telling traffic cops we were late for ferry. which we were and we didnt have €90 in cash They then fined us €30 the lesser amount fine but then followed us for 10 miles to make sure we didnt speed again. We did get the ferry which was late and our driving buddies staged a beaching of their Ferrari to stall for time for us. The most expensive holiday I've ever been on. The insurance fuel servicing toll fees accommodation was eye watering. We had a massive laugh though. I imagine the only thing you had to contend with was "range anxiety". but having built the cars, you knew that wouldn't be a problem. Everywhere we stopped for lunch had loads of people stopping to look at the cars. Especially in Italy. Remember just how low the Testa is to drive and get in? And that my left knee and calf was roasting next to transmission/gear box. Good times👍

I did expect the difference to be this big. Electric car engine and battery efficiency is evolving at incredible rates as more companies get into it. Gasoline engines haven't been able to become any more efficient for a very long time.

Did I expect the cost difference and carbon dioxide emmission difference to be as great as they were? No, I most certainly did not. Thanks for the good work.

I have a 2020 Tesla Model 3 with 91,000 miles on it. Excepting tires, I have spent zero dollars on maintenance. I imagine that a gasoline-powered Testarossa has a relatively high per-mile maintenance cost, including brakes, oil, valves, etc. So the actual difference in operational cost would, including fuel, would be even more substantial.

Absolutely ripping series. Thanks to all involved. Highly educational as well as entertaining.

Fascinating. Electric just seems better in every way. In the US (where petrol is cheap), I find the cost to drive my EV cross-country is about the same as petrol. Local driving, where I’m charging at home, the EV is MUCH cheaper. Great video!

I never expect the carbon emissions to be so high per litre of fuel…. I’m really shocked and petrol heads need to take note of this and realise what they are polluting. So glad we just changed over to e new Tesla M3 4 weeks ago. Great video and just subscribed as love this content already. Well done to all of you. Hope people pass this info onto other I know I will. 👍🇦🇺

In rural North Florida, USA electricity for a home is very reasonable. When I drove an e-Gold on average 1200 miles a month there was hardly an increase when charging with a Level 2 charger. Sure I charged almost daily with a 2016 e-Golf Premium. But the savings in gas nearly paid for the car I F I charged at home. As long EVs are reasonable to maintain they are the future even for people who live out of the city.

Thanks for a great series! From the numbers in the description, the Teslarossa did 2.7 miles per kWh (4.3 km per kWh), not bad at all.

Thanks for this one, fascinating. And food for thought. Cheers

The fuel costs of the original Testarossa would probably pale in comparison to the ongoing costs of keeping all the oily bits of such a beast running perfectly, so many collectors will have it parked in their collection. And where's the fun in that? A Testarossa-shaped sculpture is beautiful, sure, but you want to drive the thing and make middle-aged people happy for seeing it. 😁

It was a very fun, educational and fascinating journey, guys. Now do it again in electric converted Porsche 911/912s!

Yep, I expected that, wasn't sure on the European costs, but the rest of the numbers are simply the ICE being 15-17% fuel efficient to that of EV being 60-75% efficient, just wasting so much less energy is hard to compete with! Really great job on the data and presentation, thanks guys!

Really enjoyable series. Well done. Thanks. Jim Bell (Australia)

This video is quite a reference work! The knowledge you gained on this trip is invaluable! Mahalo for laying it all out and sharing it with the world.

Could you do a piece on rapid charging conversions and options available. I haven’t heard much on this and would be interested in how it would work.

Thank you so much Richard for this very important information!! And for your great presentation. All the best to you and your crew from Gene in Tennessee.😄

As you know the total amount of kWh used you can also divide by ten to get roughly how many liter of petrol you used to run ta Teslarossa. As one liter of petrol amounts for 10kWh of energy. A good way to explain to ICE drivers how efficient an EV is.

An amazing conversion, love the car. I was at the fully charged event in Harrogate this week and there was a company EVbreakers.com based in NI and they had the drive train out of a Kia EV6. Talking to the guy they had many EVs for spares. It made me think that many of your lesser conversions could use this type of power train.

1% energy generation from coal this year. It's going to be 0% next year as the last coal powered power station is being shut down this year.

This Teslarossa serial was fantastic! I really enjoyed it and the final numbers just shocked me. I didn't know that we pollute so much with an ICE car. Beside these it was really funny to see a Mini on the top shelf behind you! :)

And apart from all that you had a great time driving those beautiful cars quietly and trouble free. 😊

It's too bad that you didn't have a petrol Testarossa to go on the trip with you so you could get the REAL mpg and cost, because I'm fairly confident it would be much worse than 17 mpg. Anyway, good test! I hope to some day get an Aptera because my cost of "fueling" will essentially be zero since I live in a sunny area and usually only drive about 20-25 miles a day to and from work and the solar panels can add up to 40 miles of range per day.

