App Profile: CalcEV

CalcEV lets you convert your electric car's energy efficiency into the equivalent of miles per gallon (MPG) for a petrol/diesel car, based on cost.

Simply enter the current price of fuel in your area, the price you pay for electricity to charge with, and your EV's efficiency in miles per kWh, and the app will tell you what the MPG (miles per gallon) equivalent would be for the same cost.

Why is this useful?
Although most EV's give you a figure for their efficiency (in miles/kWh), this is an unfamiliar concept for many people who use MPG for petrol/diesel cars as the metric for judging the cost to run the car. Your petrol car might, for example, get 35mpg around town, and 45mpg on a longer journey, and you have an understanding of the running costs. You'll know that a car that does under 20mpg is going to be expensive to run, and one that achieves over 60mpg is very frugal!

Once you buy an EV, however, you're suddenly thrown into a world of miles/kWh, which is a new concept to absorb, and not one that you can compare directly with a petrol car, especially as the cost of both fuel and electricity can be so changeable.

With this app, though, you can find out what that equates to in terms of MPG – in other words, if you spent the same to run your EV car as a petrol car, what would that MPG figure be?