Very interesting. It also demonstrates the efficiency of electric power versus ICE motors. Good work (and an enviable trip)

Most of the public chargers I use claim that the electricity purveyed is 100% renewable which would drive the emitted carbon number down further for the Electric Testarossa

Always interesting. Love your work, team 👍

One thing we have to remember is that an ICE version Testarossa isn't always going to be running at its ideal. At the beginning of every cold startup the ICE vehicle would have added NOx, SOx, CO, to the CO2, plus nowhere near the 17(or 10) mpg. As the cars were remarkably similar in weight ICE/BEV, the tyre particulates -PM 2.5 and 10 would have been similar. But it doesn't end there. The brake dust from the ICE version would have been much higher. Shame you couldn't have added in the mountain passes, in that case. Can you imagine the particulates saved by going electric, plus all that Regen !?!

This *IS THE BEST* channel here on RU-vid!!!

Eye opening!

Absolutely brilliant comparisons, thanks Tim and Richard! Another interesting measurement would be energy use. How much further would the electric Teslarossa go on the same amount of energy vs the petrol Testarossa. My guess would be that the electric car would travel 4-5 times further on the same amount of energy. Because the petrol Ferrari is probably only 20% efficient in real life.

Thanks, very interesting

Crackin' video, as always, Richard and 'cameraman' Tim - just brilliant. Whilst I never had any doubt over which powertrain would be cheaper, the BIG takeaway I got from this was just how 'relatively dirty' the UK's Grid still is, compared to others...! Whilst I'm not a fan of nuclear power generation - the waste products are nasty - France being 5x less polluting than the UK sure makes a convincing case for it...

I drove a Tesla model 3 from Gold Coast to Melbourne Australia (1703km) and it cost me $183. Same in a petrol car getting 9.8 litres/100km average cost me $500 for same journey. Only difference it took 2 hours longer due to charging stops

Thanks guys, seeing so many people on social media trying to convince everyone that electric is somehow worse than fossils (going so far as to break down fake lithium mining numbers etc..) gets depressing after a while, it's great to see you breaking down the absurdity of such arguments. We need this channel to be spread far and wide!

wow, looking at your numbers and since you low balled the petrol consumption my take away is : petrol produces 1kg of CO2 every mile driving a Testarossa. Thanks for the lesson.

Thanks Richard. Shocking facts. Don't cars emit carbon monoxide, therefore emissions would be one oxygen atom less??? Waddaya think? Great, as always. Thanks.

Most interesting vid of the whole Teslarossa epic, in my book

Love you channel!❤

🇲🇾 represent!

Thanks for going to the trouble on getting the data of the emmisions. I don't think most people realise how terrible petrol (and Hybrid) cars are as far as emmisions go. Back in 2020 during the huge bushfires here in Australia I sat down and and worked out my C02 footprint for 2019 and by far my biggest emissions were from vehicles (@~7 tons!). Didn't help that my Land Rover was Diesel which has even worse C02 per litre (~2.8kgs). Land Rover is now electric (drove it out of the garage on electrons for the first time 2 days ago) and I can do long trips again!

Huge. Wasn’t sure - did you mean when you said ‘generating the petrol’ that yo calculated the co2 emissions for extracting the oil and transporting it from Saudi or USA, aside from the combustion? Ah yes - I see you did - am now reading that paper linked in your description. Excellent info!

thank you guys. sadly the anti ev guys will add other data without considering their ice data so you'll get some more hair raising annoying statistics but we all know how efficient evs are. i always tell them on my channel: i can charge my ev build superbike for 0.5$ and i can go the minimum 25kms with my fun full power enjoyment. how far can you go on your gas bike or car for 0.5$????? then i take it further that day i did 90kms with my ebike and still had about 40 more kms to go. that cost me with home charging about 0.5 euro........its crazy how people complain about efficiencies until you give them the numbers.......

The co2 numbers are really interesting. Most of us are here because we're car heads . We've long since realised that an ev is superior because of fuel costs, maintenance, power etc. However , probably none of us think too much about the emissions from the grid and from refining/transporting oil. This video really underlines how significant cleaning up the grid and switching from ice to ev really is for everyone on the planet .By just by driving an ev and powering it from the sun really can make a big difference. Fun and saving money and the planet at the same time. What's not to like ? Well done lads .

Before this even starts, there’s absolutely no way both cars would have made it back without issues if they were petrol powered.

Thank you for being one of the rare car channels (even EV) I know who care about emissions.

Not added on here is that you'd probably service the Ferrari engine before you set off and have the car checked over for a long trip.

You are a champ, always telling the story in a good and positive tone, thank you

In your calculations into the carbon produced when the batteries were so much carbon produced but the Testa Roston carbon footprint would have disappeared were the carbon footprint for the Tesla Rosta would be still around

I had no idea the emissions scores would be so different.

It's great to see these number crunching videos. Maybe another roadtrip is in order with an Ice and Ev version of any car, for exact comparison

Buying a testarossa and not being able to afford the gas is something I would do😂 Jokes aside I would prefer the teslarossa, perfect combination of modern technology and old school styling

I'd have like to been told how much kWh you used. Assuming an average of 50p/kWh, about 550kWh. For almost 1900 miles, that's 3.5 miles per kWh, which is pretty good as far as EVs go. EDIT: Just seen the actual number in description, 697kWh. So 2.7 miles per kWh, or 36kWh/100 miles. Still pretty good!

This was in readably shocking to see the real truth of just pure fuel number comparisons…….. i also did not realize the Kg #s for fuel. Well done Tim on keeping such accurate figures all the way, i have something similar for the beast all the way to Spain but not as well detailed. Can’t wait to test this with the 930 Porsche, will be shocking…..and not leave a massive pool of oil on the ground everywhere you park it either!! Congrats guys 🎉

According to the Swiss Touring Club (who seem to have data on the carbon footprint of various car types somehow): A petrol Corsa 1.2 uses 10.9 tonnes of CO2 to manufacture. An electric Corsa uses 17.4 tonnes to manufacture. This gives an idea to the (correct) statement that EVs create more CO2 to make. However, you can also get an idea from this video of how using the vehicle closes that gap within a couple of years. I’ve driven 58,000 miles in mine, so must have cleared the production debt a long time ago. I’m in the UK so the average UK energy mix applies to me. I’m on a 100% green tariff and also use a small amount of solar, so my figures are slightly better than the UK average as well. Even if some one lives in an area 100% coal powered, the CO2 emissions are about the same as petrol, depending on whether you have an efficient EV or a monster SUV tank. At that point it gets challenging to overcome the carbon footprint of production - several years are required. I don’t know how Swiss Touring Club get their figures, but suspect it is a calculation based on data rather than Manufacturers specific data. It would be nice to find out from the Manufacturers what the real value is. I believe this value should be given to buyers in the same way your fuel economy is required to be shown. It’s a factor that matters. For some users with low weekly mileage, a small petrol town car would be cheaper to buy, operate and better for the environment over the next say 5 years (only considering CO2 emissions and no other factors). Personal use case (and available finance) matters!

Cheers guys

Crazy how expensive it looks to me because my regular electricity price is 50% of your overnight charging price

Plus transporting the crude oil and after refining. Double what you have now.

There's no denying the figures. We run an electric car for our day to day needs which is mainly charged from our home solar system but we also own an older Bentley Continental R. Emissions are one thing but the conversion costs another. I am not rich enough to convert the Bentley but I would if I could. I guess I will have to stick with petrol for now. We did a 3k trip across Europe in the Bentley last year and we averaged 21mpg, omissions aside, unlike the Ferrari's we had no mechanical issues covering 350 miles per tank with some is reserve.

Like I said after the last video, don't forget that your gas powered Testarossa would have required a full service, including a timing chain (5000 miles if I remember) by the end of your round trip. That implies dropping the engine if you have a lift or tearing the cabin apart to do it through the fire wall. (expensive ether way) VS Zero maintenance for the Teslarossa.

Even using the 70p per kwh chargers its still around 45mpg equivalent. For most EV's

I'm learning every day lol

Cheers 👍💪✌

The Testarossa came out in 1984. And you're telling me that technology that came out 40 years later is more efficient?! Wow... Would never have guessed. I'm a fan of all vehicles, but not a fan of BS comparisons. Love your content. Cheers.

Alright, i haven't even gone through the entire episode and the fact that you started in Wales, passed through one country, and went into a second country in just under 2k miles is so awesome! Regardless of gas or electric vehicles....wait, Ferarris...man, you guys are the BEST!! Thank you for the content

What a hoot of a road trip! The monetary cost will be long forgotten but the memories will last a lifetime. What price can be put on the smiles per mile when you’re on a European adventure with two special cars, that you built and good friends?

Hi Richard. The AI from Google gives this answer: "The Ferrari Testarossa gets 20 miles per gallon (mpg) on the highway, which gives it a range of about 400 miles"

Divide the 1577Kg by about 3 to get a number for a reasonably efficient modern car. (51mpg). i.e 525Kg. Still 95% more emissions than the EV, which is a huge deal. On a bad day the grid numbers could easily be 3-4 times worse, as you were clearly travelling at an unusually 'clean grid' time. But that's still only 94Kg, so still a factor of 5 better.

Loved this series of videos and to me you have given the Testarossas a complete new life where they will be driven. I am sure the actual amount of CO2 would be higher . Does it include the whole process of finding it, pulling it out of the ground, moving it, refining it and moving it again, before it uses more energy to pump it into the car. Then only about 30% is actually used for driving.

CO2 is interesting, but I'd like to see the difference in carcinogenic and poisonous gas emissions, as a direct comparison between tailpipe emissions and electricity generation. It will be difficult, which is why I haven't tried, but probably a more useful exercise. People can't see CO2, but they see smog and know that stuff they're breathing behind a truck in is bad for them.

Here in the US both gas and electricity at superchargers is around half the cost for your trip.

Re fuel refining (embodied scope 1 and 2 emissions) figure not changing much (17:13). The production emissions of oil does vary a lot around the world, from 5Kg per barrel (Kuwait) to 110Kg per barrel (Canada tar sands) . And figure for refining is 14-62Kg per barrel. So it does matter quite a lot where your original oil comes from and where is gets refined. A barrel is 159 litres, so worst case adds about 1Kg per litre, and best case 0.05Kg. So factor of 20 difference. and if the scope 3 (burning) is 2.72KgCO2e/l), than that adds 36% and 2% respectively. You don't say what figure you used, but at 17mpg, that 1878 would take 501 litres which implies using 0.415Kg/l for extraction and processing - which sounds about right and is in the middle of my range.

Another brilliant video thank you. I was also wondering what is required to to offset that 23kg of carbon from electric.

As an American, I love this most because you are actually car guys. In the USA there's this concept that pro-EV people are eco-liberals who hate cars and car culture (and are willing to lie about the benefits of EVs because of the "liberal agenda"). As actual car guys, you are showing real comparisons on cost and emissions (and probably performance too, in another video) that has actual credibility, since you actually like cars. Unfortunately, also as an American, lots of those numbers wont mean much to Americans because they don't understand pence, pounds, kilograms, and litres. Maybe you can subtitle the video with 'Merican units for the motorheads across the pond.

Great series, still don't know how I feel about a Teslarossa.

How about a long term comparison later on, maybe a 5 year comparison? 🤙🏼

The kWh to refine a pint of dino juice is absurdly underreported… be interested to know where you got your estimates estimates.

Wow

I wonder why these figures aren’t used more widely to advocate electric vehicles? Could you also include the emissions from the manufacture and maintenance of the wind and solar farms for interest?

My first thought, looking at the electricity charge, even before seeing petro-fuel costs: Take a train-it would be MUCH cheaper.

I didn't know you're a geography teacher

Great video, I use a different website for generation emissions ' Drax Electric Insights' which have 48g/kWh as the 1st days value 🤷‍♂, but overall still negligeable in comparison to the well to wheel petrol co2.

Did you have to put the green stripe on the number plate? I thought those were optional.

Maybe do a crossover episode with Harrys Garage? He has a petrol one and likes to go on road trips in it for his channel 😊.

Really appreciate the fact-based CO2 comparison. 👍 14:14

Well - I wasn’t expecting that! That’s a crazy amount of co2, if it were by petrol. Let’s see if Lee & Geoff mention this on their trip to Spain.

Would a Subaru Brat make a good, bad, or just okay, conversion? I've seen it DIY'd a long time ago with lead acid batteries, so I know it's possible. I'd want to keep the 4wd. I'd like under 6s 0-60, and at least 90mph top speed. At least 200 mile range in all weather (so 250-300wltp I think). Better than 50kw fast charging would be nice.

Finally a fair comparison between ICE and EV...! Most seem to "forget" the ICE emissions-part...

The last coal fired powerstation in ingland. Radcliffe On Soar on A453 near nottingham M1 J24 closes this year. 😊

Regarding emissions: On average, every ICE vehicle (moped, car, van, HGV) PRODUCES MORE CO2 than its own weight EVERY YEAR.

"Geography teacher"? You'll be needing to sew leather elbow patches on your hoodie, Richard. 😋👍

hHw about maintenance for the ICE car, fresh fluids and labor ?

You could add extra lines to the summary. 1. Amount of fuel cost that goes to authoritarian petrostates 2. Amount poisonous emissions causing early deaths 3. National health expenditure/savings from less pollution 4. Benefits/damages in national cognitive ability due to less/more pollution... there are endless ways electric mobility is better than fossil cars.

Great video and a fantastic EV conversion. But without wanting to sound like a downer on this there is no financial sense to the conversion. Based on the numbers shown and assuming say £70k for the conversion then you'll need to do roughtly 295,000 miles before breaking even with the cost of conversion. I suspect that even if we look at the overall CO2 cost of the conversion then given how many miles a Testarossa is going to be driven for the remainder of it's life then it will be hard to break even, given that the original petrol engine/transmission, etc was already a 'sunk cost' CO2 wise. I would love to convert one of my classic cars (not Ferraris) but given the mileage I do, the age of the cars (and of me) it will never make either financial or CO2 sense.